jaclaz

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

Read here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=25365&hl= http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=52131 Most probably your original boot.ini got corrupted, or you installed the newish BOOTMGR from Vista overwriting NTLDR. Please post which of the two you are using and where they are installed. Can you post details on HOW your hard disks/partitions are set, example: Please post the exact steps you took while installing Vista. With those details it should be possible to help you. jaclaz

Yep, don't want to put you down, but the web is full of people starting "their own OS" and generally never going further than a bootloader and/or a flaky kernel. There are some really interesting projects under development that do welcome willing programmers, here are a few: REACTOS: [url="http://www.reactos.com/"]http://www.reactos.com/[/url] FREEDOS: [url="http://www.freedos.org/"]http://www.freedos.org/[/url] FREEDOS 32: [url="http://freedos-32.sourceforge.net/"]http://freedos-32.sourceforge.net/[/url] Personally I would use Qemu as an emulator, the newish Qemumanager works quite well, version 0.71 has added accelerators, it can handle RAW disks images, Qcow and VmWare ones: [url="http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/"]http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/[/url] [url="http://www.free.oszoo.org/"]http://www.free.oszoo.org/[/url] [url="http://www.davereyn.co.uk/qemu.htm"]http://www.davereyn.co.uk/qemu.htm[/url] jaclaz

for the hmth time: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...ndpost&p=364938 Sysynternals/Winternals NTFSDOS and Datapol NTFS4DOS are two different softwares, the first has a FREE READ ONLY version and a COMMERCIAL READ/WRITE version, the second is a FREE FOR PERSONAL USE READ/WRITE app. jaclaz

I am all for tweaking the last bit out of MS Operating Systems, but actually the real problem is the 32 Mb of memory. In my experience, the only thing that will be able to run on a 32 Mb system with acceptable speed will be a "lited" version of WIN98. The same Mr. Nienhuis, in the page linked above says as much: This is even more true in your case as laptop harddisks (swap memory) are, generally speaking, slower than desktop ones. My personal rule of thumb: standard Win95/lited 98 min 32 Mb, with 64 flies standard win 98 min 64 mb, with 128 rocks, anything more isn't really useful standard NT4.00 min 64 mb, with 128 rocks, anything more is welcome lited Win2k has same requirements of NT4.00 standard Win2k min 128, 256 is MUCH better, anything more is welcome lited winXP has same requirements of Win2k standard WinXP min 256, 512 is MUCH better, anything more is welcome PLEASE, don't flame me for this with posts like "HA!, I am running Server 2003 on a Pentium 133 with 16 Mb of memory, I just needed to make a few hacks!" I know that the above listed are NOT the minimum requirements, they are just what I found the minimum requirements for "acceptable speed". jaclaz

Yep, here on win2k got Windows key but not MS project 2002 one.(I haven't the full Office installed, I use OpenOffice.Org) Belarc advisor: http://www.belarc.com/ and Magical Jelly bean keyfinder: http://www.magicaljellybean.com/ http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml can both find it. @IcemanND Don't want to spoil the fun, but the latter works very well, it can print and save the info, though your code is much more compact, is it useful to have a YAAIATAEO (Yet Another App Identical To An Existing One)? jaclaz

You might want to have a look here: http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?t=391577 There are a couple of GOOD downloads linked there. jaclaz

You should check if the partition is NTFS or FAT32. Most tools capable of resizing an NTFS partition are Commercial, like Partition Magic, Acronis, or Paragon, the only exception I know of being NTFS resize (under Linux). Here is a nice and simple related page: http://www.linuxmigration.com/quickref/install/disk.html If it is FAT32 both fips: http://www.igd.fhg.de/~aschaefe/fips/ and the zeleps Partition resizer: http://www.columbianet.gr/~zeleps/ http://zeleps.com/ from a DOS diskette can work, as well as or parted: http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/manual/...ono/parted.html included in most if not all Linux Live CD distros NTFSresize: http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/ http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html (above link is down right now, use this cached page if you cannot reach it:) http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:UnS5foT...ntfsresize.html should be included as well in most live cd linux distros, relate to the above page for links, I can only suggest you, as it is a "one time only" use, a "small" one, like RIP: http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/ (23 Mb) if you have a CD-ROM burner or Partboot: http://www003.upp.so-net.ne.jp/tshiono/partboot-usb/ (two floppies) To create the floppies, I strongly suggest you to use this windows NT based FREEWARE utility: DCOPY NT 1.04 http://users.pandora.be/jbosman/applications.html I assume you have Winzip or another .gzip/.tar uncompressing utility, if not get 7zip (FREEWARE) here: http://www.7-zip.org/ jaclaz

You could also try a go with SIW: http://www3.sympatico.ca/gtopala/about_siw.html I find it a very detailed info program (FREEWARE). On windows 98 you might need to download and install WMI, see FAQ here: http://www3.sympatico.ca/gtopala/siw_faq.html jaclaz

Well, that could account for the bootpart.exe not working for you. You could try again using the "LBA" switch, if I am not mistaken, the limit of CHS addressing is 8 Gb. By the way, Gilles Vollant has released new version 2.60, with executables compiled for 64 bit processors and support for Vista new bootmanager (BootMGR instead of NTLDR): http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm jaclaz

How is the sandisk mini formatted? I hope NOT NTFS, is it? jaclaz

From the download page: http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/down.htm Yeah, sure, it's free for thirty days.... Later it is: http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/order.htm jaclaz

I did, as a matter of fact, I have both Firefox and Opera, on my machine Opera is faster. (the last character is a full stop) If you have any GOOD, TESTED links about how to tweak Firefox to make it faster than Opera, I would like to try them. I run at 1000 with my Via Epia, and it is not even a PIII, it's a VIA C3 jaclaz

Well, you might need to partially RE-WRITE your BIOS code ..... Read these: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=47773 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=37939 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=26185 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=47206 jaclaz

Read these: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=27296 http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=12326 Best solution is this one: http://www.lachiesadicristo.it/w98cd/page1.htm (now that Qualystem got its once FREEWARE method unavailable) jaclaz

Things are evolving, see here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=44048 jaclaz