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

Yes, as I see it there are TWO booting scenarios: 1) BIOS is "right" and SATA drive becomes bootdrive, i.e. \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0, IDE becomes \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1 2) BIOS is "wrong" and IDE becomes bootdrive, i.e. \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0, SATA becomes \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1 Now you have on the SATA drive FIRST ACTIVE PRIMARY PARTITION ROOT: NTLDR NTDETECT.COM (NTBOOTDD.SYS) BOOT.INI with contents similar to: If you add to the IDE drive FIRST ACTIVE PRIMARY PARTITION ROOT a copy of: NTLDR NTDETECT.COM (NTBOOTDD.SYS) BOOT.INI with contents similar to: When scenario 2) happens, machine will boot as well as before. Drive lettering should NOT be affected as it is dependant on drive signatures, so any "normal" program will work as before. If you have programs, batches or whatever that use the other available syntaxes for "low-level" access to the drives, like \\.\PHYSICALDRIVEx or the \device\Harddiskx\Partitiony or the \Device\HarddiskVolumez, those WILL change, and you need to provide some workarounds. Read these to get an idea of what I am talking about: http://www.msfn.org/board/Discovery_Unusua...ery_t33030.html http://www.msfn.org/board/BOOTINI_hard_drive_t25365.html http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=2425&st=19 jaclaz

If I recall correctly it is a known "feature", in all Excel releases. Two workarounds possible: 1) If it is just a "cosmetic" problem, in options there is somewhere an option "Show Zero Values" 2) If you need an empty as a result of the VLOOKUP, use this: =IF(VLOOKUP(TRIM($M$5),'Left out'!$C$5:$M$24,7,FALSE)=0,"",VLOOKUP(TRIM($M$5),'Left out'!$C$5:$M$24,7,FALSE)) jaclaz

But, though not actually the solution to your hardware problem: What prevents you from putting a NTLDR+BOOT.INI+NTDETECT.COM+(NTBOOTDD.SYS) on the IDE drive, with an entry in BOOT.INI to load the OS on the SATA drive? Also, if the data is valuable and expecially it is a security company we are talking about, a UPS is a MUST, as I see it. jaclaz

If I may, these procedures should be taken only (if and) when "the milk is already been spilled" . For a new installation, I would prefer using a migrate.inf file, some reference: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19663 jaclaz

Well, happy it helped solvig your problem. Of course most of the thanks should go to Kaare Smith and Dion Nicolaas jaclaz

For the record, these are also connected to the topic: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=3007&hl= http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=90495 I have used the Registrar Lite app to do the multiple Search/Replace. jaclaz

@ryeookin2 Read this thread: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=2937&st=0 AND given links. If it's OK for you to use RAMdisk booting, read this: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=2989&hl= and search here on MSFN, on 911CD or on boot-land for keyword "ramdisk.sys" jaclaz

I am personally a 2K user, never needed the fancy stuff of XP, and in my experience, if you remove the unneeded stuff from 2K as well, it will be (slightly) faster (meaning a bit more responsive) than XP on lower end hardware. Just two notes: 1) Using XP or 2003 NTLDR+NTDETECT.COM to boot Win2K provides a faster booting when compared to original Win2K files 2) USB Mass Storage access (pendrives or sticks) appear to be WAY faster in 2K Though not a "mathematically exact" method, a good idea is to always check the minimum requirements Microsoft gives: http://www.dewassoc.com/support/win2000/require.htm http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314865 and at least double amount of RAM and speed of processor to get a "working-in-real-life" system. As you can see, memory requirements betrween the two are pretty similar, while a higher speed CPU is required for XP. And of course you can experiment with LESS hardware power: http://winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm jaclaz

Well, then most probably there is something that operates on the drive when XP is running, I guess we are back to square 1: You could try using a monitor tool like Sysinternals ones to check what writes to disk (and it shouldn't) the fact that the drive is D:\ should mean it is not the drive from which Windows XP boots from, doesn't it? Also, you could try running chkdisk TWICE, one after another from Recovery Console, if on second try the volume is not dirty, definitely it is something in the GUI XP that sets the flag. jaclaz

Just "trace" a little the batch, see which is last action it makes, and add right after it a EXIT command. jaclaz

Well, wakepup is Linux, BartPE is NT based. There is not a program or driver (yet) able to "hook" the USB stick during second stage of NT booting if there is not support from BIOS. In other words, you can have a (for example using grub4dos) DOS based "kickstart" floppy, but as soon as you get past the BOOT.INI choices (if using NTLDR) or SETUPLDR.BIN starts, you will get a STOP 0x0000007b - Inaccessible boot device. The topic is discussed widely in the given links. The alternative is using RAMdisk booting, but usually it is not an option on elder machines, that simply lack the needed amount of RAM. Maybe with a VERY small build jaclaz