jaclaz

Well, the idea is to find the VID and PID of the device via SOFTWARE, without being cruel to the poor little thing.... See these: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=15776 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1659 jaclaz

Version 1 is here (not really "hidden" ) : http://home.woh.rr.com/pombo/tools/ http://home.woh.rr.com/pombo/tools/ManualWindowsSetup1.zip Besides being compiled, version 2.0 coorected bugs of version 1.0, so, without TonyPE's support, you might need to directly correct them in the .wsh, if those bugs affect your particular setup. jaclaz

Maybe you might try LZ-DOS: http://dos.nm.ru/ It is said to be fully compatible with DOS 7.1. About compatibility of DR-DOS, I would say NO, see this: http://www.drdosprojects.de/cgi-bin/anyboa...;aO=1&iWz=0 Q&A #3. jaclaz

Yep, as said drive letters are NOT properly set. I mean, the SAME drive gets different drive letters depending on what you chose when booting. If you are OK with this, this is not a problem , but it is very easy to confuse a volume with another, thus saving data to one while thinking to be doing it on another one, on what I call "properly set" all drives and partitions should get the same letter no matter which OS you booted from. jaclaz

Or use diskless angel: http://www.disklessangel.com/ I guess it is the cheapest of the available COMMERCIAL solutions, and has virtually no limits as there are packages for 1, 2, 3 and 4 gigabyte sizes. Alternatively, and provided you are ALLOWED to use SERVER 2003 SP1+ files, and willing to be limited to 512 Megabytes, you can use euhenio's method: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...19056&st=29 Of course using tftp32.... jaclaz

@All FYI, I recently had the confirmation of my long time suspect that the "several passes" are only wasted time; even the man who began it all, Mr. Peter Guttmann, admits as much in his "revised edition" paper: http://www.forensicfocus.com/index.php?nam...opic&t=2065 The "revised edition" can be found here: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html And here is an excerpt from it, the "Epilogue" (i.e. the newly added part): (emphasis is mine) jaclaz

NO, changing the BOOT.INI won't work by itself, as drive letters will NOT be properly set. For an explanation of the suggested changes to BOOT.INI see this: http://www.msfn.org/board/BOOTINI-hard-drive-t25365.html Drive letter assignment is dependent on Disk Signature (4 bytes in the MBR), see this: http://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/mbr/Win2kmbr.htm You need to change the Disk Signature, using MBRfix: http://www.sysint.no/Nedlasting/MbrFix.htm http://www.sysint.no/Nedlasting/MbrFix.zip http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.net/ http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.n...X/mbrfix0.2.zip or MBRWiz: http://www.mbrwizard.com/ AND change the /DosDevices key in Registry to avoid possible "mixing" of the two drives: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20094 http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19663 jaclaz

Up to version 1.x it is FREEWARE, versions 2.x are SHAREWARE, you can get both here: http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/mmedia/WinSnap.html A newish VERY SMALL PDF READER: http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/ Plugin for BartPE by Joshua: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=20715&hl= jaclaz

You are missing a "basic" step. The .iso file IS the CD, to be more exact it is a CD IMAGE, you do not burn the .iso file to the CD, you burn it "on" the CD. Forget for one moment about Roxio, download the freeware IMGBURN: http://www.imgburn.com/ Select in it "write" mode: http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=screenshots#isowrite http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=guides "Visual" guide: http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=61 jaclaz

Check this thread too: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18995 jaclaz

Yes, FYI check this: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18480 jaclaz

In some occasions I saw this kind of errors when an "under-spec" or faulty cable was used, typically using 40 leads IDE cable on ATAPI 66/100/133 drives or using one of those removable HD trays that internally use 40 leads cables instead of the proper 80 leads ones. Replacing the faulty cable got rid of the error in Event Log. jaclaz

Happy about it, all's well that ends well. No need to thank me, I know how it could be having a wife that is NOT pleased. jaclaz

Interesting! I never thought that the clever filesystem driver from here: http://ashedel.chat.ru/fat32/ Could work on the System drive. FYI, there is no need whatsoever of installing Windows 2000, you just need the NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from win2K or XP/2003, since the referenced page affirms that you can later delete the Wn2K install directory. The problem might still be the FAT16 to FAT32 conversion, since not everyone has a partition manager app that can do that, and I am not sure about freeware tools that can do it, best bet is probably using method #3 here: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jeacocke/fat16to.htm (since cvt.exe is a DOS app, it may run from a DOS bootdisk ) It seems like the ME version, strangely enough definitely works from DOS: http://www.mdgx.com/secrets.htm http://www.md4pc.com/questions/36.htm or this proggie here: http://www.unusualresearch.com/cvtfat32/cvtfat32.htm jaclaz

I am not sure I understand you, isn't this enough? : http://www.nliteos.com/ http://www.nliteos.com/guide/ jaclaz

You seem to be confusing "Autorun" with "BootCD", they are VERY different things. You simply CANNOT boot a XP from DVD, though you may be able to boot a PE (WinPE, BartPE, UBCD4WIN, etc,) or Windows XP SETUP (install) from a DVD. But this won't help you much anyway, since you cannot install a program, say Office, to a non-booted OS on the hard disk. Maybe what you need is a CD multibootloader with two choices : 1) Load XP SETUP 2) Load XP from hard disk and then access your autorun menu jaclaz

Just for the record, if you want to edit boot.ini in a more "dedicated" editor, with some of the "advanced" parameters too, get this proggie here: http://www.dx21.com/SOFTWARE/Dx21/ViewItem...SI=2&OID=14 jaclaz

Ok, check this illustrated guide: http://www.fonerbooks.com/r_cd.htm The brick-like thing the guy is removing in second picture is a CD drive, he is removing it from a 5,25" drive bay. The drive has a tray that opens when you press one of the front buttons, like in this picture: http://askbobrankin.com/cdrom_tray.jpg You must shop for a new CD-ROM drive, the 52x that you have on your broken drive means the maximum speed it can read data, see this: http://www.computerhope.com/help/cdrom.htm Any drive you can find will fit in width and heigth, if the broken drive is shorter than the one you tried in the bay (i.e. the replacement drive could not fit in the drive bay completely and sticked out of the front), it is possible, as already said, that you need one of the more compact models, and you were already suggested two brands that usually make rather "short" drives. Usually dimensions are: "Short" ones are: jaclaz

@Evanhoe Ok, let us recap what we did till now: 1) We made you get the "right" start floppy 2) We made you fdisk and format your drive (since you refer that you can get to a C:\ prompt) so we are sure that there is nothing "strange" in your BIOS/HD. (in post #34) Now simply do the following: 1) Open the computer and DISCONNECT the cables/CUT them/REMOVE the CDRW/HAMMER IT TO PIECES (your choice ): there should be ONLY the CD connected, NOT the CDRW 2) Try again booting with the floppy in, you should get to the A:\ prompt and before it see the: this is perfectly normal, it means that program mscdex.exe (i.e. the DOS CD-ROM extemsions) has been executed from drive a:\, that it loaded correctly, finding a CD-ROM unit (unit 0, i.e. the FIRST unit, SECOND unit - that you disconnected - would have been unit 1 IF it would have been properly connected and detected) 3) if step 2) above does not work anymore, don't worry, switch the machine off, disconnect the CD-ROM drive and re-connect the CDRW (I hope you did not smash it to pieces ) and do again step 2) 4) now comes the most difficult part, you must FORGET completely all your previous attempts and ALL previous posts on this thread and do the following: a. download this bootdisk: http://www.allbootdisks.com/downloads/Disk...indows98_SE.exe and make a floppy out of it b. boot the computer from the floppy c. at the boot menu choose "Start computer with CD-ROM support" d. you should have a message like: e. type: E: and press ENTER f. type: CD Win98 and press ENTER g. type: setup.exe and press ENTER The windows setup should start. If at point d. you get a message like "cannot find a valid FAT16 or FAT32 partition, go back to this guide: http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/software...grade/fdisk.htm and follow it EXACTLY. If the above does not work, you can try following the advice by Ponch, though maybe it's time you call a friend that has some more practice with PC's, maybe the problem lies is something that you omitted to describe or in something that we failed to catch, considering it as "given". jaclaz

As geek said "52x" refers to the maximum speed of the CD-ROM drive (it is not a "bay", the CD-ROM drive goes into a 5.25" bay). CD-ROM drives are (for desktop machines) all the same width (5,25") and heigth, whilst length depth can be (as glocK_94 said) can be a bit different, usually newer drives are shorter than older ones, Lite-ON and LG are two brands which drives are usually shorter. On the other hand there was a period where some big OEM's created "designer PC" in which the front part of the CD drive is curved, or of a peculiar colour, or anyway somewhat "not standard". Can you post the exact model of your Compaq? We maybe could help you further. jaclaz

You've been beaten by DigeratiPrime: http://www.msfn.org/board/GImageX-WIMMaste...ls-t107920.html here on MSFN. (but you won on 911CD): http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20706 and I already propagated the news to boot-land, thanks to you: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=3001&st=13 jaclaz

How about reading the given link to gosh's trick #1? You need to use xcopy to create the directory structure and copy the files.... ...and you need to edit the Registry to avoud being pestered by "Please insert install CD" prompts! jaclaz

@evanhoe Don't take this the wrong way, really, but where have you seen in my steps : If you actually do what I listed in steps 3) to 7) you WON'T have anymore a A:\> prompt as in step 7) you REMOVED the floppy (or should have done so) Possible explananation of why we seem not to understand each other: I (and most of the other members that tried to help you) tried to make you install DOS on the hard disk BEFORE running the SETUP on CD. You are trying to directly run the SETUP from floppy (which should theoretically work, but that it does not because of the following) Now that you have described your hardware, it is possible that you are NOT succeeding because you have TWO CD-ROM's and it seems like one of the two (the CDRW probably) is not "seen" correctly. SO, first thing, enter the BIOS of your machine and DISABLE one of the two CD-ROM drives, the CDRW. Then, please do exactly as in the steps I suggested (forget for the moment about your Win98 CD, the command SETUP, just do that) and report if you can boot from C:\ drive, we were not able to understand if there is an actual problem in FDISKing/FORMATting your hard disk. If you were not able to understand the usage of FDISK from the linked to site, try following this step by step: http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/software...grade/fdisk.htm and/or this one, containing actual screenshots: http://www.perfectdrivers.com/howto/fdisk-format.html jaclaz

WHICH windows? AT is "deprecated" in XP and later: http://www.ss64.com/nt/at.html the new command is SCHTASKS: http://www.ss64.com/nt/schtasks.html http://www.robvanderwoude.com/schtasks.html You can easily create a batch to invoke it with the write time by parsing current DATE/TIME, here are a few examples: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/amb_datetime.html http://www.robvanderwoude.com/datetime.html A number of links to Freeware alternatives: http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboar...rum/161152.html nnCRON lite should be the more featured: http://www.nncron.ru/#nncronlt The suggestion by mjzelf is good, but it is considered the "poor man's way" as it will eat quite a bit of resources. You need then a "DELAY" or "WAIT" command to put in the batch that calls the app you want to run or a delaying program, here is an example, called DELAYEXEC: http://www.rjlsoftware.com/software/utility/delayexec/ jaclaz

@mara Check this: http://www.howtohaven.com/system/createwin...setupdisk.shtml @ajay Most probably the "restore disk" uses either an imaging system or a PE of some kind to perform the install. Imaging back the directory structure is self-explaining with regards of the creation of the C:\I386 folder. If the setup is started from a PE through WINNT32.EXE, it may use the /makelocalsource directive that will create the C:\I386, check this seemingly unrelated thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/Poor-Man-s-RIS-PE-t13271.html If you start the install from CD, you need to make it an unattended install, there are a few ways to have the C:\I386 folder created and populated with files, this is the "traditional" method, by gosh (Trick #1): http://www.msfn.org/board/Gosh-s-Unattende...icks-t9453.html jaclaz