jaclaz

If I may, the requirements to make a great PC technician are just the same needed in any career, you need to be: intelligent curious hard working able to deal with customers and, finally: expert in the specific field I am afraid that NO course or Certificate will ever be able to give you any of the above features if you are missing them, the only thing they can provide is a base knowledge from which you have to start building your own experience. I have met "uneducated" people that made great technicians and people that thought that having being "certificated" would alllow them to say and do whatever they wanted while being paid big bucks per hour, rather obviously the latter ones didn't last long. jaclaz

Are we talking about Win2000/XP right? That error is due to the fact that you have a System on HD updated to a later ServicePack than the one you have on CD. You need to create a Slipstreamed CD with at least the same (or newer) servicepack than the one already installed. You can use nlite or autostreamer to easily create the updated CD, or use the manual way. Just search on the board for "slipstream" or "slipstreamed" to find some links. jaclaz

Yes. And yes, you can delete the "old" CD Rom driver as it won't be used anymore. Actually, the BOOTIMG.BIN is a 1,44 or 2,88 Mb Floppy disk image, you need a tool to manage this kind of files. Easiest would probably be using VFD: http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html with it the image will be seen as a normal floppy drive and you can make all the changes you need. Once you have your edited image ready, you use whatever app you normally use to make a bootable CD using it as El-Torito Floppy Emulation image, and adding the BIOS update files on the CDFS part. On the other hand, you could start from the beginning, using Bart's package you mentioned: http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/#clean (the files you listed do not belong to it, though) The idea behind Bart's CleanCD is to have ALL files (including the BIOS update ones) inside the bootable floppy image, this way there is NO need whatsoever to have a CD Rom driver as all the files are directly accessible. jaclaz

What do you mean with "XP Live" ? A "real" XP on USB stick or a PE (Pre-install Environment like BartPE)? For the first the reference is this: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14181 (check the various tutorials in Dietar's signature) and/or this "automated" method: http://www.usboot.org/tiki-index.php For the second, just go to the 911CD forum and start reading different howto's: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showforum=37 If you want an XPish look and feel for your BartPE, you might want to use add-ons like Reatogo or XPE. Alternatively, you can try the LiveXP (but it is anyhow a PE build) project here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/nativeEx-and-LiveXP-f52.html jaclaz

You should substitute the whatever driver you currently have in CONFIG.SYS, see this for reference: http://www.techadvice.com/tech/C/CDROM_DOSSU.htm i.e.: @justas The link you gave is a rather oldish one, and the procedure is a bit complex and not guaranteed to work on any hardware, my FAQ page: http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.n...SB/USBfaqs.html in FAQ#4 has a link to a graphical, simple howto with the HP format utility: http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm jaclaz

Yep, it was just a small joke. : Sorry, I am not much into this kind of resource editing, maybe you can find some ideas in these elder threads: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=17210 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=22756 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=52108 though everyone seem to hint that only minor mods can be made to original setup.exe through resource hacker. jaclaz

Nice looking! (the screenshot I mean) jaclaz

The new version of ERD commander use the Server 2003 SP1+ SETUPLDR.BIN, that has a checksum to prevent editing. Read here: http://www.msfn.org/board/Solution_multibo...Bit_t58410.html jaclaz

Due to the new developments of grub4dos: http://grub4dos.jot.com/WikiHome I would use it'grldr, chainloaded from your "normal" boot.ini as follows: C:\grldr=Recovery Partition Once you are into grub4dos, you can do everything you want, something along the lines of what tinybit suggested here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=2777&st=0 Please note that by NOT installing the grldr.mbr, your drive will be "kosher", as it will have a "standard" 2K/XP MBR and a "standard" Xp bootsector, possibly in the international language of your install. jaclaz

Look here: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16381 http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=19109&hl= jaclaz

You cannot call "E:\BOOTSECT.DAT /Minint from boot.ini". Read these: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=26185 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=40604 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=47206 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=67360 http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...=18480&st=0 The above posts and links therein should contain all you need. jaclaz

Check the apps here: http://www.nirsoft.net/ They can run from within the .zip file, pspv should also be able to find the password in protected storage: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/dialupass2.html http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/pspv.html I don't think Asterisk logger works on newish dialogs, but it is still worth a try: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/astlog.html jaclaz

Yep, since WinPE is BORN as a Pre-installation Environment, using it to install a NT based system works allright, the point is to minimize the "catch", see this: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=644 but it seems like noone wants to take the challenge. jaclaz

What you missed is that in the referred thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/boot_install_USB...html&st=404 someone ALREADY figured it out, the method is tested, working, scripted, and is currently in final refinements (SATA drives, etc.) and betterings/adding features. jaclaz

That's strange, I have small HD images of recovery console working allright, directly or from grub4dos, both "directly" and using the 2003 RAMDISK.SYS to boot them. I have experimented with /minint, /CMDCONS and $win_nt$.~bt (but this works with image mounted as HD0) Some info is on this thread: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=2692&st=10 Most probably it won't work on "FD" type of image, but maybe one can use once again the grub4dos mapping features to exchange drives? Can you post a DIR /S>Setupdir.txt of your 15 Mb image? I'll see if I can re-create it in a way that it works. jaclaz

Where is the problem? The original post has a detailed howto: http://www.msfn.org/board/Tool_Hide_consol...ndo_t49184.html There are also other tools, see here: http://www.msfn.org/board/alternative_cmdow_HID_t49103.html jaclaz

Also, if I may, you might want to search and learn a bit about batch files, just as an example, if you make a file "todelete.txt" with this contents: and you put: FOR /F %%A IN (todelete.txt) DO DEL %%A in your batch, it is easier to read and to modify (adding or removing files to the todelete.txt list) This is a VERY good site to get ideas from: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/ jaclaz

Well, you don't seem too motivated. Making a USB stick bootable is actually not difficult, just use the method in FAQ #4 here: http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.n...SB/USBfaqs.html Installing XP from a USB stick is a bit more tricky, but if you care to read the "main" thread about it, you will see how wimb posted a batch capable of doing it: http://www.msfn.org/board/boot_install_USB...html&st=404 (but do read the thread to better understand the procedure) If you do not remove WINNT.EXE support with nlite, you can still use the good ol' DOS method: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=16713&hl= jaclaz

also, you seem to manage the %~n1 variable, in the process, what happens to the EXTENSION of the file? %~x1 or %~nx1 management appears to be missing. To expand on Yzöwl's note on the use of ERRORLEVEL, the syntax you are using is "DOSsish" under 2K/XP/2003, you can also use the %ERRORLEVEL% variable, as such, this: can be written also as: but you can also use the other operators, like equ, lss, gtr, etc.: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/errorlevel.html which could make you get rid of one of the IF checks jaclaz

Each app has it's own ways, you will never find a "general guide". As an example: Looky here: http://koti.mbnet.fi/digitale/throwoutoe/ jaclaz

Have you got a cooler inside a case, spinning at 5,400/7,200 or 10,000 RPM? If I may, the (old) point about mounting hard disks horizontally vs. vertically was related to the actual BEARINGS that were used in the HD manufacture. A traditional bearing can be a radial bearing or a thrust bearing, or both: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearing_(mechanical) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust_bearing Most if not all hard disks manufactured in latest years have FDB bearings, that are at the same time radial and thust ones, besides being less noisy: http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf...Paper_FINAL.pdf http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001052.pdf jaclaz

A small "side" suggestion. When using the GOTO or CALL statement, it is advisable to follow them with complete name of the label (including the ":" ) this way it is easier to find them at a glance. As Yzöwl pointed out, this is wrong if not exist c:\corb.dir\nul mkdir c:\corb.dir\ goto deplacer you cannot put two statements after an IF without grouping the commands with parenthesis or using the "&" sign: if not exist c:\corb.dir\nul mkdir c:\corb.dir\&goto :deplacer should work as well jaclaz

Correct , the "wear leveling" thingy does NOT affect the position of files on the stick (as seen by the OS), but other things may cause it, most probably previously deleted/overwritten files, incorrect order when copying files to it, and what not. In the famous "Dietmar's Thread" on 911CD, experiments proved that the best way to make sure that USB booting procedure is to start from a "wiped" drive, though noone was able to pinpoint the actual cause of the occasional failures. However, there is no need to write 00's or (better) F6's to the whole device, but doing so for the first, say, 100 sectors, i.e 51200 bytes, should ensure that there are no "leftovers" that can cause problems to filesystem. jaclaz

Also, though rather difficult to get the hang of, FINDPART can be useful: http://www.partitionsupport.com/utilities.htm FINDPART CHSDIR <drive letter> will give you the position of files. jaclaz

and/or regshot: http://regshot.blog.googlepages.com/ jaclaz