jaclaz

Yep. Point is that a system should be SHUT DOWN as soon as possible and the recovery initiated on another system where the "problem drive" is attached as "slave" or through an external (USB or Firewire) adapter. Since yours is a "data" partition, you should have no problems in using the machine, as long as you use another partition to save the downlad and install the program. DO NOT, and I mean DO NOT download and install the recovery program to the same partition. Recuva usually is a good utility, you may also want to try: PHOTOREC http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec PCINSPECTOR http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm FREEUNDELETE http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/ SOFTPERFECT FILERECOVERY http://www.softperfect.com/products/filerecovery/ jaclaz

You are missing a logical step. The bootsector of the CD (something that's sometimes referred to as "Microsoft Corporation.img", sometimes as "Arnes boot record", sometimes as "xpboot.bin") is a 2048 bytes file that normally chainloads files BOOTFIX.BIN and SETUPLDR.BIN in either the ROOT of the CD or in the \I386 directory. If you use another directory name you need to edit that file, but if you need to choose between various install files you need a CD loader, such as CD Shell, BCDW or grub4dos that will provide you with a choice menu. Moreover, you CANNOT put the \I386 directory INSIDE another directory, setup files need to be ONE level lower than root, NOT TWO, and you NEED to edit the setupldr.bin (not .dll) to point to the right four-letter folder. You need to restart from the flyakite guide, following it: http://www.flyakite.msfn.org/ jaclaz

@RYU81 Yes, I am sure that you do have a "Dane-Elec zMate Pen USB2.0 Nacre" thingy , point is that there are a limited number of factories actually making the controller chips and only a few more that actually assemble USB sticks. Each manufacturer should "mark" his own code on each device they produce, but this code (the Vid or Vendor id) is linked to the actual Vendor, not to the real manufacturer, so there are THREE cases: 1) the Vid is that of the manufacturer of the chip (all of them have their Vid) 2) the Vid is that of the assembler (some of them have their Vid) 3) the Vid is that of the vendor (few of them have their Vid) Exactly the SAME stick (internally) can arrive to the final user with three different Vid's (and with three different external encasing, this is why it's difficult to say which is which. Generally speaking the Pid (Product id) is set to a code that represents the chip used, but not always. Dane-elec seems to be a "final" vendor, so it is well possible that uses a Vid in common with other manufacturersm euther that of the chip manufacturer or that of the assembler. The Vid of 0930 appears to be connected to Toshiba. The Pid of 6533 does not seem to be referred to anything (or at least I cannot find any info) The Memorex Traveldrive seems to have the same Vid/Pid too: http://listing.driveragent.com/usb/0930/6533 (and it's Win98 driver uses the same pu20sysd.sys as the PNY drives) Sandisk (which uses it's own Vid) appears to use for some sticks Toshiba controllers as well , you may try this tool: http://www.sandisk.com/Oem/DesignSupportTools/ http://www.sandisk.com/Assets/File/OEM/Des...b-test-tool.exe but I doubt it will work as most probably it has encoded it's own Vid of 0781. A good source for links to "low-level" formatters is this forum: http://www.everythingusb.com/forums/ This is an example: http://www.everythingusb.com/forums/showth...;threadid=10901 jaclaz

Usually yes. You need to try a data recovery program. How were they deleted? I mean from Explorer, keeping SHIFT pressed) from a Command Prompt using "Del" command, by formatting a partition? Is the partition where they are: 1) a "data" partition (i.e. NOT the one where the operating system is installed 2) formatted as FAT16, FAT32 or NTFS ? Which Operating System is it? I need the above info in order to suggest you the most appropriate program. jaclaz

Hmmm, is it possible that it is a "fake" drive? From the kind of error you get three possibilities: 1) the chip is really completely and utterly "dead" 2) the Vid/Pid is somehow wrong, Vid_0930&Pid_6533 is that of a PNY Attachè, reported both on the 911CD thread and here: http://www.biline.ca/xbox_flash_list.htm 3) the format utility is not good for the particular chip you have The only other option you have is that to "throw" ath the damned little thing ANY low-format utility you can find, but you have a very low probability of success and you risk (believe me, been there done that ) to clutter your system with unneeded/potentially problematic services and filter drivers. If you want to go ahead with this, let me know, I may be able to give you some links to other utilities.... jaclaz

Never even tried too , be aware that on some (supposedly low-quality) drives the "extra effort" for reaching the "increased" area on the CD may result in mis-alignments/breakage of the lens supporting/moving parts, and some (supposedly older) drives simply cannot "reach" that area. Rule of the thumb is: until you stay around 700÷750 Mb use CD's, if you need more, use DVD's. jaclaz

Happy to hear a report of success! jaclaz

@RYU81 It seems like a PNY technologies one. There is a tool here: http://www2.pny.com/support/support_landin...?SectionID=1057 Low Level Format Utility http://www2.pny.com/support/media//Files%5...Pre-test_v1.zip that you may want to try. @Ponch Hmmm, most of the actions of humans, and expecially of "geeks" are futile, meaningless, and non-productive, I am sure that both RYU81 and myself are not driven by greed for money, even at a "full" price, a 1Gb stick should be around 15$ /10 Euros, so that they are becoming more and more like floppies, ince they do not work anymore it is more economical to throw them away and buy a new one, but the satisfaction of re-using "Track 0 defective" floppies or recovering (hopefully ) a USB stick given as dead, is priceless! jaclaz

Comeon, the Wayback Machine is there just for this reason: http://www.archive.org/ http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://downlo...rning_guide.pdf jaclaz

It depends on what are the contents of the .iso and of the "boot file". You are talking obviously about grub4dos, NOT about GRUB. Can you post more details on what is the .iso, what kind of El-Torito standard uses (floppy emulation/no-emulation/HardDisk emulation), size of the .bif file, which OS it contains (Dos/Linux/NTbased/Other) etc.? jaclaz

While these options are good in getting a PDF file from another file, they are not good options in taking a series of documents from a scanner and outputting them in sequence so they may be reprinted with your suggestions in a reasonably similar form. Yes I did read the question, and tried to help you, now that you thanked me so heartily for this, I re-read it, and still find my answer more than appropriate. You never talked about "joining" scanned documents together, however, and again, though I do not actually understand WHY I am trying to help you , you can use a PDF printer from your scanning or image modifying software, then use an app to join several .pdf files in a single document, these are suitable: http://www.brothersoft.com/pdf-merge-25708.html http://www.brothersoft.com/pdf-merge-download-25708.html http://pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html (the latter has also an image conversion feature) Or you can get GHOSTGUM and GSVIEW: http://www.ghostgum.com.au/ http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/ jaclaz

Sorry if I seem not to reply to you properly, but the point, as I see it, is WHY the need to use unrar.exe at all? I mean, if you own a License for WinRar, you can well create a self-extracting .exe, thus no need to use unrar.exe at all. On the other hand, why using WinRar at all? 7-zip has very similar compression capabilities as compared to WinRar (much better than good ol' .zip format) and is Freeware, and has as well very good self-extracting modules, included the modified (and bettered) ones here: http://www.msfn.org/board/7z-SFX-Modified-...ls-t101552.html However, I can confirm that the unrar.exe Freeware contained in Self-extracting archive unrarw32.exe: http://www.rarlab.com/rar/unrarw32.exe works perfectly on 32 bit XP and Windows 2K More versions for 64 bit are here: http://www.rarlab.com/rar_add.htm where you can find also provisions for including the program in VB, Delphi, etc. projects. jaclaz

Please don't take this as an offence to your knowledge , but I have seen it happen so many times that it is a possibility, and your report seem to go accordingly. You do not have by any chance one of those "smart" keyboards where Function Keys are actually implemented as "Second Function"? In the early stages of booting, you might need to press the "Fn" button to enable them, from what you write it seems like the "F6" keypress is not sensed..... jaclaz

Check this thread: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=15776 and this one: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1659 Maybe that stick uses a controller for which a "Manufacturer Tool" or "Recovery Utility" has been found. Anyway, do post Vid/Pid you find. jaclaz

The simplest approach is to install a "virtual" PDF printer, there are several Free or almost free ones, two of them: http://www.tinypdf.com/ http://www.dopdf.com/ You just scan the document with your program whatever it is, than "print" it to a .pdf file instead of a "real" printer. Otherwise you may want to use a PDF creator, this one is Freeware: http://www.nativewinds.montana.com/software/tpdfplus.html jaclaz

But, i don’t think that i’m able to code this in asm. Did you try stderr from the given link and it did not work for you? jaclaz

Well, if the program has been written "properly" it will output errors to STD_ERR, rather than STD_OUT. Read here: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/redirection.html But it won't work ot DOS/Win9.x , so you need something else : http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/stderr/ jaclaz

NO. Looky here: http://winner.windowsdream.com/ 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