jaclaz

If I get it right, you had put your 120GB on the new PC together with a Maxtor 40gb? Did you double check MASTER/SLAVE settings on the back of the drive? Was the 120 GB formatted as a big LOGICAL partition? Where from did you boot Xp? jaclaz

@XtremeMaC Thanks a bunch, man, I got it! jaclaz

I could make use of one. XtremeMaC, should I PM you? Thanks for sharing. jaclaz

This is a start: http://www.uh.edu/infotech/about_us/pi/Una...ed_Install.html However, read through the board messages about CD based Unattended setup, and just use the instructions found to build the files on HD rather than CD. You will need a floppy boot disk to initialize the process. jaclaz

@Alanoll An image is worth 1000 words: @fourte3n take it easy, mate, Alanoll is one of the most helping guys I EVER saw on ANY board. jaclaz

Does this help?: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_...Q_21031095.html jaclaz

@codeblue Yes, I have used Diskman, but for different purposes, (disk imaging and virtual disk making). And No, I think it does not support as per now NTFS directly, but that could be the lesser problem as there is the converting tool. As I see it, Godfatha is right, you need to boot in DOS or FREEDOS, run the batch file(s) needed to fdisk and format (here is a link to the FREEDOS fdisk, which appears to be scriptable: http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/), then invoke the windows setup. Another possibility is Ranish's Partition Manager: http://www.ranish.com/part/ Again, I use a lot the latter, but I have never tried to script it, most probably it can be done by the method seen above for fdisk or "echoing" characters into it. jaclaz

fdisk is "scriptable", up to a certain point, see this: (info found here: http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk/) and of course format can be invoked from batch. However it is risky, as you "play blind", an error in the handmade file and poof, nothing works! A much better solution is to use Diskman, which is completely scriptable: http://diskman.dyndns.org/ jaclaz

See my previous post here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=25365 jaclaz

Just open a command window and type: set path [Enter] this will show you the current value of PATH Then right click on My Computer, select advanced tab, then Environment variables, select under system variables PATH, see if the value is the same. If the change that has been made is permanent, the values should be the same. At this point edit the PATH line. If values are not the same it means that the prog you use/used changes the PATH somewhere else. jaclaz

Yes, actually it is the most common way to prepare a hard disk. Just boot from a DOS/WIN98 bootdisk and use FDISK AND FORMAT as you wish. Please note that there are limits depending on the size of the HD, the DOS 7.1 (the one that comes with Win98) works up to 64GB size, if I recall correctly. There is an updated version that works up to 128 Gb, I think. Get here the bootdisk and the new fdisk: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm You won't be able to format any partition as NTFS from the bootdisk, if you need that you must boot off the XP cd. Read here a how-to: http://www.perfectdrivers.com/howto/fdisk-format.html If you want/need to make sure all old data is gone, you will need a "WIPING" utility. Most probably there is one on your HD manufacturer website, or you could use these FREEWARE ones: http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/sdelete.shtml http://dban.sourceforge.net/ http://staff.washington.edu/jdlarios/autoclave/ jaclaz

Yes, as you probably have no subfolders in Z:\SETUP\95OS2\WIN95\ You could replace with COPY Z:\SETUP\95OS2\WIN95\*.* C:\CABS Please note that the trailing backslash after destination is unneeded. or, if you have subdirs, using XCOPY XCOPY Z:\SETUP\95OS2\WIN95\*.* C:\CABS\*.* /s I would add a /V switch (verify) jaclaz

There are a few progs to change the BIOS LOGO, but it's risky business, don't even think of changing BIOS CODE! A few links: http://deepthought.ena.si/logo/bios/howto.html http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl6178/bios/Bioslogo.html http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Chip/4378/ a simple Google search for "edit bios", "editing bios", "change bios logo" and the like will get you more results. This is aninteresting proggie if you really are into risking your PC motherboard/processor health: http://www.hasw.net/8rdavcore/ There also a few editors for videocard BIOS. jaclaz

You can format all drives/partitions EXCEPT FOR THE ONE WHERE THE OS RESIDES! For that one you must boot with another system, i.e. the boot cd. jaclaz

Just for the record: Uninterruptable Power Supply If your mains go down while converting a partition, you can be pretty sure that the result will be messed up! I know that nowadays power shortages are rare, but you never know, and sometimes, depending on the cabling where you live, it is enough, for example, that you have a building site near you that starts a big electrical compressor or whatever to send to your lines a power surge strong enough to fail the process. jaclaz

@Mhz Yes, you summed up what I wanted to say. The big difference is that different Dos/windows see only some kind of partitions, so ignores the one it doesn't know anything about, quick reminder: Dos and Windows 95 1st edition ->FAT16 only NT 3.51 and 4.00 -> FAT16 and NTFS (v4.00?) Windows 95 OEM2, 98 and ME ->FAT 16 and FAT32 Windows 2000/XP/2003 ->FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS(v.5.00?, automatically convert older v4.00 partitions to v.5.00 without asking the user) The rule of the thumb if you want/need more than one OS on the same machine,are the following: 1) always install operating system in the order of their age (older first) 2) avoid having more than one Primary partition on 1st hard drive, if possible, or use a Boot Manager to hide other Primary partitions, if the operating system can read it (i.e. if you have DOS on the 1st active Primary partition and you install NT on another primary partition on 1st Hard Disk, you have no problem if the latter is NTFS, as Dos cannot read it, if the latter is FAT 16, you could get problems) 3) avoid to have Primary partitions on 2nd, 3rd, etc. Hard Drives, or , better, make on them a small FAT 16 Partition and Hide it with a BootManager, for recovery purposes only. @big_gie Though it SHOULD be safe, it is always better to have a backup, though I know how it is difficult to make backups with these big drives and all the things we put in it. A "Safer" method, if you have roughly 1/3 of the HD free, is to : 1) Defrag the partition 2) Use Acronis to reduce partition size to a minimum 3) Use Acronis to make a new Logical partition in the thus freed space 4) Use Acronis to image the partition on the newly created Logical (images are compressed, if your original files are not all zipped or JPG, you probably will get 50% size) 5) Use Acronis to convert Primary partition to logical 6) If all went well delete the Logical Partition with the image I used Acronis quite a lot, and it never failed me, but Murphy's law is always around! P.S. If you do not have an UPS, don't even THINK of doing this! jaclaz

@crahak You are perfectly right in saying that choice.com is the most logical solution, and again you are right when you say that it is not possible to mimic the choice.com behaviour by batch commands only. Still, it is possible if you can use a small portion of VBScripting. The example I posted is, as said, a poorman's possibility, nothing more, it does work, you need to press Control+C to break the execution to be able to send the Yes or No. @Thauzar When you call the .bat the first time, you do so without passing parameters, so the I.1 and I.2 are just ignored. I.3 and I.4 are just messages to the user and can be changed. I.5 and I.6 are the interesting part, let us take I.5 for example: the command ECHO @%0 Y > Y.BAT does the following: 1) The echo sends everything until the > to the object on the right of the >, so it actually creates a file named Y.BAT and writes in it 2) the @ is just as hte Echo Off command 3) the %0, parameter 0, is the name of the batch file is executing, in this case YN 4) Y is the 1st parameter passed 5) So you are actually creating a batch file called y.bat that invokes your original batch (YN) passing the Y as 1st parameter. 6) When you input Y followed by enter, you execute this Y.BAT file, calling YN.BAT and feeding it with the Y, that this time is filtered by I.1, and so the result is going to the :Yes label. I.6 does the same for No. Hope the above is clear enough. One note, in using choice, you should make a trap to make sure that the user does not press a letter different from Y or N. A good example is here: http://www.ericphelps.com/batch/samples/sleep.txt jaclaz

To finalize the matter, here are other methods by Tino Salmi, NT/2000/XP only: http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/http2.html#cmdscript including a vbs one From ts@uwasa.fi Tue Aug 10 01:00:19 2004 Subject: 19) How can one build a delay / sleep / wait procedure for a script? Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 01:00:19 From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) @echo off setlocal enableextensions echo %time% call :ProcDelay 250 echo %time% goto :EOF :ProcDelay delayMSec_ setlocal enableextensions for /f "tokens=1-4 delims=:. " %%h in ("%time%") do set start_=%%h%%i%%j%%k :_procwaitloop for /f "tokens=1-4 delims=:. " %%h in ("%time%") do set now_=%%h%%i%%j%%k set /a diff_=%now_%-%start_% if %diff_% LSS %1 goto _procwaitloop endlocal & goto :EOF The output e.g: D:\TEST>cmdfaq 10:30:49.84 10:30:52.34 There is another, makeshift alternative, but it requires that the PC has TCP/P. For a two second delay one can try to ping oneself as follows @echo off ping -n 3 127.0.0.1>nul which would produce e.g. D:\TEST>cmdfaq 15:24:47.57 15:24:49.62 As you see, it is not dead accurate. Not that it is essential. Furthermore, you could have @echo off & setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion echo WScript.Sleep 1000 > %temp%\tmp$$$.vbs echo %time% cscript //nologo %temp%\tmp$$$.vbs echo %time% for %%f in (%temp%\tmp$$$.vbs) do if exist %%f del %%f endlocal & goto :EOF which would produce e.g. D:\TEST>cmdfaq 13:13:03.00 13:13:04.07 I tried a Google search for "timeout", but found the above searching for "delay".... jaclaz

I am sorry you take it like this: If you use choice.com, you have the delay built in in the command. The point was to have the result without having choice.com, the idea was to have this: @ECHO OFF IF "%1"=="Y" GOTO Yes IF "%1"=="N" GOTO No ECHO Yes or No? Press Y or N followed by the Enter key . . . ECHO DEFAULT ANSWER IN ABOUT 10 seconds will be YES.... ECHO @%0 Y > Y.BAT ECHO @%0 N > N.BAT ::The timing is non exact, the 10000 is roughly 10 seconds PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 10000 > NUL GOTO YES GOTO End :Yes ECHO. ECHO You answered Yes GOTO End :No ECHO You answered No :End if exist y.bat del y.bat if exist n.bat del n.bat If you try it, you will see that it works. As Rob puts it, you can use it in emergency only, but it is still a good example of batch "sideways" scripting. jaclaz

vann, it's really ok, maybe it's just me, but I felt like crahak's attitude wasn't that friendly, and just said so. No offence taken, but I think one has to say what he thinks. jaclaz

@crahak I do not want to argue, but in English is called "delayed execution of a command" If you think it is better to call it a timeout, do it, you are free, but don't go around teaching others. jaclaz

But did you edit: FINDCD.EXE AUTOEXEC.BAT CONFIG.SYS as per instructions here: http://flyakite.msfnhosting.com/98se.htm ? jaclaz

If you do not want to "spoil" your new M$ OS with older files, like choice.com, you could use this workaround, as found on Rob van der Woude excellent page: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/index.html @ECHO OFF IF "%1"=="Y" GOTO Yes IF "%1"=="N" GOTO No ECHO Yes or No? Press Y or N followed by the Enter key . . . ECHO @%0 Y > Y.BAT ECHO @%0 N > N.BAT GOTO End :Yes ECHO You answered Yes GOTO End :No ECHO You answered No :End but still you have the problem of waitibg 60 seconds, which can be done with this other PING trick: For any MS-DOS or Windows version wit a TCP/IP client, PING can be used to delay execution for a number of seconds. If specified (-w switch), PING will wait for a number of milliseconds between two PINGS before giving a time-out. PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 60000 >NUL will delay execution of the next command 60 seconds, provided 1.1.1.1 is not a valid IP address (I previously used -n 60 -w 1000 which should theoretically result in the same delay, but as Greg Hassler pointed out this may be highly inaccurate on some computers). found here: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/wait.html jaclaz

Could you post some more info on the files, i.e. structure of directories/subdirectories, extensions of files, attributes of files? Most probably the most efficient solution is to use a small batch file to generate a "listfile" to be feeded to WINRAR. jaclaz

yep, but you see, the problem is that you CANNOT run gdisk from within XP, so you can boot to the DOS partition, hide or unhide it, but next time you boot, if you have hidden it, you cannot SEE it! and if you setup the system as depicted above you won't even get to boot.ini, because it would reside on a hidden partition! That's why you need a bootmanager that can hide/unhide partitions BEFORE any Operating System is loaded. jaclaz