jaclaz

@Jeremy @All Care to try this? (NOT a FULL defragmenting software, but similar to Sysinternals Contig, may be of use for "selected" defragmenting) Wincontig: http://wincontig.mdtzone.it/en/index.htm jaclaz

Happy everything went well. jaclaz

Yes, that definitely is a (DR-DOS) prompt. Over the years HP used several different ways to create "recovery disks", one cannot say what you have in your hands without more info. Do the following, on your normally booted system insert one by one the disks in your drive, say, D:\ , open a command prompt and issue the following: repeat changing everytyme the 01 to 02, 03, etc. Compress all the .DIR files into a .zip file and attach it here, maybe from what is on the disks we can say what you can do with them, most probably you will need to re-create a "standard" Xp Home source from the files on the disks, or from those on your HD, something like this: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16381 before being able to use nlite. jaclaz

Yep, but unless you actually post your ideas, it is rather difficult for me reading your mind and helping you. I mean, if you have several FOUR letters folders, like PRO1, W2KS, SV03, etc., the "standard" grub4dos entries would be: title PRO1 find --set-root /PRO1/SETUPLDR.BIN chainloader /PRO1/SETUPLDR.BIN title W2KS find --set-root /W2KS/SETUPLDR.BIN chainloader /W2KS/SETUPLDR.BIN title SV03 find --set-root /SV03/SETUPLDR.BIN chainloader /SV03/SETUPLDR.BIN but if the partition is hidden, non active, logical, on 2nd hard disk, etc., etc. you will need additional commands like mapping ones, or makeactive, etc. jaclaz

ahmedah, believe me, no offence intended , but your explanation is hardly understandable, and, from the few things I can understand you are simply missing some pre-requisites: 1) average knowledge of English 2) BASIC knowledge of batch programming In other words, you are asking here: "How do I build a skyscraper?" but you don't know (yet): 1) how to pour concrete/cement 2) how to assemble steel 3) how to lay bricks And you have only: 1) a hammer 2) some nails 3) a few wooden planks 4) NO bricks, NO steel NO concrete/cement What I can suggest you is to forget for the moment about building a "portable" application and study some basic batch programming. As said the Rob van der Woude site: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/ has a lot of examples and some very good simple explanations for most if not all batch commands, as an example, this answers your question about FOR loops: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/ntfortokens.html (this can help you understand HOW to do things, and if there is something you have problems with, you may ask for help here) BUT BEFORE attempting to learn from there, you NEED to study ALL commands on this site: http://www.ss64.com/nt/index.html (these are the bricks, the steel and concrete you need before knowing how to assemble them) I am sorry I cannot help you at the moment , but until you do not have the base knowledge there is no sense in giving you info that will only confuse you further. jaclaz

ahmedah, we need yet some more details, as your question involves several different techniques. Basically your: would be written in batch as: IF EXIST C:\myfolder\myprog.exe RMDIR /S /Q C:\myfolder About shared .dlls, you may try to NOT copy them to the %SystemRoot%\System32\ folder and use .local, see this: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/DLL-HELL-t3839.html On the other hand, since you might severely mess up the destination PC, if you really need to copy (and later delete) "shared" .dlls you may want to make sure that you do not delete a file that was on the system BEFORE you ran your "portable". As a VERY basic example, supposing you use a .dll named ANAME.DLL: IF EXIST %SystemRoot%\System32\ANAME.DLL ( REN %SystemRoot%\System32\ANAME.DLL ANAME.DLL.OLD COPY /B /V C:\mytempfolder\ANAME.DLL %SystemRoot%\System32\ANAME.DLL ECHO TO RESTORE ANAME.DLL.OLD ANAME.DLL>>C:\mytempfolder\portablelog.log ) And later, when exiting the program: FOR /F "tokens=3,4 delims= " %%A IN (C:\mytempfolder\portablelog.log) DO ( COPY /B /V %SystemRoot%\System32\%%A %SystemRoot%\System32\%%B ) Mind you the above are just UNTESTED examples, only useful to illustrate the idea. About Registry entries, you will need to study REG.EXE syntax and export any (if existing) keys and values that you are going to overwrite and later restore them. The Rob van der Woude site mentioned early is a very good source for this kinf of batch scripting, but of course do not expect to find a pre-made solution. jaclaz

That's (I mean compressing single files) exactly what the code snippet does. As always when checking batch files, put temporarily some "PAUSE" statements and add some ECHO statements, try this: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS SET SOURCE= <write the name of the source folder here> SET TARGET= <write the name of the target folder here> IF EXIST %SOURCE%\*.* FOR /F %%J IN ('DIR /A-D /OGN /B %SOURCE%\*.*') DO ( MAKECAB /D CompressionMemory=21 /D CompressionType=LZX /L %TARGET% %SOURCE%\%%J ECHO Target is %Target% ECHO Source is %Source% ECHO File to be compressed is %%J PAUSE ) You did see these two lines: and put in them the right values, didn't you? DO NOT use PATHs with spaces in folder name. jaclaz

Read these: http://www.msfn.org/board/recovery-partition-t110914.html http://www.msfn.org/board/Recovery-System-...ve-t110971.html http://www.msfn.org/board/Creating-WinPE-b...on-t106822.html jaclaz

Looky here: http://www.msfn.org/board/pulling-registry...ile-t97010.html for some examples. jaclaz

(bolding is mine) I don't think that a \I386\ SETUPLDR will load x64 files? The NEW link to the Install XP from USB is this one: http://www.msfn.org/board/install-XP-USB-t111406.html but it is \I386 related, not x64. jaclaz

@brucevangeorge Don't want to start the "usual" flamewar between fans of pagefile and those opposed to it, but the pagefile is basically a "whatever does not fit in RAM goes here" so, having the pagefile on the FASTEST drive you can have is rather obviously the first thing to try to achieve. Though it is possible, having enough RAM to run WITHOUT a pagefile, there are some opinions that one should anyway be present, but of course if there is enough RAM it won't be used, unless some process "goes astray" and starts eating memory, in such a setup it does not really matter where the pagefile is put as it won't be ever (or just in these rare occasions) be used at all. @odyssey5 SSD is ALREADY here, problem is the price of it, performances are impressive, expecially for laptops, where the reduced power consumption also gives GREAT advantages in terms of operating time: http://www.gottabemobile.com/GBMInkShowOQO...PCSSDVsHDD.aspx http://www.maximumpc.com/article/is_a_soli..._in_your_future jaclaz

At first sight, it seems NOT like a "good" done-from-scratch VISTA format, as the string "GRLDR" is present at offset 604. On the other hand, it seems like the string "BOOTMGR" is at offset 514 (where in the "old" bootsector NTLDR was). So, it seems that the previous: 000000512 05 00 4E 00 54 00 4C 00 44 00 52 00 04 00 24 00 ..N.T.L.D.R...$. 000000528 49 00 33 00 30 00 00 E0 00 00 00 30 00 00 00 00 I.3.0..à...0.... has become: Offset 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 00000512 07 00 42 00 4F 00 4F 00 54 00 4D 00 47 00 52 00 ..B.O.O.T.M.G.R. 00000528 04 00 24 00 49 00 33 00 30 00 00 E0 00 00 00 30 ..$.I.3.0..à...0 i.e. it seems like the bootloader name is "terminated" by a 04 00 24 00 49 00 33 00 30 00 00 E0 00 00 00 30 sequence. If this is confirmed, this would open the possibility of overcoming the current "5 letter length" limit for the name of the loader in the MakeBS batch. The leading "05" in my example above comes from a NTFS sector done under Windows 2000, the new "07" is Vista, would it be possible that a XP NTFS bootsector has "06"? Iìll need to do some tests... jaclaz

I would check for the existing of D:\nul.ext : http://msmvps.com/blogs/martinzugec/archiv...-same-name.aspx http://xset.tripod.com/tip5.htm it works with mounted drives too. However, as always best method is Yzöwl's one, I may add that what I would do is to also try "probing" destination drive, using a "tagfile" like in: @ECHO OFF IF %1.==. ECHO NO PARAMETER SUPPLIED&GOTO :EOF SET Targetdrive=%1 ECHO tagfile > %~d0\tagfile.tag copy /y %~d0\tagfile.tag %~d1>nul 2>&1 IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 ( ECHO ERROR DRIVE %~d1 NOT RESPONDING, ERROR! ) ELSE ( ECHO ERROR DRIVE %~d1 IS RESPONDING, OK! ) IF EXIST %~d1\tagfile.tag del %~d1\tagfile.tag IF EXIST %~d0\tagfile.tag del %~d0\tagfile.tag (this example must be run from a R/W enabled drive ) jaclaz

To try and bring it back to topic , are we not talking of EWF ? The idea of preventing writes to system volume on a CF card it does reminds me of the S.Fiorito experiences: http://web.archive.org/web/20061115014814/.../eXPinstall.htm jaclaz

Having just recently increased the length (for the record from 5' to 7 1/2' ) of the stick with which I won't touch Vista , I have no idea how a VISTA-made NTFS bootsector invokes bootmgr. If anyone is kind enough to post or however send me a complete NTFS bootsector (8.192 bytes) made natively under VISTA, I will gladly try and find the differences as compared to a normal 2K/XP-made one and hopefully find a way to avoid the renaming of bootmgr. jaclaz

Thanks Zxian, it's a honour being part of the "developers" in such a high level technical board as MSFN is , though it does sound a bit funny, considering that ALL my developing is limited to some small batch files. Moreover, there was a time when I thought to be a good batch programmer, then I saw here some of the work by Yzöwl and understood how much I still needed to learn. jaclaz

You need to search into Mdgx's Update/Patches thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/98-FE-98-SE-upda...xes-t46581.html Start here: http://www.msfn.org/board/98-FE-98-SE-upda...html&st=300 jaclaz

Thanks for clarifying. Still not exactly the needed app, but maybe of interest: http://www.roggel.com/NGNeer/BackgroundCMD/index.shtml UNLIKE the "DOS Here" registry trick, this one is a .dll that opens a CMD prompt IN current OPENED folder, VERY,VERY handier! And after much searching, most probably Console could be the solution, with a bit of tweaking version 1.5 beta can be set in very convenient ways: http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/ Version 2 has many added features, all nice, but maybe too much of them. jaclaz

Besides the small contributions by yours truly (jaclaz), which mostly tried to put together some "loose ends" and ideas developed by other people and found anywhere on the 'net, and supplied a couple of his "quick and dirty" batch scripts, this project has come to life as a group effort to which many members partecipated. Although the "main" authors are: ilko_t and wimb this project would never have seen the light without (in chronological order): the precious and sometimes vital contributions by : porear for believing in this and for the initial testing and troubleshooting cdob for sharing his knowledge on NT based systems and providing key ideas Anton Bassov for kindly adapting his dummydisk.sys driver to rdummy.sys and minor, but still important suggestions/hints/feedback by: AlexTitov silacomalley lilas effgee signal64 and all other people who supported the project by posting on the thread their "thank you". (should I have forgotten anyone by accident, please PM me and i'll fix the list) jaclaz

UPDATE! In one of the fastest and swiftest move I've ever witnessed , THERE IS NOW A NEW SUB-FORUM DEDICATED TO THIS PROJECT Here: http://www.msfn.org/board/Install-XP-USB-f157.html Please, from now on, leave this thread, which will be maintained for historical reasons, alone and start posting on the new subforum. jaclaz

Thanks to you and XPer and Martin L. jaclaz

Most probably NOT the answer you seek, but did you try a "universal" boot disk, like this very good one: http://www.netbootdisk.com/ This usually covers 99% of NIC's jaclaz

@djzn Being actually more like a "Win2k-guy" I do not feel offended at all , but, if I may, you started the question in a rather "queer" way. Actual question "should" have been: And I actually gave you the answer to that question. Your post sounded more something like: And, as I see it, this is not the most "friendly" way to access a technical board. You see, it is quite normal that posting a question on a technical board will produce a number of "wrong" or "out of topic" replies, but a good alternative exists, called "Technical Consultant". Unfortunately it has the slight drawback that it costs some $50 per hour or per call, but since you pay for it, you are allowed, within limits, to ask for ONLY the exact answers you want to hear. The main thing on a board like this is in my opinion to exchange ideas and informations, and possibly have fun while doing it, and a more "plain" approach surely helps. jaclaz

[begin sarcasm] Of course not. We like to suggest random and senseless ideas and see if other members actually have the guts to try them and mess up their systems. [end sarcasm] jaclaz

@lqs_lfzz Interesting. Just a "general" question, is there any difference between %windir% and %SystemRoot% (which is normally used in this kind of things)? BTW one could also add the "DosHere" to Drive and Directory objects: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell] @="none" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\DosHere] @="DOS &Prompt Here" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\DosHere\command] @=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\ 00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,63,00,6d,00,\ 64,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,2f,00,6b,00,20,00,70,00,75,00,73,00,68,\ 00,64,00,20,00,25,00,31,00,00,00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell] @="none" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\DosHere] @="DOS &Prompt Here" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\DosHere\command] @=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\ 00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,63,00,6d,00,\ 64,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,2f,00,6b,00,20,00,70,00,75,00,73,00,68,\ 00,64,00,20,00,25,00,31,00,00,00 (i.e. %SystemRoot%\System32\cmd.exe /k pushd %1) @Leeoniya I am also right now searching for something like it. The "closest" I found to what we both are looking for is this thingy here: http://www.koma-code.de/index.php?option=c...8&Itemid=88 I'll let you know if I find something else. jaclaz