jaclaz

@Mandy Happy everything is fine. @twalk482 Well, that is really nice , I wouldn't dare attempting building one like that, expecially mouse, monitor and keyboard ! However something like this is simpler and more playful, very good as a PC for a kid: http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/legobox/ Cheers, jaclaz

FYI, this can be solved as well , as long as you have some Lego pieces, some plywood and a few more surplus parts around, and quite a bit of time : http://www.redfrontdoor.org/cd-changer.html and there is even a solution if the CD does not work as expected : http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-ga...lego-cd-thrower jaclaz

Ok, probably completely unrelated, and just as a reference, this is the command line I use with the mkisofs.exe version that comes with BartPE for a bootsector that is NOT 2048 bytes long: I "studied" mkisofs more than one year ago, and in the meantime I have forgitten most of what I had learned, and I never tried building a Vista DVD, but maybe you could experiment along these lines, the settings that could create problems could be: 1) if the bootsector is longer than 2048 bytes, the "-boot-load-size 4", that is replaced by "-boot-load-seg 0x1000" 2) the "-relaxed-filenames" has been, at least in one occasion, reported to be not working, see here: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18088 You can try substituting it with either "-iso-level 3" or "-iso-level 4" 3) as a habit, I always assume that "Linux derived" tools are always CaSe SeNsItIvE, and I remember reports of BartPE builds that had some problems with lower or uppercase letters, cannot remember, try double checking Letter Cases I have found on this Japanese blog (of which I do not understand a single word ): http://naknet.jpn.ph/blog/ a reference to this command line: that would confirm the "-iso-level 4".... jaclaz

Just for the record: 1) There is NO known way in the world, setting aside tarots and crystal balls, to determine from the info Mandy posted which version of Bart PE it is, not even approximately, however "recent" (meaning since 2003) history of BartPE starts at 3.0.0 : http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/changes.txt There were however a WinPE v1.5 and a WinPE v1.6 before current WinPE 2.0 (Vista based), but if the label saus BartPE it should actually be BartPE 2) The above is a generic and apodictical nonsense. Microsoft has NO issues over the using of BartPE for Personal or Commercial usage if the corresponding XP or server 2003 licenses are legal and valid and if there is NO concurrent usage of the SAME licensed OS. See this: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#licensing 3) What Mandy wants to do is perfectly possible (and legal, within the provisions of the license terms above) with BartPE, UBCD4WIN, Winbuilder AND WinPE 1.5/1.6/2.0. Funny enough, licensing of WinPE 1.x has been for years "reserved" to Microsoft partners and OEM and only recently became publicly available, under the presumption that a "normal" customer building his own system is a OEM of sorts: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=10315 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=56488 @Mandy The real problem seems to me that it is NOT a wizard type procedure in which you press "Next" a number of times and you have your CD working as you want it, nor something that can be explained in a few lines post. It involves understanding the basics of the innards of a PE build, then proceed by trial and error until you get what you want.... ...you will need to search, read and understand a number of posts, here on msfn.org, on 911CD forum and possibly on boot-land.net before being able to even start a build. Since you want to be able to eject bootCD and insert another one, what you are looking for is RAMDISK or SDI/VDK booting , but as said you have a long path before you. Maybe, just maybe the easiest projects for newbies (no offence intended ) like you would be the ones based on Winbuilder, which however is still in Beta stage: VistaPE: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/VistaPE-f51.html or PicoXP/NativeEx: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/NativeEx-and-LiveXP-f52.html Both "standard" BartPE and WinPE have been developed as "bare" Pre-installation Environments or emergency recovery, and, while being without "bells and whistles" need some work to add features, if you need/want a more "XP like" bootCD, Reatogo: http://www.reatogo.de/REATOGO.htm or UBCD4WIN: http://www.ubcd4win.com/ are better and they are more "mature" than the projects on boot-land.net, which on the other hand, have the advantage that, being newish and as said experimental, might provide better support.... jaclaz

Just FYI, the tiniest of the Winbuilder project, PicoXP, can be considered a step in that direction, currently you can build a 14 Mb boot CD with basic CMD.EXE support. "Bigger" projects range in 30÷70 Mb sizes. A simple description and all needed links in this post by the main developer of WinBuilder, Nuno Brito: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...=19586&st=2 jaclaz

Maybe it's the permission that causes the problem. Log in as Administrator (or user with Admin rights) and try getting ownership of the file(s): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421/en-us Do also try getting the ownership of all parent directories in the tree. First step is being able to access/copy the file(s) freely, until then I cannot say more. jaclaz

Sorry, I still do not get it. For a moment let's forget about encryption. Did you use the "Password protect" option while saving the excel file on disk from within Excel 2003? (There is NOTHING on the hard disk that can prevent, being deleted, a password protected - yes, it is encrypted - file from opening with the correct password, an Excel password protected file is just like a .zip or .rar password protected one, can be opened on ANY system with the corresponding app) Or did you use ANY other third party tool to encrypt password protect them? (if this is the case, one needs to know which tool) Or did you wrote the files on a NTFS encrypted filesystem? (if this is the case, this is the ONLY way that by reinstalling/deleting some other files you can make the files unreadable) Are you finally able to copy the file with Explorer to another drive or make a copy of them? If yes, would you be able to e-mail me one of those files (the smaller the better)? (you see, Excel - any version - is not really smart, and cannot distinguish between a corrupted file and a password protected one. I gather that when you double click on the .xls file you do get a prompt asking for the password, if not, the file is probably corrupted) It is possible that before, during the backup some files were copied badly or became corrupted or that the media (which one?) that you used to backup developed some errors. Which app did you use to make the backup? You did verify the backup against original files (file compare and/or MDA5 Sum) before deleting the original data, didn't you? jaclaz

I am not at all an expert on Vista, but there are a few things in your command line that don't "look" right (I may be wrong, of course): 1) Are you sure that the no-emulation bootsector for CD/DVD is "etfsboot.com" 2) Why there isn't a full path in front of it (i.e. why it is "boot/etfsboot.com" and not something like "F:\boot\efsboot.com")? 3) Why you are using forward slash "/" instead of backslash "\"? 4) Is the etfsboot.com (provided it is a bootsector) exactly 2048 bytes long (you are allowing 4 sectors for the bootsector)? jaclaz

Yep, but if the user of the machine where the CD is inserted has checked "view hidden files and folders", the CD directory will be visible allright. This trick: http://www.dq.winsila.com/tips-tricks/how-...ble-folder.html may give a (very little) more "security". jaclaz

As far as I know the first article dealing with this is this one: http://www.pcwelt.de/news/software/104785/index.html dated 12.11.2004 14:10 An English similar article is here: http://www.pcwelt.de/know-how/sicherheit/104830/index.html A few days later Microsoft officially replied, here: http://www.pcwelt.de/news/software/104952/index.html dated 19.11.2004 10:15 Basically Microsoft Representative Erin Collen affirms that the reference to "deepz0ne" is due to some "metadata" in a "placeholder" not properly cleared, the official statement is here: http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_...ions/1100756076 Though it may be "news" to everyone that would reply like "Oh, I didn't know that!" it is not really "new", since it is more than two years old. And I guess that MSFN.org has not the ambition to hold ALL information ever published on Microsoft Corporation and its (supposedly bad) behaviours. jaclaz

This seems more like a filesystem problem. Can you describe IN DETAIL: How you originally created and/or encrypted a file? Were the files moved from a system to another? If yes, which was the filesystem on the original PC, which one is on the actual one, how did you transfer the files? Are you running with Administrator privileges? Please add any other detail on the "history" of these files that you can remember. jaclaz

Cannot say where did you get this information. With grub4dos you can make a double boot (XP installation + Linux) allright, as well as a BartPE+Linux. jaclaz

@emadhamdy2002 I see that your spell checker does not work very well , but an even worse problem seems to be your keyboard: it is evidently missing a few keys. Here: . (full stop or period) , (comma) ; (semicolon) ; (colon) ? (question mark) ! (exclamation mark) Please feel free to copy and paste them generously between words , it is called "punctuation": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation and, besides helping people better understand what you write, it is a form of politeness towards other members. jaclaz

Of course you are sure that the password is correct, aren't you? I don't think there has been any change in the encryotion between the two versions, is it possible that the file is somehow corrupted? You can have a try with openoffice.org, it can open Excel 2003 password allright: http://documentation.openoffice.org/online...protection.html You might want to use a "Portable build": http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable So that you don't need installing it to try it. jaclaz

Just as an appendix to my previous post about the problems with the NT/2K/XP floppy driver, I recently found this nice thingie: http://alter.org.ua/en/soft/win/floppy/ an alternate Floppy Disk driver that allows for the 1.76 Mb format. jaclaz

First result in Google for "imagecfg": http://www.robpol86.com/Pages/imagecfg.php jaclaz

evanhoe, if you type D and press [Enter] key, you are telling DOS to execute the "D" command (which does not exist) if you type D: that's D followed by colon, and press the [ENTER] key, you are telling DOS to change to the D: drive. Drives in DOS are NOT A,B,C,D but rather A:, B:, C:, D: That's why I suggested you read a bit on the two links I gave you..... ...you see, to repair a car you need, besides reading a manual and listening to hints and tricks by friends, some basic knowledge, you'll have to know that screws (generally) tighten when turned clockwise, and you must be prepared to get your hands dirty... ...same things applies to PC's .... ...the alternative, of course, is to take the car (read PC) to the shop and exchange money for the knowledge you are missing... ...real problem comes when you are missing BOTH money and knowledge... jaclaz

Cytomax, are you aware of Murphy's Law? NO program, NO software, NO hardware can foresee the event of a break up. S.M.A.R.T only "looks" from time to time for some parameters, and if any is "strange", throws an alert. A perfectly sound (as seen by S.M.A.R.T. or ANY other technology) HD can fail a few milliseconds after the end of the scan. If you want to be safe, backup, if you value your data, backup, and yes, it has a cost. What you might be careful about would be the actual software and media you use to back-up. jaclaz

eidenk, do take a deep breath , and re-read the sentence. "It is not recommended" does not mean "impossible". It is perfectly possible to make up to 4 primary partitions on a disk, and if you use some particular MBR's you can even make MORE than 4 . The point is that a number of Operating Systems (particularly different versions of DOS and Win9x/ME) were developed and tested with the assumption that only one Primary Partitions in the MBR. Using these operating systems on multiple primary partitioned hard disks can lead, in particular occasions, to data corruption , unlless all partitions but one are "hidden" at boot time, that's the reason why it is "not recommended". Programmers of tools like the original MS FDISK evidently thought that to be so serious as to include in the tool a mechanism preventing the creation of more than one primary partition. Several other tools, including Freedos FDISK, do not have such a limitation. Please re-read this: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...mp;#entry463153 and linked posts therein, where the matter is discussed. jaclaz

I guess you mean: Don't you? jaclaz

Well, it works for me. Search on google for "ABC Amber Lotus Converter" jaclaz

Why don't you use isolinux or grub4dos: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=18657&hl= jaclaz

You are failing to specify exactly how the machine is partitioned/which filesystem(s) you are using, also which bootloader are you using for mandriva (possibly GRUB?). The idea should be that you install Mandriva first, putting Grub in the MBR, then you install windows 98 (overwriting the MBR), then you boot from the linux CD restoring the Grub MBR, then again you add an entry in the Grub menu.lst for Win98. Another possible option can be using grub4dos (that can boot directly IO.SYS) but it shouldn't be needed if the partitioning is correct. Finally make yourself a bootable CD with DOS on it, or get this: http://ebcd.pcministry.com/ if your floppy doesn't work. jaclaz

If you are interested in this kind of apps, you can find some more similar ones here: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16534 Particularly, nfgdump has full command line support and has some really nice features. jaclaz

It depends on the kind of application. Some will work allright once installed, some won't. For the first kind is a matter of "working around" the installer checks, for the second kind is either impossible (like missing .dll's, subsystem, whatever) or needing some "deep" modifying of the .exe. Check these: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=94003&hl= http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=62418&hl= jaclaz