jaclaz

snowden, sorry, but evidently it's you that are missing something, like a few months work by several members. The initial "normal" way by porear you are referring to, due to the deletion of some files (and some other minor things) did work only once. The new "final" method, thanks to ilko_t and cdob is repeatable: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...1384&st=128 (previous posts are to be considered obsolete by the above one) As said in the other thread I too find the WINNT.EXE method better, but I personally have on ALL my machine a 1 Gb FAT16 partition as First Active Primary. And, as said, speaking of nliting, removing WINNT.EXE install support makes the build smaller. jaclaz

OT: jaclaz

You mean this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278940/en-us jaclaz

@snowden If I may, it would be better if you do not double post, and simply give links to the thread where you posted: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=82856 This way users can easily find the interconnections between different threads. jaclaz

@Ponch With all due respect, maybe jcarle is the only person knowing what he meant. I don't think that the fact that this is an old thread is at all relevant, as long as more CORRECT information is given. @all As is, the sentence: does not stand, as eidenk pointed out, if I may with a bit of unneeded aggressiveness, as FAT is a filesystem, and "knows nothing" itself about other partitions, a FAT partition doe not evem "know" if it is Active or not (as this info is in the MBR, which has NOTHING to do with the filesystem(s) used). If you just change one word in jcarle's sentence, everything is right however: It is the Operating System design that may (or may not in the case of DOS) allow for several primary partitions. About the MBR, as hinted before, though the de facto standard allows for 4 partition entries, there are "special" MBR that allow for more than 4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/part...es-2.html#ss2.9 http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/DOS33MBR.htm Please note that this has nothing to do with the use of some bootmanagers that allow more than four partitions by using redirections to other sectors on the HD. jaclaz

@snowden, FYI, another method that needs not WINNT.EXE support (and thus more "compatible" with nlited installs) can be found here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=61384&hl= Final (for the moment) howto here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...1384&st=128 Please note that this method, like the one linked to on the 911CD forum: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16713 which is substantially the same as yours, does not require ANY Commercial app, everything is done through built-on tools and/or Freeware / Open Source software. If I may, you could "shave off" a couple of passages in your way of installing, the convert.exe program can convert BOTH FAT16 and FAT32 filesystems to NTFS: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881/en-us So, if you are using DOS 7.x/8.0, which supports FAT32, you don't need to make a small partition and later resize it, you can directly make an adequately sized FAT32 one and convert it. With the resizing of the partition made not needed, there is also no need for a Commercial app, you can do the first part with Freedos FDISK. Though the convert.exe does not appear to have ever caused problems, I find, at least theoretically, safer the newish "direct" method as the volume is natively formatted as NTFS by Windows setup, as in a "normal" install. jaclaz

Well, you cannot assign a number to a text, but you can use the text to determine a value in the cell where you are now putting the "SUM()" function. Can you better explain the layout of your excel spreadsheet? I mean you don't have you can have three cells in adjoining columns with tbose values. Supposing you have: A1 -> 2 B1 -> OUT C1 -> 3 the formula in D1, INSTEAD of =SUM(A1:C1) could be: =A1+C1+IF(B1="OUT",5,0) If you have several different strings to give a value to, you can make a table for them, say you have just two values, "OUT" and "IN" in another place of the same worksheet (in this example, but it can be on another sheet as well) you put (say): E1 -> IN E2 -> OUT F1 -> 10 F2 ->5 the formula in D1, INSTEAD of =A1+C1+IF(B1="OUT",5,0) could be: =A1+C1+VLOOKUP(B1;$E$1:$F$2;2;0) jaclaz

Just for the record, and trying to limit the confusion, everything in this thread is referred to grub4dos, not grub. Grub4dos is a "fork" / "evolution" of grub that adds a number of features to standard "grub" and (at the moment at least) misses some other features of the original. While the two projects are close relatives (and actually grub4dos is derived from grub), and the syntax and overall way of working is VERY similar, some commands and features present in grub4dos (mostly those related to booting DOS, Windows 9x/Me, NT/2k/XP/2003 and Vista) are COMPLETELY missing in grub, while some of the advanced features of grub, like variables handling aren't (yet) present in grub4dos. Thus, the two programs are NOT completely interchangeable. Grub4dos "Whereto" is here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=14 jaclaz

Just for the record, this site appears to be VERY informative on Vista dual booting: http://www.multibooters.co.uk/ jaclaz

Since all you have to do is copying/renaming some files, most probably even a floppy with NTFS4DOS would be enough: jaclaz

From what you write it seems like you have a problem in a not-so-initial phase of booting. It could be a corrupted driver and/or a corrupted entry in the Registry. Is your boot drive FAT32 or NTFS?, if the latter the procedure is slighty more complex. Basically you should get a DOS boot disk (either a "real" floppy or a floppy image to be burned to CD or USB stick if your machine has no floppy and you can't get your hands on a USB one) capable of accessing the filesystem on your disk, if NTFS you need to use NTFS4DOS: http://www.free-av.com/antivirclassic/avira_ntfs4dos.html or a PE based disk, like the UBCD4WIN. Then you can backup all hives of your current Registry and replace them with the original ones. The procedure is sketched here: http://www.willingsoftware.com/service/registry.shtml for just the SOFTWARE hive, repeat steps for ALL registry hives, this can be done in Recovery Console as well: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/en-us see also this for reference: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=71807 If the PC does not start, you can edit boot.ini to add to your existing entry /BASEVIDEO /SOS /BOOTLOG parameter, reference here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysintern...on/bootini.mspx Boot.ini can be modified from DOS, even on NTFS, and without the NTFS4DOS driver, with this nifty utility: EditBINI™ http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html If you have a way to access the Registry of that machine, you should edit it to disable "Automatically restart", reference here for XP , but Win2k is just the same: http://www.theeldergeek.com/auto_reboot_on_system_crash.htm so that you can actually read the BSOD error. It should be possible to do the above from recovery console, but a PE based boot Cd would be more convenient. (I haven't touched Recovery Console in years) Three small lessons you and everyone reading this should learn from this experience are: 1) First thing ALWAYS disable "Automatically restart" option after install 2) ALWAYS use ERUNT: http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/ 3) Whenever it is possible (read ALWAYS ) install a second basic instance of win2k/XP on the machine, or make (if you have an XP or later license) a PE bootable CD it is VERY convenient jaclaz

jaclaz

Just a guess on my part, but the only "media descriptor" that "should" or maybe "could" be changed on a physical sector, is byte 64 of FAT32 bootsector or byte 36 of FAT16 bootsector, i.e. the "BIOS HD" which is 80h (128 dec) for FIRST hard disk, 81h (129 dec) for second hard disk, and so on. DOS and Win9x will NOT boot from a drive identified by anything but 80h, this, as the MS guys like to put it is "by design", hence the need to use grub4dos or other bootmanagers capable of changing this byte and or trick the BIOS into thinking that the drive whence you are booting from is First drive. The byte usually called "media descriptor" is byte 21 of both type of sectors, and that is F8 for hard disks and F0 for floppy. However, it is nearly impossible to determine WHAT actually caused the problem, a defective connection (read cable and/or connectir on either MB or HD still appears as a probable cause), but it could also be that part of the corruption (not related to first/second hard disk) was pre-existing amd would have been found by Testdisk if run before the disk switching. jaclaz

Basically, you need to have (of course) an original XP CD. The files you are interested in are NTPRINT.inf and DRIVER.cab, they are both in the \I386 directory. Use the Add printer dialog, click "Have disk" or Driver disk", cannot remember the English caption right now, and point it to the %CD%\I386\NTPRINT.inf and install the printer normally. Alternatively, you can copy the NTPRINT.INF file to hard disk, make a second copy of it renaming it to, say, HP880C.INF, open it in notepad, search for the relevant info and edit it accordingly: in the "Manufacturer Section": delete all manufacturers but HP in "Models section": delete all other manufacturers and all HP models but "HP DeskJet 880C" in the [HP] subsection Delete "Previous Names" section in "OEM URLS" delete all but hp one in "Installer Sections" delete everything but the entry referenced in "Models section" if the entry in "Installer sections" begins with Copyfile=@ you can delete the entire "Copy files" section. in the "Source Disk Section", in subsection [sourceDisksFiles] delete all entries but those found in "Installer sections". With some "logical" trial and error, you should be able to delete some more unneeded entries. Now use a program capable of opening .CAB files (7-zip is the one I use) and extract from DRIVER.CAB to hard disk, in the same folder where HP880C.INF is, the files referenced in the entries you kept in HP880C.inf. You might need some trial and error before having it fully functional, but with a little patience you should be able to get it working. Once you have everything working, you should be able to make a new .CAB files with all files but HP880C.INF and, correcting the info in [sourceDisksNames.x86], have it compressed and functional. jaclaz P.S.: rather obviously, if you stripped "too much" from your install, i.e. as an example the "Add printer" capability, the above might not work.

VISTA98, from what you write, I wouldn't be so sure it is a bootrecord problem, it looks more like a file corrupted. However, to restore the COPY of the boot record read this: http://forum.winimage.com/viewtopic.php?t=200 and given links therein For a more general "in situ" repair, this: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm DO NOT use the MaxBlast utility. jaclaz

@MOONLIGHT SONATA No, the bootsect.dat carries GEOMETRY information of the specific partition/disk, so it has to be generated "on the spot" of course if you have a number of systems partitioned EXACTLY in the same manner you can use a single bootsect.dat. As os2fan3 pointed out the freeware bootpart utility is much more convenient, and by using it there is no need whatsoever to boot from floppy. Besides, UNLIKE MS-DOS 6.22, in which IO.SYS needed to be FIRST file on partition, and thus the need for either SYS.COM or BOOTPART REWRITEROOT:C:, MS-DOS 7.x, i.e. WIn9x one, has NOT this limitation. All you need to do is to copy the files to the root of the partition and create the bootsector with bootpart, which will also graciously update BOOT.INI. Cannot say if it can be done during first part of unattended, but definitely it can be done thorugh a .cmd file once 2K/XP is installed, possibly with a Runonce or RunonceEx entry. jaclaz

[wiped by moderator] @Cyril Most probably you accidentally "fdisked" the partition table. The simplest way out is to use this program: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk to try and rebuild it, of course IF data has not been overwritten. Do take your time understanding how to use it. jaclaz

My personal opinion is to make a small FAT16 partition, First, Primary, Active, size a little smaller than 1 Gb (it will get letter C:\), than an extended partition with inside it two logical volumes, either both NTFS or first one NTFS, second one FAT32 (remember you won't normally be able to access FAT32 volume from within NT 4.00, but see below) and have TWO instances of NT installed and one of Win98. To recap: First instance of NT installed on C:\ (C:\WINNT) - failsafe, to be used for recovery/managing, can be greatly slimmed down, if I remember correctly, once slimmed by taking out unneeded files (help files, networking related, unneeded drivers) it should take something less than 50 Mb First and (and only) instance of Win98 on C:\ (C:\WINDOWS) Second instance of NT installed on D: (D:\WINNT) - regular full install About FAT32 access under NT4.00 there are two solutions, both FREEWARE: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Fat32.html http://ashedel.chat.ru/fat32/ http://www.chat.ru/~ashedel/fat32/fastfat32.rar Viceversa, to access (READ ONLY) the NTFS volume inder W98 you can use: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/NtfsWindows98.html or if you need read/write access (from DOS window) get this: http://www.free-av.com/antivirclassic/avira_ntfs4dos.html Also you better get the FREEWARE bootpart: http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm make yourself a boot floppy as described here: http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy33.htm and learn how to use them to setup a multiboot system, and (just in case) be prepared to troible shoot it. Updating NT 4.00 AT LEAST to SP4, but of course SP6a is better, is, in my view, MANDATORY. jaclaz

THAT is preoccupying. Did you try with another good cable? How does the BIOS sees the drive? Since Win98 and NT based systems behave differently, the first one uniquely relying on info gathered from the BIOS, the latter by re-scanning buses with it's own drivers, I guess it is possible what you describe if the BIOS does not recognize it properly. Do have a look at the drive with this program: http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/ http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/ jaclaz

OT: [begin joking] No one noticed the irony underlying a question from a member that is called VISTA98 having problems with ME? [/end joking] jaclaz

Try to see a variable in a FOR loop INSTEAD of "two percentage signs followed by a letter", as "two percentage signs followed by an ASCII character that is not ALREADY a special character, NOT necessarily limited to range a-z and A-Z" and it should make much more sense. Just for the record, I find out the problem I had before with the /v switch, the reg.exe version (optional) with Win2K does NOT support the switch, you need an XP or later version. So, my "alterenate" syntax is valid with Win2K and the /v one with XP and later. jaclaz

Well, there is no "in-between" compromise. The partition on hard disk is EITHER FAT16 OR FAT32. It should be viewable from Win98 in various locations, but basically, if it is a single 9 GB partition, or it is however bigger than 2 Gbytes, it is FAT32 (as FAT16 limit is 2 Gb). You might want to have a look at these: http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/FAT16.htm http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/NT4FAT16.htm If you cannot find a way to check the format, just download PTINFO: ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_...es/partinfo.zip ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_...es/PartIn9x.zip and have a look at the partition table. About FDISK, the Win98 one can partition a disk allright with FAT16 WITHIN the limit of the 2GB seen above, and actually a FAT16 partition bigger than slightly less than 1GB does not make much sense, as the cluster size will be HUGE. I would suggest you to use, instead of FDISK, Ranish Partition Manager, a freeware that gives you a number of enhanced features: http://www.ranish.com/part/ version 2.40 should be enough. Of course, if you FDISK/FORMAT the drive, you will lose EVERYTHING already on it, including your Windows 98 instal (if it is on that drive) and the /I386 folder with the NT install. jaclaz

Some more migrate.inf related info: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19663 jaclaz

Problem is, how will you print the sheet? If you don't have a large format printer you will need an app like these: http://www.posteriza.com/es/index.php?lang=en_US http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/postaganda/ And why do you really need Word? I mean if it is just to print a banner or something like that, there are better apps, more oriented to "vector graphics". You can use one of these freeware ones: http://www.freebyte.com/graphicprograms/#vector or if it's a one time only, you can try this: http://www.signgo.com/products/signgo_lite.html It is also possible that a limit exists in the printer driver, try installing a generic HPGL printer (corresponding to the entire family of HP and compatible plotters) this way you will have no limits in length from the printer driver side (if I recall correctly a limit exists, around 20 meters ) If you connect the driver to FILE, you can save the print file and later take it to a plotting service. jaclaz

No prob, mate. You are not the only one that never took the time to properly read a Software License Agreement, or didn't fully grasped it's concepts, and I am not talking only about the MS EULA, but also about GPL, Open Source and all other kinds of licenses. You might find this an interesting reading: http://www.cyber.com.au/cyber/about/compar...gpl_to_eula.pdf This part is relevant to the topic: In a nut shell, in the case of a "normal" XP license, the money you pay Microsoft or one of it's representatives or OEM's is for acquiring the RIGHT to USE the product, according to the terms specified in §1., which, between other limitations, like the "single device" and "no more than 2 CPU's", explicitly allow you to: (bolding is mine) The above explicitly allows (even if unneeded, as not expressly prohibited anywhere else) that the possibility to use different storage devices as install media is perfectly legal and allowed. Also, note that the entire EULA makes references to the "Product" (identified as "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" in this example) and nowhere is a reference to the specific media on which the product is delivered, on the contrary, the reference is : (bolding is again mine) and thus covers equally software on a physical media as well as downloaded one. And of course, if the point was "you cannot copy the files from CD to another media", BartPE and all similar projects, including the various unattended and Multiboot CD/DVD's, nlite, Ryan Integrator, and more generally, say, 80% of the projects and activities on this board would have been illegal. jaclaz