jaclaz

@ilko_t Thanks for the clarification, I lost myself a few posts ago. So, next step is to find a way to "reverse" the logic of the dummydisk.sys. @lilas Unfortunately the CDFS trick implies fiddling with the USB controller firmware (actually the U3 is an "already fiddled with" firmware) I have found at least one controller (and it's manufacturer utilities) that allow setting the USB Flash mamory as a CD, but this would only apply to that model, and to this you add, if they were not enough the peculiarities of the various BIOSes. @All The problem with grub4dos booting from .iso is a non-problem, I am afraid. Though most probably this feature will eventually be added to grub4dos, we already have ISOEMU, but the limit it has (being able to boot DOS and Linux images, but NOT 2K/XP/2003 ones) will remain in grub4dos. The problem, AFAIK, is not in grub4dos code, but rather in the way NTDETECT.COM works. The solution will be when (and if) someone will find a way to use a disk image driver (like filedisk, VDK or Imdisk) instead of the RAMDISK driver, or when (and again if) someone will write a "monolithic" "miniport" USB driver, that can be used as NTBOOTDD.SYS. Or maybe when the guys at tinykrnl.org or at reactOS.org will produce a new "compatible" set of loader files. Here we are in a real CATCH-22 situation: Anyone interested in this has not the knowledge/experience to write this code. Anyone who is capable to write such a code is not interested in this. jaclaz

@ilko_t Cannot remember if we talked about this : http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19422 Can you (or someone else) test it with USB hard disks? Or it has been already tested and it does not work? jaclaz

It seems more like a Registry problem. These kind of problems are usually very tricky to find and solve. What I would do (NO WARRANTIES implied of ANY kind): 1) Backup the Regstry with ERUNT: http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/ 2) Make sure you have a way to restore the backup, second install, a PE, anything, MAKE SURE. 3) Delete ALL hidden devices from Device Manager: 4) Re-boot if it does not work, try again by: 1) Delete ALL devices from Device Manager, exception made for Mouse, Keyboard, Video card and Screen 2) do the following: 3) RE-boot If the above does not work, you still have two choices: 1) Doing a REPAIR install: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm 2) Fiddling manually with the Registry (VERY risky) jaclaz

I really cannot make any sense from your post, sorry. If the question is "Can I boot a Win2K install residing in a Logical Volume inside extended partition?" the answer is YES, as long as you have NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM (SETUPPDD.SYS depending on your hardware) and BOOT.INI residing in an active primary partition. If the question is "Can I boot a Win2K install from a newer NTLDR/NTDETECT.COM?" the answer is again YES, all NTLDR/NTDETECT.COM are backwards compatible, you only need to add a proper arcpath pointing to the Win2k install in BOOT.INI. jaclaz

Do you mean that you cannot see anymore the partition(s) on that drive as letter(s) : Or do you mean that you see in Disk manager just one hard disk (and that in Devicee manager you see just one hard disk connected)? jaclaz

I take back my previous post (it is correct but not related to the issue at hand). It appears to be a real BUG specific to Excel 2007: http://bink.nu/news/microsoft-confirms-exc...lation-bug.aspx http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/cgi-bin/ite...1023&f=1026 jaclaz P.S.: judging from some of the reports here: http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2007/0...sue-update.aspx Unlike the original statement, the "wrong" result can be "propagated" in a sheet, so it is not just a "display" problem, and everyone using Excel for financial calculations in his right mind will use the ROUND() function, as simply put by user Jerome:

Most probably, being Spinrite, at least the old version I used at work, a "DOS" "floppy based" program, the CD it makes is an "El-torito" 1,44 Mb floppy emulation boot CD. You can extract from the CD (or .iso) the boot image and use it as a floppy image to be loaded by grub4dos, cdshell, isolinux/memdisk or whatever boot selector/manager you use for your CD (if you at the moment aren't using any, you will need one). A suitable app for doing so is Bart's BBIE: http://www.nu2.nu/bbie/ (FREEWARE) but there are a number of Shareware/Commercial apps dealing with .iso managing that can do it as well. jaclaz

Cannot say about Excel 2007, but something similar is common in every release of spreadsheet apps. It depends on the separator you use, in US and Britain are in use the comma as separator for thousands and the period or full stop to separate decimal numbers. In Europe generally it is the other way round. Be aware that there TWO separate settings for this, usually spreadsheet apps use the default "International" settings, but some have also an "internal" setting. Instead of putting "=850*77,1" in a cell, try the following: Input in cells A1 and A2 "850" (without quotes) Input in cell B1 "77.1" Input in cell B2 "77,1" Input in cell C1 "=A1*B1" Input in cell C2 "=A2*B2" Now copy the six cells a couple of rows below, and set cell formats "Number" to "General", you should see why it happens. To check results, when in doubt, always enter integers, like: =850*771/10 This has nothing to do with Excel (or any other spreadsheet for that matter) with any versions: you are simply giving to it data in a way that the app parses as being NOT the number you think you typed. jaclaz

I beg your pardon? I was referring to your question: jaclaz

You can try also using grub4dos. The "standard" way of using it to boot CD's is by using grldr as no-emulation bootsector, which, if the problem you are experiencing is connected to a "no-emulation" incompatibility of some kind, won't solve the problem, but you can use a FAT12 floppy with grub4dos as El-torito emulation image, and from it chainload whatever you want on the "rest" of CD. jaclaz

Also, maybe a "stupid" suggestion, but if you use one of those (wireless) "internet enabled" keyboards, during boot the "F lock" key may be off, and thus the F1 to F12 keys don't work. http://jtsang.mvps.org/flock.html jaclaz

For the record, there are quite a few FREEWARE apps capable of that. Notably (and apologies to the Authors of other ones): DSFO, part of the DSFOK toolkit (command line): http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/freeware/ HDHACKER (GUI): http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ jaclaz

And the link here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/Useful-inf...-inf-t1966.html http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1966 jaclaz

@happyusers Try putting all files in a .zip archive. jaclaz

Hey guys, not to be picky, but did you realise that the original poster had this problem in 2005, did you? I guess that he either found his way or a fair number of college students had no chance to use the PC's. jaclaz

"NTLDR is missing" is an error message hardcoded in the bootsector of any partition formatted under 2K/XP/2003. (if the "standard" english botsector is used) So the error is generated long before BOOT.INI comes into play. Forget for the moment anything about this thread and just: 1) Format the stick with the HP utility or petoUSB or any other method you use 2) Copy to the stick NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and a BOOT.INI with at least two entries 3) Try booting from it If it does, try again the method, using the latest tutorial and the batch file. If it does not, post again, I'll try to help you in first booting part. jaclaz

Yes, it is common (though technically wrong) to call the Command Prompt or Console in windows NT/2K/XP/2003 "MS-DOS prompt". Actually it normally uses also, besides NOT being DOS, a different command interpreter, CMD.EXE instead of COMMAND.COM. Otherwise the good guys that made DOSBOX: http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/ would have done a completely unneeded work when they made the Windows "NT" version. jaclaz

No need (anymore) for Recovery Console install: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/MakeBScmd-...EASE-t2362.html to create a bootsector chainloadable from NTLDR/BOOT.INI jaclaz

Out of topic, but not much, you can use HDtune: http://www.hdtune.com/ to check Supported and Active ATA levels. jaclaz

Maybe stupid question , but does the file resides in %UserProfile%\Desktop\ ? Personally I would use "%~dpnx0" Other possibility, it is a timing problem of some kind. If this is the case, you may want to try a loop similar to the one detailed here: http://www.catch22.net/tuts/selfdel.asp BTW, you seem to be missing a GOTO :EOF to return from the calls in FOR loops. jaclaz EDIT: Sorry Yzöwl, cross-posting.

Really? Can you elaborate on this: Last time I checked the only way to run Qemu in DOS was using HX: http://www.japheth.de/HX.html Maybe you meant it is a Win32 Console app. Did you try installing/running Qemu manager under Win9x/Me? I tried one of the first versions some time ago and wasn't able to make it work. Besides, it seems like Qemu 0.9 has broken support of 9x/Me systems: http://qemu-forum.ipi.fi/viewtopic.php?t=3031 The elder 0.8.2 can still be found on archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/www.h6.dio...8.2-windows.zip jaclaz

Just for the record, here is what Microsoft has to say over the issue: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686/en-us The only difference between a quick and a full format is the scanning (and mapping) of bad sectors, on a perfectl yhealthy volume this won't make any difference in the recoverability of data after a format. This: should be read as: http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/fat_FATs.htm http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/ntfs/archMFT-c.html In other words, existing files are NEVER deleted by a format, whilst information on where the files are IS deleted. Data is generally better recovered if the files are contiguous, so running a Defrag program periodically does help to have better recovery resilts, should a disaster happen. Something everyone should read (Free E-book, also available for download): http://www.easeus.com/data-recovery-ebook/index.htm On the other hand, if you are going to sell or give away your old hard disk, it is a good idea to WIPE it's contents. Generally writing 00's to the entire drive is more than enough. Don't be misled by all the fluff about the Guttman Theory: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=2683&st=6 jaclaz

not only 'appear' but they ARE faster. There is no DRMs built-in into the code of W2K (as opposed to XP). Thats the sole reason why. Interesting , do you have any link with some details and data? (I used "appears" as I have no exact comparison/test data to show the amount of lag you have under XP.) jaclaz

....but you can make a USB stick an install media, links are here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=2807&st=20 jaclaz

The idea is to ask for help BEFORE using an app. However, if you just quick formatted the drive, you can try with TESTDISK: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk or you can try with its "counterpart" photorec: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec to recover the files. You will need another drive with enough space for the recovered files. If you have a few bucks to spare and the drive was NTFS, these two COMMERCIAL apps are very good: http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/iUndelete.htm http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm The "poor man's" option is this one: http://memberwebs.com/stef/software/scrounge/ jaclaz