jaclaz

Win9x is NOT an Operating System by it's own, the particular type of DOS you boot into (i.e. Dos 7.x) is PART of the Win9x OS. The ONLY way to boot an NT based system (NT/XP/2003) is throught the process described in the above given link and here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=33030 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=25350 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=26185 To sum up things: DOS BASED SYSTEMS (DOS6.22/Win95/Win98/WinME) Have a bootsector that directly calls these files: Command.com Msdos.sys Io.sys Msdos.sys and Io.sys must be AT THE BEGINNING of the FIRST ACTIVE partition of the FIRST harddisk AFTER having booted to PURE DOS, control can be given to the Win9x graphical inteface, either automatically or by typing WIN at the command prompt. NT BASED SYSTEMS (NT/XP/2003) + BartPE/WinPE : Have a bootsector that calls: 1) the file Boot.ini 2) depending on the contents of boot.ini and of the (eventual) choice of the user, control is passed to either: 3a) the NT boot files, NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM (and if you have a SCSI HD NTBOOTDD.SYS) These files MUST reside on the FIRST ACTIVE partition of the FIRST hard disk OR 3b) a bootsector of another filesystem, such as the one for DOS BASED SYSTEMS OR 3c) a secondstage bootloader, like Linux's LILO or BEOS bootmanager You CANNOT load an Operating System (boot) and THEN pass control to another one! jaclaz

The above link is for DOS, and it is not related to actually booting. If the BIOS supports booting from USB, then you can boot from it, if it does not, you don't! Have a look at this thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=26612&hl= Xp booting is the SAME process as PE booting. jaclaz

You are looking for this: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=91 more precisely this: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=33936&hl= and referred link: http://www.mdgx.com/98-5.htm#KRM9S jaclaz

Set (if not already so) explorer to show hidden files. In the root driectory of your C: drive you'll find a file called boot.ini. Usually it is read only, change it to read/write, then open it in notepad. You'll find something like: Edit it so that Timeout = 0 (the default operating system will load with 0 seconds delay) make sure that Deafult equals to the OS you wish to boot) jaclaz

If a virus (or whatever else) overwrites track 0 it will delete:Master Boot Record, which contains: 1) Boot Record 2) Partition Table In the case I was describing, the actual Partition Table of an Extended volume is NOT there, so that it cannot be wiped and it is easy to recover. No you would lose just the partition info. All the discussion above applies to a drive that holds MULTIPLE PARTITIONS, if you want to make just one partition on the drive it DOES NOT matter whether it is logical or not. Should havoc happen (Track 0 overwritten) you would just need a Partition Editor like Ranish's one: www.ranish.com/part and manually write a new partition table starting at Cyl 0 Side 1 Sect 1 and ending at Cyl (last Cylinder) Side (last side) Sector (last sector). jaclaz

Actually, from a purely statistical point of view, logical partitions (logical volumes inside Extended partition) are safer. In the MBR (Master Boot Record) of each DRIVE there is space for just FOUR partition ENTRIES. Of those entries, only one can be relative to an Extended LOGICAL VOLUME. The other 3 entries can be primary. A few Operating Systems, including DOS, complained about multiple Primary Partitions FORMATTED WITH A KNOWN FILESYSTEM. It is perfectly safe to have a partition table like this: 1) Primary Active FAT16 (with DOS) 2) Primary NTFS (dos cannot read it) 3) Primary FAT32 (dos cannot read it) 4) Extended As said before, the entry for the Extended one does not point to an actual partition, but to a LOGICAL CONTAINER, inside which you can make as many logical partitions you need. To make it more clear, the difference in the entries is this: 1) the entry relative to Primary partition is the actual start address of the partition 2) the entry relative to Extended partition is the start address of the logical container; at the said address are stored the start addresses of the logical partitions within the Extended partition So the actual partition tables of logical partitions are NOT stored on track 0 of the HD. If you get a "dumb" virus, it will probably try to wipe the first "n" sectors of your HD, you will lose info on WHERE the logical volume starts, but NOT the info on the LOGICAL PARTITIONS. There are tens of freeware tools that can let you find the info that was wiped, whilst finding the actual partition info is a bit more difficult. The same thing applies if you make a mistake editing directly the MBR. And even from a statistical point of view, track 0 of the HD has numberless more accesses in a HD lifetime that track "nn" (where logical volume starts) so it is highly probable that a misreading can happen more likely on track 0 that on any other track. I hope that the above is clear enough, sometimes trying to explain things I make it worse. jaclaz

nil, sorry but that part of the EULA: is part of the OEM EULA only, it means that you cannot buy the Operating System if not "bundled" with a new PC. jaclaz

Perhaps you could try 7zip: http://www.7-zip.org/ FREEWARE jaclaz

cvgeldern, sorry, I misunderstood your step #2, I read it like Option 'create dos startup disk' COMMA 'quick format' OFF I thought that 'create dos startup disk' was ON! If you had it off, you DID not have: 1) the partition ACTIVE 2) the DOS boot record written to the partition i.e. no booting info at all! If you don't want to reformat with the 'create dos startup disk' enabled, you need to use a partition utility to make sure the partition on the stick is: 1) primary 2) active You can then boot from a DOS floppy, use SYS to copy the dos system files to the stick and get back at (after step2) in my previous post. Sorry for the misunderstanding. jaclaz P.S.: Have a look at my post in this thread http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=33030 (and linked other posts) for a simple explanation on how NT based osses boot, including the boot.ini part

If you did EXACTLY the above, you have a boot record that tries to load the DOS COMMAND.COM and you miss the boot.ini file. You can do it again, this time: after step 1, copy to the USB stick BOOTPART, which you can find here: http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm after step 2, reboot and see if it boots to the DOS now on the USB stick. If yes, reboot normally. -copy the files as in steps 3 to 8 WITHOUT deleting the DOS files and/or bootpart. - reboot to the DOS on the USB stick - use BOOTPART to fix boot record AND generate BOOT.ini (read the info on BOOTPART help txt file as you were trying to dual-boot DOS and Windows NT) - try re-booting from the USB stick - if ok, you can now delete the DOS files on the stick and remove the boot. ini DOS entry (if really needed, personally I would leave it there and add NTFS4DOS for recovery purposes) (or you can format it NTFS as suggested above) jaclaz P.S. the direct link muevelonyc gave is for SP27213, the one for the updated version SP27608 is this: http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hp...load/21284.html PLEASE NOTE HOW HP, to simplify things always give a page name that is similar(but different) from the actual SP you are looking for!

Yep, this is quite the #1 reason why you should not by PC that come with recovery disks instead that "normal" OS.Some ideas: 1) just get the data you need off it by putting the HD as slave on a working system 2) try deleting and replace the files that give you error by the same method (of course you need an XP cd later as suggested by chunkdog to install OS) A note: Presario had problems with XP SP1: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...b;en-us;Q329450 However, first thing is what is suggested here: found here: http://forums.devhardware.com/archive/t-7537 jaclaz

I have found 3 of them: sp27213 HP Windows Format Utility for USB Drive Key or DiskOnKey sp27214 DOS-based Format Utility for HP Drive Key or DiskOnKey USB Device sp27608 Windows-based Format Utility for HP Drive Key or DiskOnKey USB Device (substitutes 27213) Just make a google search for sp27xxx where x is the number and you will find the hp page for download. Dell has a utility to make their keys bootable. R69131.EXE ftp://ftp.dell.com/rmsd/R69131.exe There is another one from hp called cp004916 that includes syslinux. And yet another one apparently from Smart Modular, known to be Lexar compatible, called usb_memory_boot_setup.exe (just google for the filename) jaclaz

Sorry, I really cannot understand what you are meaning. Could you please post a description of what you want to achieve, possibly using shorter sentences and better explaining ? jaclaz

I am not quite sure to understand what you are asking. Actually latest versions of Nero let you burn CD as Hard Drive Images instead of Floppy Disk Images. However there will always be a kind of emulation, as Ms_dos don't have native CDFS reading capabilities. The only difference will be that the "drive" on which Io.sys, Msdos.sys and command.com reside will be C: instead of A: The same thing can be achieved by using a LARGE Image, with BCDW/CDshell, see here: http://severinterrier.free.fr/Boot/ImgBoot/ The other possibility is to use memdisk/syslinux: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/...pcord/beta8h01/ jaclaz

Sorry, I didn't get it. Let me summarize it: you have a new belkin USB 2.0 card fitted to your system (something like this one: http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage...oduct_Id=122771 ) you installed the Windows 98 drivers for it you connected the external 80 Gb USB drive by means of an USB cable to the new card socket you cannot see the USB drive from My Computer You can try the following steps: 1) Check the drive and cable on a friend's computer 2) Check the card in your PC by attaching another USB device to it 3) Check in Device Manager there are no devices with exclamaton or question mark 4) Try disabling (from BIOS) your internal USB 5) Try removing the card and putting it on ANOTHER PCI slot (I know it sounds crazy, but often it works) 6) Try removing from Device Manager all USB related entries, then re-boot, it should auto detect the devices and ask you for drivers 7) Check in your autoexec.bat that you DO NOT have a line like: LASTDRIVE=D if you have it, edit it to LASTDRIVE=Z That's about all that comes to my mind. jaclaz

The problem is HARDWARE (not within Windows 98). Your new Hard disk has (internally) an USB 2.0 interface Your (elder) PC has an USB 1.0 interface card USB 2.0 is COMPATIBLE with USB 1.0, the only fact is that the Hard disk, though capable of working at USB 2.0 SPEED, will slow transfer down to USB 1.0 speed. USB 2.0 (High Speed USB) Max transfer speed:480Mbits/second USB 1.0 Max transfer speed:12Mbits/second. Nothing you can do unless buying a new add-on USB 2.0 card and install it inside your PC. See here: http://www.everythingusb.com/usb2/faq.htm jaclaz

With WINdows 98 there was a way: Cannot say if it applies to ME too. To install real mode cdrom drivers, see here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/190303/EN-US/ http://powerjoe.tripod.com/cdrom.html Again the above works in win98, check if you have a dosstart.bat, if not you might want to create it. Have a look here too: http://www.geocities.com/mfd4life_2000/ http://www.dewassoc.com/support/winme/real_dos.htm jaclaz

To clear things up a bit: The boot process of ANY NT based OS (NT/2K/XP/2003) Relies on three files: BOOT.INI NTLDR NTDETECT.COM (some scsi based machines will need a fourth file, NTBOOTDD.SYS) All files of successive versions work on previous ones, i.e 2K version will boot NT, 2003 version will boot XP, 2k and NT. Find info on the making of the boot diskette here: http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy33.htm There are some FREEWARE utilities to help you deal with the BOOT.INI editing, and much more: BOOTPART http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm EDITBINI http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html Windows Boot.INI C.U. (from GUI) http://www.dx21.com/SOFTWARE/Dx21/ViewItem...I=2&SI=2&OID=14 For the arcpath syntax used in boot.ini, see my post here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=25365 The boot.ini switches differ from release to release, a most complete guide is found here: http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/info/bootini.shtml jaclaz

I cannot say HOW MUCH this will help you, but here are some GOOD links: http://www.randyrants.com/sharpkeys/ http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/input/Scancode.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/input/w2kscan-map.mspx http://www.beginnersweb.nl/cursus/scancode_mapping.php http://panda.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu/~achapwes/PICmicro/keyboard/ http://www.windowsnetworking.com/kbase/Win...Numlockkey.html I remember fixing a similar prob some time ago with info from the above sites. Please post results. jaclaz

Yep, at least I thought the question was that one. The scope of having it on CD is to have for example: - a HD-less workstation - a boot-CD to be used by children (all changes are temporary as the registry is in a RAM disk) - a boot-CD for recovery purposes that "looks and feels" like the original install - just for fun AND because Microsoft said it COULD NOT be done (but they said the same about win98 and IE @pantapei You need some basic english if you want to follow the forums, and a slightly more than average knowledge of computers/operating systems, which you CANNOT have if you don't have the basic english knowledge (CATCH 22 - COMMA 22). I am sorry but I simply haven't the time to translate the links I gave you in italian. Italians active on the net all "publish " in english, including this guy here which made a very good tutorial: http://www.lachiesadicristo.it/ http://www.lachiesadicristo.it/w98cd/ However, if you get to the Qualystem site linked in my previous post and download the program, it is almost like a wizard that will guide you in making the bootable CD. You just have to follow it and answer a few questions. I am pretty sure you can find a friend that knows english enough for that. jaclaz

NO COMMENT jaclaz

Yes, but the problem will be that it won't be able to change anything. Everything, included the registry, will be read only. A more easy solution is download the freeware qualystem Qualystem? Rescue 1.2 Free Edition http://www.qualystem.com/en/download.html and/or use the politalk howto: http://www.geocities.com/politalk/ and have a look here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=28825 jaclaz

Yes, it seems like there has been some mess with it, see here: http://www.outpostfirewall.com/forum/archi...hp/t-11806.html Try with some results from a search for "outpostpro" "outpost" "agnitum" (without quotes) here: http://www.filesearching.com/ Go to Advanced search and tick box "Show filesize in bytes" and check for filedates, any file with date just preceding 13th October 2004 (referenced in post above linked) "could" be it. From the "various" way Mbytes are counted, the file you need should be 8220352 bytes, sometimes referred as 8,028 8,03 or 7,8M jaclaz

I don't think you can "uninstall" OE from Windows ME. But you could try to download latest updated files and update it, actually it re-installs it. However, go here: http://www.oehelp.com/ and follow links. Best resources on OE I could ever find. jaclaz

Here are the links to the English Datapol site: http://www.datapol.de/dpe/ http://www.datapol.de/dpe/freeware/index.html from Help file: jaclaz