jaclaz

Though I am not an expert with WinPe, but maybe I can clarify some of the part related to bootpart. ANY partition, regardless if it is Primary or Logical, regardless if it is NTFS, FAT16 or FAT32, formatted under 2K/XP will have it's bootsector with the standard Microsoft code to load NTLDR. Once NTLDR has started, it reads BOOT.INI, where you can put two types of entries: 1) An arcpath to a Windows NT (NT here means NT/2K/XP/2003) install (i.e. something like multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\NTEXP="Windows 2000 PRO" /fastdetect) 2) A direct path to a copy of a RAW bootsector (i.e. something like C:\Bootsect.w98="Windows 98 Command Line" /win95) If used with entry of type 1) above, NTLDR will proceed booting the Windows NT files if used with an entry of type 2) above, NTLDR will work as a "chain" bootloader, giving full control to the RAW bootsector, just like it was the bootsector of the active partition. Bootpart was originally developed for people wanting to double boot NT and DOS 6.22, and evolved in the years. It can produce TWO kind of output files: 1) A standard bootsector: the syntax is following: bootpart <OS> <filename> Where OS can be (case insensitive): DOS622 MSDOS MS-DOS 6.22 I.D. MSDOS5.0 WIN95 Windows 95 I.D. MSWIN4.0 WIN95OSR2 WIN95SR2 WIN95OEMSR2 Windows 95 OEMSR2 I.D. MSWIN4.1 WIN98 WINME Windows 98 or Windows ME I.D. MSWIN4.1 NT WINNT WIN200 WIN2K WINXP Windows NT/2K/XP and 2003 VISTA WINVISTA Windows VISTA (BOOTMGR instead of NTLDR) OPENDOS OpenDos I.D. NWDOS7.0 (the "code" of the bootsector will change, but the "data" - like number of starting position of the partition, length, etc. - will be always the same, taken by your existing bootsector 2) A copy of a bootsector ALREADY on another partition: the syntax is following: bootpart <partition_number_as seen_by_bootpart> <filename> this will simply copy the bootsector of the selected partition to <filename> The same effect can be obtained by using a diskeditor, debug or dd. here is a link for debug: http://www.bcpl.net/~dbryan/ntfs-dual-boot.html (debug is already in the OS files) and here is one for dd: http://doc.rmplc.co.uk/linux/LDP/HOWTO/Lin...T-Loader-5.html (dd is already in ANY Linux distro, but there a few versions for windows too: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm If you add at the END of any of the two commands a string inside quotes, bootpart will add the entry to BOOT.INI. There is a section in the Winimage Forums dedicated to bootpart as well: http://forum.winimage.com/viewforum.php?f=1 where you can find many questions already answered. jaclaz

About service disabling, there used to be the blackviper site, (currently down), but you can find some of it here: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.blackviper.com jaclaz

Yep, sorry, I misread your original post. Check these: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article07-037 FLOPPY (OR ANY OTHER DRIVE) ACCESS ANNOYANCE! here: http://www.mdgx.com/newtip2.htm jaclaz

No, images are VERY "hardware dependant", the image you made of your actual laptop will be VERY good to put it back in case (for example) of a HD crash or filesystem corruption, but it will be of NO use on a different model/make (unless some VERY HEAVY tweaking is made on the image). jaclaz

In some BIOS there is a "DISABLE FLOPPY SEEK" option... jaclaz

For those "pesky" files, you could "convert them back": http://www.nicepdf.com/products.html http://www.coolpdf.com/products.html jaclaz P.S.: BOTH are portable apps, no install needed

There is also a "last resort" technique, really only useful to salvage data from a badly scratched CD, that will be thrown away afterwards. The real problem with scratches is the "sides" of them that "confuse" the reader, by polishng as detailed above, you flatten the scratch, but sometimes the scratch is so deep that it is impossible to do that, so there is this other way, FILL the scratch with a transparent material. Two candidates: 1) Car WAX 2) Car glass (windshield) silicon/teflon based spray coating Of course you need to WAIT until the product has completely dried off, BEFORE polishing the CD with a cloth and insering it in the drive. jaclaz

Yep, some toothpastes are good, not all of them though. Best product is BRASSO or similar polishing pastes, read here: http://www.burningissues.net/how_to/scratc...ratchrepair.htm jaclaz

A good, simple guide: http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives.htm (if you want/can reinstall) Otherwise you will need a thrd-party tool to resize your current partition, see here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=54991 jaclaz

Looky here: http://www.allbootdisks.com/index.php?opti...er&filecatid=88 pre-made ISOs and bootdisks Home: http://www.allbootdisks.com/frontpage/Itemid,1/ jaclaz

Yes I find that the problem is that technology is running on two different tracks, one (faster) is hard disk storage capacity (probably due to much greater requests), the other (slower) is backup media capacity. I remember a small period (in 1994 or 1995) where I had a bunch of Compaq workstations 486 DX66 running DOS+Win3.11 with a 500 Mb hard disk. I bought (at a very expensive price at the time) an external parallel CD burner, which was slow but held 650 Mb of data, the perfect, easy, 1:1 backup solutions. Users, each on a fixed day of the week, would "borrow" the burner and leave the PC on at night, imaging the entire disk on the CD. The morning after they gave back to me the burner and the burned CD. Simple, easy and effective. It lasted just a few months, next generation of HD was 1,2 or 2,1 Gb, I kept for a couple of years partitioning those drives in 650 Mb partitions, (the OS at the time was NT 4.00), but finally had to give up when drives crossed the 4 and 8 Gb size, DVD technology was at the beginning, and I had to go "back" to tapes, as said VERY unreliable. jaclaz

There are two files: winnt.exe is the 16 bit install winnt32.exe is the 32 bit install more info here: for win2k: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/win2k_cmdline_setup.asp for XP: http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/arti...0&seqNum=6&rl=1 jaclaz

Well, sorry if I made you doubt about your settings. As I said you have achieved a reasonably safe setup, but RAID technology is NOT 100% safe (btw NO techology is). RAID has been designed as an affordable, resonably priced way to hold data and TO QUICKLY rebuild the working system in case of some partial failure. It is not intended as a permanently safe storage solutions, not needing backups. As in RAID technology, redundancy is the word in backup business. The "theoretically" correct procedure is to have AT LEAST TWO (but three is of course safer) exact backup copies, each phisically located in different places, NOT rooms in the same building, actually in different buildings or, possibly in different cities.(backup media should be stored in "safety boxes" something definitely airtight, waterproof and reasonably fire resistant) Personally, I do not trust TAPE backups, or at least I have always been very unlucky, every single time I actually needed to access data on tape backups, usually very old data, say ten years old, either the tape, the cassette, the drive otìr the interface failed on me. Optical (CD or DVD) storage seem to be more reliable, though I cannot say how long the media would last, I have backup CD's from 1994 that still work, but you never know. Another point when backing up on optical media is the software you use, in my experience I had failures with "common" CD burning softwares, I am not at all connected to this (no advertising intended) but the ONLY software that in my experience gave me 100% valid copies was this "Accuburn": http://www.infinadyne.com/accuburn-r.html http://www.infinadyne.com/accuburn-rtech.html it is slower than other software discs made with it hold a little less data (probably due to some additional error checking or checksums), but if the write for whatever reason fails, you know it. About the media, I did not found, again in my limited experience, any problem in different brands. I never used double layered DVD's as, at least when they came out, there were some concerns about their reliability, as compared to single layer ones. Unfortunately the amount of data you have is impressive, so that any solution will cost much money (and time) with media available today. In a very near future there are two emerging technologies: 1) blue-ray discs, said to hold as much as 200 GB each or the HD-DVD (seems very much like the old VHS vs. Betamax battle) - as this high capacity involves multi-layers, there could be the same reliability concerns hinted before. 2) Holographic memory, it is due to be released by late 2006, which means that probably will become affordable/reliable not before 2nd half 2007, but having something like this: http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_...0050608/105586/ would be VERY nice! Hope I did not worsen again your mood, fishing should help... ....if you catch some of those little sneaky swimming bastards, of course. jaclaz

I don't want to cross-post, but maybe here it has better visibility than in "Windows PE" section: Kaare Smith has released an updated version of MBRFIX I have released the updated pseudo GUI. MBRFIX is a freeware program to read/write/fix Master Boot Record on hard disks, not unlike the Microsoft FIXMBR (that only works when booting from Recovery Console in XP and 2003) My pseudo GUI is just a windows interface, for those can don't like using keyboard too much. Find them here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=30378&st=30 jaclaz

Ok, here (attached) is the updated Pseudo-GUI. You will need, apart from the files in the attachment, the program from Kaare: http://www.sysint.no/Nedlasting/MbrFix.zip And the Wizard's Apprentice WIZAPP.EXE: http://wizapp.sourceforge.net/ Copy all files to the same directory, rename mbrfix.txt to mbrfix.cmd and double click on it. A mirror of my pseudo-GUI file is here: http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.n...X/mbrfix0.2.zip Let me know if you find any bugs/problems. jaclaz mbrfix0.2.zip

Some VBS code is here: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_...Q_20832633.html jaclaz

@IcemanND Following my PM, I also found this: http://www.elcomsoft.com/help/pspr/index.h...indowscdkey.htm The ELCOMSOFT guy, says that: judging from the quality of his software, I tend to believe him rather than the "it is differently encrypted in the registry" version. .....but the other "good guy" from nirsoft seems to have made it: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html Anyone with Office 2000 installed willing to try it? jaclaz

There is the FREEWARE CDcheck, but it will only recover (partial) data, so that you will need some other utility to get some images from the recovered data: http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/ Same thing apply to this Linux one: http://www.vanheusden.com/recoverdm/ The only four things I can suggest are: 1) Always use a CD/DVD burner, NOT a reader for data extraction 2) Use, if possible, an elder burner, that will try to access the disc at lower speed 3) Traditionally, and don't ask me why, elder SCSI burners are better than ATA ones. 4) Sometimes BRASSO can make miracles: http://www.burningissues.net/how_to/scratc...ratchrepair.htm jaclaz

Exactly, by using the /YES switch the FDISK /MBR is replicated. The only difference is that the MBR code on win9x/ME (FDISK) system is slightly different from the Win2k/XP/2003 (MBRFIX) one. jaclaz

@circumflatulator Yes, I think you have done the most you can do to have data safe in a fairly economic manner. The only thing on which I somewhat disagree is the following: I don't know the exact procedure of "guessing" (as it cannot be defined differently) MTBF, but technology in last years, as I see it, has proceeded in various directions, let's see the + and -+ Hard drive bearings have improved + Hard drive motors have bettered (lower consumption) - Magnetic density has increased by a ten times multiplier, meaning that "tracks" are more than ten times closer that they were a few years ago, which calls for ten times better precision in driving heads movements - Rotation speed has increased, posing BIG problems in heating (I remember when hard drives were just slightly warm after working many hours/days) and in head "flying" over the platter surfaces, (this is just a guess on my part, but designing and manufacturing a head arm capable of being supported at a fraction of a millimeter over a platter rotating at 10,000 RPM and NOT landing during spinups/spindowns it's probably more difficult than a head for 4,200 RPM) So my personal idea is that on "newish" big, fast drives even a fraction of the inevitable wear of mechanical parts will lead to a failure, whilst on "elder" smaller slower ones the same amount of wear is still inside the design tolerances. Well, only time will tell.... @kurt476 NO other type of drive is faster than "fast" SCSI ones, this is mainly due to the higher rotation speeds and the fact that the SCSI interface having it's own processor, adds a very negligible overhead on the main system's one. See this comparison: http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles.php?id=19 The gap is narrowing, but it's still there, the real problem is whether the much higher costs are justified. Besides there is the point of reliability, usually SATA drives come with a 1 year warranty, see here: http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers...answers.html#1c the same manufacturer, on SCSI drives:http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers...answers.html#4c As warranty is a cost for the manufacturer, if he gives a three times lasting warranty on a MORE EXPENSIVE product, it either means that you are paying the extra cost in the purchase price, or that the product is "roughly" three times more reliable, even if the above are two "half truths", SCSI comes out as "probably" 1,5 times more reliable than SATA. (but Maxtor, to name one, has more or less the same warranty periods for both: http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/m...anty%20Periods) So maybe I am wrong and MTBF is really increased, still I have noticed (from friends and forums) that hard drive failure seems to be quite a common occurrence, which was not just a few years ago. jaclaz

Thanks again kaares, nice job. Just for quick reference: Items in RED are the new commands. Please, do not think I am "picky", but maybe : should really be: jaclaz

It is unfortunately normal, it is the so-called "RAID5 write penalty"see here where it is expalined: https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list...r/msg01731.html jaclaz

You pass the label as a parameter: BATCH1.CMD: @ECHO OFF CALL BATCH2.CMD 1stLABEL pause CALL BATCH2.CMD 2ndLABEL :END BATCH2.CMD @ECHO OFF ::Following line checks for the parameter passed when calling the file, if it is not ::passed by the calling (batch or command) it ends programs IF %1.==. GOTO :END GOTO %1 :1stLABEL ECHO This is 1stLABEL PAUSE GOTO :END :2ndLABEL ECHO This is 2ndLABEL PAUSE GOTO :END :END ECHO This is END of BATCH2.CMD PAUSE jaclaz

It should be this: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Registration\{913A0410-6000-11D3-8CFE-0050048383C9} DigitalProductID jaclaz

Yes, it is perfectly possible. Here is a fairly simple guide: http://thpc.info/dualboot.html You can have as many operating system as you want in the NTLDR boot menu, there are some precautions to be made, and in some cases you need additional utilities, if multi-booting Operating Systems of the same "family" i.e DOS/WIN9x/ME or NT/Win2k/XP/2003, on the same partition, more notably choosing the filesystem and the "common" paths/files that you may have "shared" by two operating systems. Doing it on different partitions is even documented by Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/s.../multiboot.mspx To achieve the same thing on the same partition, in your case of 98+XP+2003, the partition MUST be FAT32 (for win98, and a FAT16 partition, apart from taking a lot of unused space would be too little for the three of them) and one of either XP or Server 2003 must be installed in "Unattended mode" so that you can change the default settings, such as "Documents and settings", "Programs", etc. jaclaz