jaclaz

Actually there is something like that, it only applies to files, it is used widely in Microsoft distribution CDs, and implemented in their "internal use only" CDIMAGE. The purpose is, if you have the SAME file in ore than one directory, all occurrences of the file but one are sustituted by a link pointing to the remaining file. If I recall correctly, this feature is present in mkisofs windows port too: http://www.bootcd.us/Mkisofs_options.htm (you might need some search to find the full man page) Cannot say if this is what you are looking for, though. jaclaz

I am sure that it happens all the time to you as well, usually it goes like this with me: 1st Phone call: 2nd Phone call, (about 1 hour later): ....and a few more of this type. Usually when I finally get there, at least four people have rebooted in a way or another the PC, and (not necessarily in this order) defragged it, issued an fdisk /mbr command, ran Partition Magic to fix things up, tried reinstalling Windows and failed....etc. jaclaz

I would not be so pessimistic. Most modern BIOS have "bootblock" code, so they can be recovered, I would try that first, then hot-swap (as you need to find an identical motherboard). Amptron has made a nice simple howto that covers BOTH methods; you can find it here: http://www.amptron.com/ http://www.amptron.com/documents/Recover.pdf Read these also: http://www.amptron.com/html/bios-what.html http://www.amptron.com/html/bios.beepcodes.html http://www.amptron.com/html/Bios-recover.html http://www.amptron.com/html/utilities.html jaclaz

@arndt Have a look here: http://shell-shocked.org/article.php?id=284 Maybe a Symbolic link might work for you. jaclaz

Once the image has been mounted and assigned a drive letter, junction should work allright. You can try Ken Kato's VDK (see my post above) too. The problem is, if I am not mistaken, is that junctions ONLY work on the same volume. jaclaz

@bullet Yes, I actually was referring to horsecharles' one. As I see it, since the laptop has no USB, the solutions can be ANY of the suggested ones: 1) FASTER, but PRICEY: buy an HD adapter, mount the laptop HD on your workstation, transfer data. (horsecharles' and mine) 2) LONGER, but FREE: get a a network bootdisk find an appropriate driver connect through PCMCIA nic to network copy files to HD (bullet's one) 3) FAST, but QUITE PRICEY buy a PCMCIA CD-ROM, like this for example: http://www.psism.com/cde2440.htm (it does not need to be a SCSI PCMCIA + SCSI CD-ROM , which will be MORE expensive) Or, if you already own an external USB drive or CD rom, you can buy a PCMCIA USB adapter. (Astalavista's one) Jaclaz

Well, yes and no. If you have ENOUGH RAM (i.e. more than 256 Mbytes), you can set windows to run from a RAMdisk, like Franck Uberto's XMSDSK. People will be able to install, but all changes will be lost at reboot. Otherwise you can customize Qualystem solution: Qualystem? Rescue 1.2 Free Edition http://www.qualystem.com/en/download.html to achieve the same result using just the space needed by a copy of the Registry in the RAMdisk. jaclaz

The one you should need is smbios: http://www.techweb.com/winmag/fixes/2000/0825.htm Though I cannot say if it works under Bart, the 16 bit version works under 2000 and Xp, so it "should" work under Bart too. If you are interested in BIOS modding, a fairly good list of progs is here: http://www.icronticforums.com/showthread.php?t=507 jaclaz

Personally, I would use BootitNG: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ (COMMERCIAL) Or you could do it with freeware using a mix of XOSL http://www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm Bart's PE http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ DD for windows http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm jaclaz

Cannot say, I would check Power Supply first thing, next Memory. jaclaz

Yep, it is more or less the suggestion I posted here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=38194&hl= jaclaz

For RAW images, not ISO, I still prefer Ken Kato's VDK one: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=26216&hl= as it can be installed, started, stopped, etc. directly. As ken's is a derivative from Bo's Filedisk, I wonder if it can be "extended" to read ISO files too. @Bilou_Gateux I have updated the pseudo GUI for ken's VDK, you can find it at the above link. jaclaz

This could be another nice idea on how to use it: http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10705 (Saving a NTFS compressed "Programs" directory on CD to save space) jaclaz

Yes, and that's why I replied. THESE methods are FREE: http://www.etek.chalmers.se/~e8gus/nano98/ http://winimize.com/ http://scp.gmxhome.de/msdos71/ http://www.geocities.com/politalk/ http://www.lachiesadicristo.it/w98cd/page1.htm http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/11/206/ Qualystem Rescue 1.2 Free Edition http://www.qualystem.com/en/download.html Of course, if you are looking for a FREE, completely automated tool like nlite is, I am afraid there is none I know of, each of the above needs some "work". jaclaz

If you downloaded the GUI before this post, please re-download it. (Fixed a problem with eZMount of RAW disks) jaclaz

Have a look here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=32407&hl= http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=27296&hl= jaclaz

Yep, sure, so you need to install either a 8.3 Mb or 9.4 Mb downloaded exe instead of copying a small driver + exe (168Kb) and an optional GUI, cmd + exe + bmp (160 Kb) to any directory. Besides, this driver from Ken Kato can mount RAW images too (i.e. plain disk images, like the ones you can make with dd or winimage). And there is an already made plugin for PE builder. Well, on a physical disk a partition is either bootable (Active) or not. So if you make a partition Active for VMWare, next time you boot normally you will boot from that partition. So you need to either: 1) Make that bootable partition on your second harddisk or 2) Change the Active flag in the Partition table of the MBR of the disk BEFORE using VMWare and set it back AFTER having used it, BEFORE rebooting. (if by any reason you reboot, say because of a power shortage, you are stuck and will need a boot disk, floppy or CD to fix things) jaclaz

This one is very basic: http://www.acropad.com/index.htm The good thing is that it needs no install. jaclaz

I don't get it, from the page you linked to: and you come to MSFN to find it? jaclaz

As said here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=38292 I like Registrar Lite. jaclaz

VDM.CMD 0.95 Beta is out. Get it here: http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.n...ts/VDM/vdm.html Please test it and report any bug. FIXED BUGS: Now it can mount RAW images too Modified the way the command wrap works (now outputs to the CMD window) jaclaz

No, the problem I was talking about affects FileSystem, NOT single files. jaclaz

I posted here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=37572&hl= A couple of complete examples. jaclaz

As Micro$oft NEVER released ANY IN DEPTH details on the NTFS filesystem, the numbering is somewhat hectic. So what happens is this (the following is of course UNOFFICIAL, and just gathered around): Windows NT version 3.5 -> NTFS 1.1 Windows NT version 4.0 -> NTFS 1.2 (commonly called NTFS 4.0 after the OS release) Windows 2000 aka NT version 5.0 -> NTFS 3.0 (commonly called NTFS 5.0 after the OS release) Windows XP aka NT version 5.1 -> NTFS 3.1 (commonly called NTFS 5.1 after the OS release) See here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...B;EN-US;Q310749 http://www.windowsnetworking.com/kbase/Win...amIrunning.html The "best" move Microsoft made was when it gave away the free 120 days free trial of Windows 2000. LOTS of people which were running NT 4.0 without SP4 tried it, as a double boot option. First time Win2k runs converts all NTFS filesystems it finds from 1.2 to 3.0, WITHOUT ASKING FOR CONFIRMATION. The NT 4.0 drivers could not cope with it. And you could not install SP4 later as the old NTFS.SYS could not access data! Even after having the "right" NTFS.SYS, DEFRAG and CHKDSK won't work: http://www.executive.com/diskeeper/faqs/faqs.asp#rt1 Luckily enough, the good guys at Sysinternals wrote a small app to run CHKDSK on the new filesystem: http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfschk.shtml jaclaz

This http://www.bintow.com/SAA/ Seems like a very good work. Some more suggestions (registry/DLL tools): Findorphans (a PC MAG utility), used to be free download, now you have to subscribe, but it can be found here: http://www.filelibrary.com/Contents/Multi-...orm/105/29.html (it can be run without install, with minor probs) COA2 (same as above) http://htmole.altervista.org/info/coa2.htm OLECLEAN http://www.geocities.com/drdole/ScreenShots/OleClean.html http://members.dialmaine.com/drdole/Apps/Olecleanv1.5.zip SHOWDEP (discontinued, but works) http://www.showdep.com/index.html http://www.showdep.com/download/sd40b1.zip A small but useful simple PDF creating notepad like proggie: http://www.acropad.com/index.htm jaclaz