jaclaz

@Wimb Yes, I know it would be a lot of work, but you don't actually need to log really everything, the tee.bat works only for "simple" commands, it needs to be integrated in the batch to work in this procedure. Also, if you wish, feel free to integrate the "working part" of both binifix and MakeBS into the main batch. jaclaz

The idea of a log file is excellent. Cannot say if it would cause slowness, in the procedure, but before a separate tee.exe, I would try to use the .bat/.cmd version, available on Rob van der Woude's site: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/tee.html integrating it in the main batch. jaclaz

I stumbled upon this kb: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941137/en-us Intersting use of the adverb "severely". Can my need to write 2+2=4 and the inability to do so be enough to consider myself be severely affected: or that can be used only when I have to write numbers with several 0's and a $ or a € sign? jaclaz

Just to keep things together, here is an old thread with a .reg file for it: http://www.msfn.org/board/Automatically_ad...uts_t30065.html jaclaz

Some "semi-random" ideas and suggestions: @Wimb if you check my binifix.cmd there is a small routine that checks the ATTRIB status of a file, sets it to writable, visible, non-system in order to allow modifying or overwriting, then resets attributes as before. You can use it to overcome the reported ACCESS DENIED problem. @lilas (aka ktp ) An interesting test would be if you could partition (temporarily) the 8Gb key to a smaller size in order to format the partition as FAT16 and see if the speed difference is due to the filesystem rather than to the controller. See this (now getting old) comparison between different USB Flash drives (read different stick controllers) and their access and transfer speed: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/321 jaclaz

@lilas The ideas of the z-1 came EXACTLY because some people might want to install XP on a non-first disk: http://www.msfn.org/board/boot_install_USB...html&st=204 http://www.msfn.org/board/boot_install_USB...html&st=240 Latest version: http://www.msfn.org/board/boot_install_USB...html&st=280 with this amendment: http://www.msfn.org/board/boot_install_USB...html&st=286 Just open the .cmd in notepad, it should not be too difficult to follow it's way of working. You might think of the way XP sets arcpaths as a FIFO stack, if you boot off a drive, it will get a z of 0, effectively "pushing" all other arcpaths for (n) drives to z(n)+1, what the batch does is simply to reverse this behaviour for the newly installed system. Partition numbers w, being "relative" to hard disk number, are unaffected by this inserting the USB stick before normal boot drive. VERY GOOD WORK in reporting, we need more feedback as accurate as yours. jaclaz

Another new entry, found by ktp: http://www.clonegenius.com/ added to the 911CD thread: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=16534&st= jaclaz

As I see it, 99.99% of users of this method will normally use on their PC's, at one time or another, a PE of some kind, and of those 99.99% will use a SP2 build, so we can make the drive letter X: as fixed, and that will cover in 99% of cases, then provide an easy way for the remaining 1% to change letter manually. jaclaz

For the record, the "Repair" procedure is NOT "destructive" as a "re-format/re-install" and it is however worth a try, do read attentively the linked page, though. 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