jaclaz

Let's see if I get it right: you have a PC at home with two Hard disks, first one is connected on IDE1 as slave, second one is connected to IDE1 as master and it is removable. You take the 2nd disk at school and you boot from it. From which drive do you want to boot at home? The first? So you have two instances of Windows 2000 installed one on 1st and one on 2nd drive? And where are the programs stored/installed? How is EACH of the two drives partitioned? jaclaz

@prathapml Yep, that is correct, but unfortunately it's mostly theory, after you have had a few (totally unjustified) alarms, and the machines continue to run smoothly, you'll get the same attitude as car owners have about their alarm "The f***ing thing has started again!" and just either deactivate it or just ignore it! jaclaz

No, if you deploy the batch file, the file remains the same, but you have to execute it 115 times from 115 different computers. On the other hand, loading 115 times a hive to your registry, running the bat file, unloading the hive could be more work, but you do not move from your desktop. I would go for the first option, as it gives you a possibility, while you are actually sitting at one of the 115 to make any needed supplemental check. jaclaz

No, I don't think so, but I can't see why you can't deploy the .bat file and nircmd to each station and execute it locally. All in all it is just a matter to pack 'em in a self extracting file and send it across the net. Another way is to load the HIVE remotely from your PC woth regedit32 and execute it on your PC. jaclaz

Happy you solved your prob. jaclaz

...or you could use this nifty FREEWARE: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd2.html#using To people who already used NirComline, this Nircmd is the new version with MUCH more features. jaclaz

I am midway, I have some machines with onboard floppy drivers and some without. Best thing is to have an external USB one to attach when needed, i.e. bios updating, emergency boot, etc. jaclaz

Find here info needed: http://graphicssoft.about.com/library/extr...efaultfonts.htm http://support.microsoft.com:80/default.as...&NoWebContent=1 jaclaz

Good work Simonsays! Just to keep things together, posting a link to some info I already posted: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=27296 including some ways to make it a live cd. For the latter, best solution is the following: FREEWARE Qualystem Rescue 1.2 Free Edition http://www.qualystem.com/en/download.html The good thing about this method as compared to these ones: http://www.lachiesadicristo.it/w98cd/page1.htm http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/11/206/ is that Qualystem uses a file redirector so that you need a MUCH smaller RAMDISK, as only the registry is loaded there. With a 5,35 or 4,38 windows you can't do much, however, I am making some tests, and to have a fairly usable system, with network and printer support including Opera browser and a few small "office-like" apps like Atlantis Ocean Mind, Spread32, Foxit PDF reader, etc, size requirements get much more demanding. Results so far: NUDE 98 about 5 Mb (you cannot do much with this) MINIMAL 98 about 13 MB (32 bit and devices work) WORKING 98 about 40 MB (everything works as expected, no internet) OPTIMUM 98 about 55 MB (includes browser, office apps) jaclaz

Actually the discussion is open, here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=25471&hl jaclaz

The prob here is what type of partition they are. The C : letter corresponds to First Primary Active Partition. It is not recommended to have more than one Primary partition. From what you posted it is likely that you are set like this: C : Primary Partition Big extended partition containing these logical Volumes: D: E: F: If the above is true, you can just reinstall XP on C: (there must be enough space, of course) You must NOT delete any partition, if the drive is set as above, you actually boot from C: where reside Boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM, then the boot.ini points to the F: volume. jaclaz

All current links already posted here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=27296 jaclaz

... but it won't work. Values in your "D:" registry will point to "D:" even after it is copied on "C:"! Moreover, if you boot to "C:" and try to overwrite System files with the ones in "D:" you'll get file access error! The "best" way is to reinstall 98 SE from scratch. There are other ways, but frankly, they are much complex, and it simply it isn't worth the trouble. jaclaz

Go here: http://www.oehelp.com/ Everything you ever wanted to ask about Outlook Express..... and some free OE backup software and howtos. jaclaz

If you really want to format your HD, just download (if you do not have one) a Windows 98 Boot floppy image, make the floppy, set your BIOS to boot from floppy, boot and a the c:> prompt type format c: and press [Enter]. Just make a Google search for "bootdisk" and will find plenty of links. WARNING: BEFORE formatting a drive one MUST: 1) BACKUP DATA 2) BACKUP DATA AGAIN (let's play safe and have two copies) 3) DOUBLE CHECK you have ALL the following: a) operating system bootable install CD b) all needed drivers c) all needed programs, including their registration info d) a PRINTED copy of ALL login/passwords (your ISP, e-mail account, etc.) e) a PRINTED copy of ALL network settings (IP, DNS, etc) REMEMBER, YOU WILL DELETE EVERYTHING! jaclaz

@likuidkewl I don't want to seem a teacher, but from your post it seems like you make some confusion between Operating System and File system.A file system is just a "convention" about how data should be stored on various memory devices. More properly, a file system is a protocol about storing data, to access this protocol, an Operating System needs an interpreter, i.e. in this case a "filesystem driver". You assign a filesystem to a drive when you format it, i.e. you give it the structure according to the chosen protocol. Filesystem drivers are divided in two classes: -NATIVE ones (build in) -ADDONS (external) DOS up to 6.22 has just two native filesystem drivers: FAT12 (floppies) and FAT16 (Hard disks and the like) Windows 95 1st edition has the same filesystem drivers. Windows NT 3.51 and 4.00 have the same as above + NTFS (v4) Windows 95 OEM2, Windows 98 (1st and SE) and Windows Millennium have the same as DOS + FAT32 Windows 2000, XP, 2003, BartPE and WinPE have the same as above + NTFS (v5) (not backward compatible with NTFS v4 and partially supported by Windows NT Service Pack 3+) Excluding FAT12 (for size problems), any Operating System can be installed on any filesystem supported by self NATIVE filesystem drivers, and can access any other NATIVE filesystem. NTFSDOS is an ADDON filesystem driver, this means that you cannot install DOS on a NTFS filesystem, as it cannot read data BEFORE loading the ADDON. There is (or better was) a similar driver for Windows NT 4.00 which gave access to FAT32 volumes, again you cannot install NT on a FAT32 partition. There is (or better was) a similar driver for Windows 98 which gave access to NTFS volumes, again you cannot install 98 on a NTFS partition. There are drivers for all windows to access EXT2 partitions (a LINUX filesystem), and for many others. The boot problem in previous posts depends on the way the motherboard BIOS deals with USB Memory Sticks, there is no reason (theoretically) on why a system can boot a "drive" if formatted as FAT16 and cannot boot another one formatted FAT32 or NTFS (or any other filesystem provided its driver is NATIVE to the OS), unless BIOS programmers made some "shotcuts" in the BIOS routine that handles the device. A proof of this is that this guy here has succeeded in booting linux from an EXT2 formatted USB stick: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWT...mory-HOWTO.html From here: http://www.marlow.dk/site.php/tech/usbkeys So if you can (i.e. your motherboard supports) the "hardisk" format, and the USB stick is formatted accordingly, you can get a bootable USB stick with ANY filsystem, if it does not, you are stuck to FAT16. Hope the above clears the matter. jaclaz

...and that makes at least three of us! jaclaz

Because XP is NOT 98! If you had read the two links I previously posted, you would have seen that. If you have an original XP CD you can try to repair your system, boot from CD, then select the R (repair) option. Please find here a guide: http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm#How to Repair Windows XP by Installing Over top of Existing Setup: jaclaz

Sorry, I don't get it: 1) Your windows boots ONCE with modified LOGO, then on next boot restores original one? OR 2) Your windows NEVER boots with modified LOGO? The only setting that you can check is that in your MSDOS.SYS there IS a line LOGO=1 (see here for reference:http://www.mdgx.com/msdos.htm) jaclaz

In NT4/2K/XP/2003 the latest ERRORLEVEL generated is stored by system in variable called, guess what?, ERRORLEVEL, so that to log them you just need something along the lines of: ..... @ECHO OFF if exist %TEMP%\logfile.log del %TEMP%\logfile.log if not exist %TEMP%\logfile.log ECHO [Logfile start] > %TEMP%\logfile.log :doing_SOMETHING DIR C:\ ::this ^ is the SOMETHING action Echo DONE SOMETHING RESULTING ERRORLEVEL IS %ERRORLEVEL% >> %TEMP%\logfile.log ...... See here for more info and details: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/errorlevel.html jaclaz

Mine is not a batch file, but rather a state of mind... You download the file, furd19u_i.zip, extract/copy XMSDSK.exe and you just put this line in autoexec.bat: XMSDSK R: 20000 /Y Creates a 20mb RAMDISK as Drive R Then a line: PATH=R:\; Sets the PATH to use the RAMDISK. Than you change all %RAMD% with R jaclaz

Much better to install win2k as multiboot on D : drive. You sure about the MB? Could not find anything for the P3 /370-VP, only for the Commate P3/370A-VP, here: http://drivers.softonic.com/ie/4452/Commate_P3_370A-VP and new bios here: http://www.zdnet.de/treiber/man_prod/comma...rd-bios-wc.html jaclaz

Most probably your image is not in the right format: 320x400 pixels B x H 256 colours Bitmap format it MUST be called LOGO.SYS it MUST be in C:\ NOT in C:\WINDOWS\ To check if there is another problem, download a known working image, such as this one: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/cheryl.day/files/bootlogo.zip and try it, if it works, then it is your image that does not conform to the above. jaclaz

Correct. They won't if you tell them the TRUTH (that you have changed the motherboard with a different one). Or at least the above has happened twice to my friends, maybe they were not smart enough, or the MS guys on the other side of the phone were the wrong ones? jaclaz

It' just a guess, but since Task scheduler depends on RPC, you might need to start RPC with the other credentials, and probably doing this will give you other errors in the other services that depend on RPC. Another possibility as Task scheduler runs through svchost.exe, other instances with different credentials give the error. See here for service config: http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm These can help? http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/archive/2004/06/23.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techi...nt/seclogon.asp http://support.microsoft.com/?id=285879 I do not know if it could work, but you can give a try to these programs: http://www.beyondlogic.org/consulting/proc...processutil.htm http://www.stefan-kuhr.de/supsu/main.php3 first one to see what's hapening, secomd one to try another method. jaclaz