jaclaz

A word of caution, (unrelated to actual ability to find cases in CANADA) I have several mini-itx systems using an older model "cheap" VENUS case, similar to this one: http://store.mp3car.com/Morex_Venus_668_Mi...e_p/enc-016.htm due to some problems with mains, two Power Supplies stopped working, and it is nearly impossible to find a spare for them, short of getting them from MOREX (Taiwan) I ended up buying rack power supplies (that luckily enough I was able to find with the exact same W x L measures) and "transplanted" the innards in the old power supplies cage, needed to extend cables going to MB, too. So, what I learned is that one might want to make sure that the same place where you buy should have spares too, or however make certain that replacements are available. In Canada there is a distributor for Morex: http://www.eprom.com/ jaclaz

...and don't forget PHOTOREC, the "side" app of TESTDISK (Freeware): http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk jaclaz

...... You mean USB_MultiBoot5.cmd will make ANY system Dutch? ...just joking..... jaclaz

Not wanting to crash the party, but you do realize that the License for nlite prohibits it's use in a Company, allowing ONLY personal use, do you? jaclaz

Sure for NT and 2K, and probably XP "2600" , it was "developed" as a workaround for forgotten passwords, but I think it was fixed a long time ago, as it was an evident insecurity: http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question/index...uubZ&show=7 http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrato...logon_trick.htm at least regarding the priviledges of the CMD.EXE. Some more technical explanation is here: http://www.thejackol.com/2006/08/23/reset-...admin-password/ And you needed to wait for the screensaver to "kick-in", say 10 minutes. jaclaz

Hmmm, of course the problem is caused by this "dell\symmpi", but I seem not to be able to spot what the problem may be. Try reading this: http://gosh.msfn.org/txtsetup.htm Check that files: symmpi.inf symmpi.sys symmpi.tag symmpi.pdb are present on the CD. Do you really need these files? I mean does that machine have either a DELL PERC5 RAID or a LSI Logic PCI Fibre Channel Host Adapter (if it has not you can try deleting all the lines you have found) jaclaz

Will try that one next time one of my drives dies Don't think it's easy, you have to know the right words, usually electronics are rather "tough", what helped is some occasions was having a BORG recording of the sentence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_is_futile played VERY loud for a few hours. (but do not put the loudspeaker TOO near to the dead HD, it's magnet won't do any good to the platters ) jaclaz

1) No, in this context (Primary Partition=Volume) may not be the same with Extended partition as it contains one or more Volumes. Read here: http://www.ranish.com/part/primer.htm 2) Yes. jaclaz

Bolding is mine. See this for some general advice: http://www.msfn.org/board/Vista-single-CD-t97813.html Point is that you should start from default settings and ADD or REMOVE just a few things at the time, in order to be able to identify WHAT breaks the build. Moreover, generally speaking some OEM sources (typically DELL ones) have some modified files that make the build not work properly, if it's a "generic" OEM CD, it should work allright. jaclaz

Open TXTSETUP.SIF (if you have it as TXTSETUP.SI_ you need to EXPAND it) Open it with a text editor, or you may use ninf: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/nInf-t3960.html Search for text "[WinntDirectories]". Look at the line that starts with 307. Search in the file for all occurrencies of the value of the key. Post the line that begins with 307 and all the ones that you found with the search. jaclaz

The idea of the given thread is: 1) forget for one moment nlite 2) recreate a XP CD from the files you have 3) the problem "nlite no winxp cd" becomes "nlite WITH winxp cd" jaclaz

For example: Recovery Console DOS/FreeDOS Linux ...you name it. Start reading about grub4dos: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/Grub4dos-f66.html jaclaz

Of course NO, you see, the whole point of the login screen is to give (supposedly) an increased security to the OS (I guess we are talking here about NT/2K/XP/2003 or Vista), you cannot perform any action BEFORE logging in. Only once you are logged in you are allowed to use the OS. Depending on what you want to do with the Command Console, you may however want to boot to something else BEFORE booting to XP, do whatever you want to do and only then start teh OS. jaclaz

Hmmm, loved the sub-title : "a very neat trick to prevent a lot of people from helping you if they DO NOT know the answer! I am not sure about what you are actually asking, so I'll risk trying to help you nonetheless. If you want to login directly to the Command Console, you can set CMD.EXE as shell, and later "switch" to "normal" Explorer. Be VERY, VERY careful when playing with "shell switchers": http://www.dx13.co.uk/programs/index.html http://www.dx13.co.uk/programs/shellonv2.html http://www.dx13.co.uk/programs/shellonv3.html http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/ind...pic=196.msg2736 http://homepage.ntlworld.com/malacandra/SwitchIt.zip http://www.sharpe-shell.org/page.php?7 http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sharpe/...ce.exe?download jaclaz

Strange! Setting is here: http://www.pctools.com/guides/registry/detail/788/ jaclaz

Read this thread: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16381 it should contain all the info you need. jaclaz

Why you don't try using Netscan (FREEWARE): http://www.softperfect.com/products/networkscanner/ it will list everything in your local network and allow you to connect to each found IP with a number of protocols. jaclaz

The method: http://www.msfn.org/board/Install-XP-USB-f157.html is not "strictly" reserved to USB devices, it can be adapted to internal hard disks too. jaclaz

The "Missing operating system" comes from the MBR, not from the bootsector. This can be caused by either "wrong" address info in the partition table or it not being set as active with hex code 80. Try examining the MBR with beeblebrox: http://students.cs.byu.edu/~codyb/ Or, if you wish so, do the following: 1) Get HDHACKER here: http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ 2) Use it to make a copy of BOTH MBR and bootsector (respectively Physical and Logical drive) 3) zip together the files and post the .zip file here, so I can have a look at them Ideally you should create six set of files (first four sets with just the MBR, as the bootsector data should not exist at that time) 1) before anything 2) after the diskpart CLEAN command 3) after the diskpart CREATE command 4) after the diskpart ACTIVE command 5) after the diskpart FORMAT command 6) after the bootsect.exe /nt52 C: It is also possible that it is Virtual PC's BIOS that creates problems, the user on the thread on 911CD forum reports this method to be working on real hardware, exception made for the "alignment" problem, that should be solved by the use of the Registry fix. Can you try the same approach on another VM, say VirtualBox or Qemu? jaclaz

Your "search-fu" was low. Here: http://www.msfn.org/board/hidden-restore-p...ion-t47773.html http://www.msfn.org/board/System-recovery-...ion-t84411.html http://www.msfn.org/board/PE-partition-rep...ini-t86662.html http://www.msfn.org/board/Creating-WinPE-b...on-t106822.html http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=12447 http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18480 http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19351 jaclaz

Yep, it's in the linked to thread as well : http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...21186&st=18 but, as said, that should be independent from the booting.... jaclaz

For the record, a shot at UNIVBE often results in a success: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/Universal-...driver-f60.html jaclaz

Well, there are the problems with CHS/LBA, but those ones should NOT affect the booting: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=21186&hl= jaclaz

If I may, check this: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechn...y.mspx?mfr=true (bolding is mine) Are you sure this does not apply to the version you are using as well? What is the need of /Syspart in your setup? The procedure could be this: This way the partition is formatted by diskpart, but since it is Diskpart from WinPE 2.0, the bootsector will be that of Vista, and you need to later run the bootsect.exe /nt52 C: Is it possible that when run under (Vista) WinPE 2.0 WINNT32.EXE behaves differently? In "normal" BartPE it works: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=21192&hl= but after the primary partition is formatted and active.... jaclaz

If I remember correctly, Nero Smartstart does not provide for an option to create a bootable CD. "Full" Nero does, but won't it be better to use mkisofs (optionally wuth a GUI for it)? Even a very simple one like these will work: http://mysite.verizon.net/hartsec/make.htm http://www.solriche.co.uk/files/mgiso/mgiso.htm (second one has pre-sets for XP boot CD's, if I recall right) jaclaz