jaclaz

Not to be picky, but the "real" name for IDE is ATA: http://ata-atapi.com/hist.htm and there were reports of "early" hardware being actually a bit "flaky": http://ata-atapi.com/sata.htm Current SATA II hardware appears to be rather reliable, though the driver problems, expecially on certain INTEL chipset motherboards are re-known. Also, real life tests, such as this one: http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Sp...ArticleId=16014 show how speed of SATA and SATA II drives has been hyped by manufacturers and that claimed speed is usually far from reality. Check the Storage Review test results, to have an idea of the difference in speed you can expect from actual HD models: http://www.storagereview.com/Testbed4Compare.sr SATA for optical media drives does not seem, in my opinion, to give any advantage over ATA, as even old ATA bus transfer rate is faster than actual drive speed. The sheer fact that we have now an "OFFICIAL SATA DVD compatibility" thread does ring any bell? http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=110235&hl= jaclaz

The specs seem low for XP, see links in this post: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...49409&st=23 Though people did manage to boot XP with such low RAM amount, see this: http://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm having 256 Mb of it is what I personally judge the minimum to have a decent system response. You'd better re-install a 98, if you take your time looking around the board, there are lots of updates for it and should work allright for the intended use. jaclaz

and should SIW do not give the info, maybe SIV: http://siv.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/ will. I re-checked, and the Uwe Sieber app has provisions for your situation: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html jaclaz

Well, that explains it all, most drivers do actually "assign" a device to (even unused) slots. See this, as an example: http://www.simpletech.com/support/guides/u...0-00049-002.pdf ALL external (USB) card readers behave this way, SOME of the internal ones (those connected to USB) do that as well, think of it like a floppy, where the A: or B: letter is assigned notwithstanding the fact that the drive is empty. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT follow the advice in my previous post. See if this: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html can help you in managing the drive letters. jaclaz

Looky here: http://www.exceletel.com/products/TeleTool...grams/Index.htm http://www.exceletel.com/products/TeleTool...ltone/index.htm jaclaz

As always when fiddling with the Registry, remember that you are on your own : Open regedit and go to key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB there should be a number, at least 4, entries like Vid_0000&Pid_0000 and inside each one or more entries like "152D203380B6" Check them one by one and write down, for those that are identified as USB Mass Storage Device, which driver they use, something like: {36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000}\0021 Then go to key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBSTOR you should see a number (4) of entries starting with "Disk&Ven" check if they have: 1) an "UpperFilter" entry, if it exists, delete it 2) to which driver they are linked, something like: {4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0004 Write down the above data. Try going to Device Manager and DISABLE the USB Mass Storage Devices. Reboot, see if in Device Manager the devices come back (with a red cross on them) and this time REMOVE them. Open again Regedit and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000} and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} If there still are the "driver" entries you checked before, delete them. jaclaz

Maybe you missed some steps (or I forgot to mention one) this method has been tested as working on Qemu: On floppy: On HD: BOOT.INI: WINNT.SIF (this one works, though probably some entries are unneeded) Wouldn't it be easier starting from what has already been done? http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=2254&hl= http://tips.vlaurie.com/2006/recovery-cons...out-an-xp-disk/ http://vlaurie.com/computers2/downloads/re..._console_cd.zip jaclaz

I give up. jaclaz

Cannot really say if it can help, not even if it works at all, but you can try using the "other" DOS ramdisk, SRDISK: http://sourceforge.net/projects/srdisk jaclaz

The usual entry to boot from Recovery Console is something like this: where bootsect.dat is a bootsector created by the install routine (WINNT32.EXE /cmdcons). Try copying to the ROOT of the floppy the BOOTSECT.DAT you have in your C:\CMDCONS\ directory and change the entry in boot.ini as follows: Or make a directory like A:\CMDCONS_F and copy C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT to A:\CMDCONS_F\BOOTSECT.DAT and edit BOOT.INI entry to: Explanation (supposedly) : It seems like NTLDR, when not using an ARCPATH, defaults to the ROOT of the drive (does not matter whether floppy or HD) where it is started, thus the entry C:\CMDCONS_F\BOOTSECT.DAT actually reads A:\CMDCONS_F\BOOTSECT.DAT which chainloads the SETUPLDR.BIN on "real" C:\ drive jaclaz

I am sorry but I really have no idea how Backup and Restore work in Vista, judging from the *ahem* quality and number of restrictions of previous MS Backup apps, I guess that you shold use other third party apps, here is a thread where a few are listed: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=99702 jaclaz

Yep, we got that. 1.95 Gb is NOT however an exact capacity, the actual "RAW" capacity of a stick depends on the kind of Flash IC are inside it, theoretically capacity goes like this: 128 Mb 131.072.000 bytes 256 Mb 262.144.000 bytes 512 Mb 524.288.000 bytes 1 Gb 1.048.576.000 bytes 2 Gb 2.097.152.000 bytes some controllers leave this entire capacity "available", some use part of this capacity for internal use, knowing the exact (in bytes) amount of available space may help in identifying the controller. The amount you are getting is the capacity after formatting (i.e. excluding the amount of space used by filesystem structures, which can vary depending on filesystem used and, in the case of FAT16/FAT32, on the size of clusters the format uses). Point is, the ONLY way to do what you want is getting to know which EXACT make/model of USB controller is inside the stick AND with this information search for and hopefully find the right "Manufacturer Utility" or "Mass Production Tool" capable to reset the capacity data to the correct values. This site: http://www.everythingusb.com/forums/forumd...php?forumid=109 has lots of info about "fake" drives, and some possible ways to tru and fix them (see this just as an example): http://www.everythingusb.com/forums/showth...mp;postid=25758 jaclaz

To try and identify the stick and (hopefully) the controller used: Check the Vid and Pid of the stick: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=15776 Check the list: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1659 Try making an image of the stick using either: Roadkil's Disk Image: http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=12 or dsfo from the DSFOK toolkit: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/freeware/ http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/fr...eware/dsfok.zip Size of resulting image should be the correct size. Edit: HISUN should be this one: http://www.hisuntec.cn/EN/index.html (nothing really useful there) jaclaz

Some ideas: Did you use the the /F or the /R option of chkdsk?: http://www.ss64.com/nt/chkdsk.html Try the /R one. Check that the NTFS Partition is Primary and Active. Access the Registry (from a PE) and delete (after having made a backup of the key) the contents of: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices Try (having a SLIPSTREAMED install CD) to use the ® repair option: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm jaclaz

Here are some good infos: http://www.multibooters.co.uk/ and these should be what you are looking for: http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp http://forums.techguy.org/windows-vista/55...fter-vista.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529/en-us Easybcd or Vistabootpro are recommended instead of BCDEDIT: http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 http://www.vistabootpro.org/ jaclaz

Here: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documen...c.mspx?mfr=true http://support.microsoft.com/kb/251192/en-us http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms810435.aspx http://makemsi-manual.dennisbareis.com/sc_exe.htm Particularly, pay attention to this: http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/note...ows-service.txt jaclaz

alexBB, take it easy, man , I am sure geezery only tried to help. Before going around accusing people to be criminals, it would be a good idea to think over it a little and check the history of posts of a member. The Elby program is actually quite good. If you want a good driver for .ISO images, try IMDISK, though NT/2K/XP/2003, it appears to work correctly under Vista: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/ImDisk-f59.html http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html#ImDisk I guess that you are the same alexBB that posted here: http://forum.winimage.com/viewtopic.php?t=3023 http://forum.winimage.com/viewtopic.php?t=3024 I am crosslinking them to here. jaclaz

Here is some info: http://www.msfn.org/board/Creating-WinPE-b...on-t106822.html Particularly this one should be what you are looking for: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18480 An OLD related thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=47773 jaclaz

Yep, the "proper" way is to use WINNT32.EXE with a slipstreamed install, but since RatPack actually asked for a workaround.... ...and usually workarounds and bypasses are not straight lines from A to B, they tend to go through C, D and E before finally getting to B from A.... jaclaz

Your best bet is TESTDISK: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk Usually in these cases it can rebuild the Partition Table. Otherwise, you can use a file recovery tool, like PHOTOREC or PCINSPECTOR: http://www.pcinspector.de/ jaclaz

Maybe the SOURCE files are in some way nonstandard. I mean whence they come from? An OEM release (DELL,HP, etc.)? Have they been modified in some way (slipstreaming, nlite, HFSLIP, etc.) ? Most probably it's the first error (WINNT.SIF error) that triggers a chain of errors. jaclaz

Workarounds: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=2254&hl= http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=2362&hl= Some info is also here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=2692&hl= jaclaz

SINGLE XP install from USB: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=61384&hl= http://www.msfn.org/board/boot-install-USB...html&st=437 Since it uses grub4dos it should be easy to add a UBUNTU install, adding a second instance of XP install might be tricky and require some hexediting of hardcoded paths. jaclaz

Yep, you don't even need a Primary partition, you can boot from floppy or oter removable device (can also be used as a primitive but quite effective security measure if you do not want people fiddling with your PC): http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy33.htm jaclaz

Cannot answer your question, but as I see it this is not correct: There is NO need whatsoever for the partition to be Primary, nor Active, any NT based system can be as well installed on logical volumes inside Extended. As far as I know all the booting happens using "internal" names, like arcpaths and \\Hardiskx\ syntax, drive lettering is only used later for some Registry settings, automatic lettering can be overridden by migrate.inf. Check these for some info: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=85729&hl= http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=2425&hl= http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19663 (and links therein) jaclaz