jaclaz

My two cents: 1) I have never seen, either heard of a "copy protected" Win 98 CD, and I've seen quite a few of them 2) Most probably it is a "mechanical" problem, like misalignment of laser or whatever. 3) Try this proggy (freeware): CDCHECK CDCheck is a utility for the prevention, detection and recovery of damaged files on CD-ROMs with an emphasis on error detection. With CDCheck you can check your CDs and discover which files are corrupted. By using the program proactively, you can insure that your data on CD-ROMs are safe -- before it's too late! CDCheck provides the following features: readability verification, binary compare, CRC file creation (and verification) and file recovery. http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/ It will tell you what the actual problem is, most probably will let you copy the tricky files, if not post again with results from CDCHECK and we'll see what we can do to help you further. jaclaz P.S. @DisabledTrucker The command above will left behind (if any) all hidden files (/h missing), and will reset the Read only file attribute (/k missing), try this instead: copy32 [cdrom]:\*.* C:\WIN98SE\*.* /i /s /e /r /v /k /f /c /h Note: Xcopy is just a redirection to XCOPY32 /s and /e could be condensed in just /e, but as Nick Rage put it, We even made it easy to remember.. I SERVe Kentucky Fried Chicken Hot!

also, you could try these: RegCmd 0.87a Author: TiANWEi Date: 2004-03-16 Size: 25 Kb License: Freeware Regcmd is a command line based Windows Registry Editor, brought to you by the author of RegShot. http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3423.html RegShot 1.61e5 Final Author: TiANWEi Date: 2003-01-01 Size: 35 Kb License: Freeware RegShot is a small registry compare utility that allows you to quickly take a snapshot of your registry and then compare it with a second one - done after doing system changes or installing a new software product. The changes report can be produced in text or HTML format and contains a list of all modifications that have taken place between snapshot1 and snapshot2. In addition, you can also specify folders (with sub filders) to be scanned for changes as well. What can I do with REGSHOT? - Windows itself or some system-optimize program may change your registry,you might wonder what they have done? - Many suspicious programs left trashes in your registry or in the file system,all those are done without notification! RegShot can trace what they have done and clean the Mark they left! You can use UNDOReg to help undo the entries. http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=965 jaclaz

I might add, you might want to change some settings in the registry. As a matter of fact, what found here: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winlogo/drvsign/wfp.mspx Means in plain english, that WFP does: 1. Search the dllcache directory. 2.&3. Search the original file in the location specified in this registry key, it can be CD, local Hard disk, network Hard disk: KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\SourcePath HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\ServicePackSourcePath HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SourcePath (info above gathered from this German only Microsoft kb article: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...b%3Bde%3BD43422 of which I found an english translation, here: http://www.lermanet.com/cisar/survey/bm.htm?FACTNet (well, know I know that I Executive Software finds out I have been cruel to others I will not be able to defrag my hard disk anymore!) So, you should make a backup and delete those keys. I don't know if you reinsert at any time your install CD, if Windows SFC will be able to gather it is the install one and will try again to copy over protected files. jaclaz

Amazing! Try using the help feature, entering any search topic ..... ..lol... I really needed this! jaclaz

diesel_98a Just a few ideas: 1) if you install W98 before XP, why don't you run WINNT32 from it? 2) as I mentioned somewhere else Qualystem has released as FREEWARE their solutions to run W98 from CD Qualystem? Rescue 1.2 Free Edition http://www.qualystem.com/en/download.html you can make a W98 based "pre-installation environment", it could be, combined with some W98 shrinking technique, small enough not to take the space needed by the XP install. (this is something I have been thinking about lately but had too much other things to do I did not have time to investigate further) jaclaz

@biohazard, thanks for the help, but I already had tried it with Altavista Babelfish, Google and a few other online translations. Unfortunately as you might easily deduce from this extract from the translation: the above sounds to me either: or, apart from a somewhat odd construction of the sentence, These automated systems, while making an exceptionally good work in giving at least a hint on what is going on, seems not to be able to produce translations safe enough for delicate matters, such as a boot manager can be (oops, the shortcut I just used does not defrag swap file, it low level formats all drives in the Domain...) jaclaz

@treeman Latex is a kind of evoluted text editor, originally unixish only, with exceptional features for the writing, between others, of mathematical formulas, schemas and the like. Have a look at it on the home page: http://www.latex-project.org/ http://www.latex-project.org/intro.html Now there are good windows ports, see here: http://www.miktex.org/ jaclaz

I already posted this request in the hardware forum, but since July 24th I had no response, maybe this is the more appropriate forum: I found about this bootmanager WWBMU: http://lab1.de/Central/Software/System-Tools/WWBMU/ From my little German knowledge, and with the help of Babelfish, I gathered enough to understand that it enables the possibility of switching systems via hardware. This looks to me as a very promising approach to multiboot. Is any member fluent in German willing to translate the page and/or contact the author to see if it is possible to have an English version? Thanks in advance, Jaclaz

@treeman Best buy in this kind of proggies is this (just my two cents): Mayura Draw (shareware $39) http://www.mayura.com/ Mayura Draw includes the traditional vector-drawing tools such as basic shapes, grouping and alignment, moving objects to front or back, resizing and rotating objects, and bezier curves. Import: AI, WMF, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and BMP formats. Export: SVG, EPS, PS, AI, PDF, WMF, EMF, GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP and TIFF formats. Compatibility: Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP. LaTeX friendly: The EPS files generated by Mayura Draw are suitable for including in LaTeX documents. (much easier to learn than any CAD like product, of course it has less features) jaclaz

Yes, plenty, complete recovery chance depends on HOW you formatted it, WHICH filesystem was used, IF anything was rewritten on the disk... HINT: If the data is important, ALWAYS make a DIGITAL IMAGE of the drive BEFORE trying any data recovery, and perform the recovery ALWAYS on the newly imaged drive! (you will need another Hard Disk equal or bigger in size, but you will have another chance with other soft or by calling a professional service) Link to freeware soft: http://www.pcinspector.de/clone-maxx/uk/welcome.htm http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm jaclaz

Yes, definitely is a problem with ANSI/ASCII conversion, you could try to make use of this trick: Writing batch files with Notepad Windows' own Notepad may be the easiest editor available for writing batch files. Since you probably used it before, at least it doesn't have a "steep learning curve". Be aware, though, that extended ASCII characters entered in Notepad may sometimes result in completely different characters in the resulting batch file. A tip mailed to me by Denis St-Pierre is to use the good old EDIT command to create a batch file with extended ASCII characters like accented letters or "border lines". I use File Commander's editor myself for the same reason. This makes me suspect that any "text mode editor" could do the trick. I can confirm that COPY CON filename and ECHO accented_text > filename do. Found here: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/notepad.html jaclaz

Maybe this could be of help: he UXTheme Multi-Patcher v1.5 has been created for Neowin by WindowsX and Vorte[x]. It patches the UXTheme.dll for Windows XP/SP1/SP2 Beta and 2003 and allows you to use un-signed custom visual styles. To simply patch the UXTheme.dll file, run the program, it will determine your operating system, then patch the appropriate file and reboot your PC. To un-patch the UXTheme.dll file, run the program again, and it will un-patch the .dll and then reboot your PC. More info and D/L here: http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=140707 http://themes.belchfire.net/index.php?showtopic=8767 jaclaz

Hmmmm, it could be really tricky. It mainly depends on which level of computing experience you are at, which kind of security police and/or add-on security programs are on the machine... and so on. If on the machine there are production data I strongly suggest you to call for professional assistance, as, in case of errors, you could further compromise the accessing of data. However, if you feel like it, the most straightforward way is to try this nifty tool: http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ Please READ EVERYTHING TWICE, make sure you UNDERSTAND IT FULLY, and for godsake, PRINT EVERYTHING, as you might find yourself disconnected from the internet! Hope the above helps, good luck, jaclaz

@Digit_x Sorry, none that I know of, however here is the home page of the "Unofficial 98 SE Service Pack 1.5" http://exuberant.ms11.net/ I think it could be a good starting point. jaclaz

If you need/want a RAMDISK, you should really leave ramdrive alone as it has quite a few limitations (such as 32 Mb max size and progressive lettering of the drive) and switch to Franck Uberto's freeware one. See here more details on both: http://www.geocities.com/politalk/rmdrv/intro.htm jaclaz

I might add that there is this great tool (freeware from Nirsoft): http://freehost14.websamba.com/nirsoft/utils/nircomline.html http://freehost14.websamba.com/nirsoft/uti...ircomline2.html that being called from within a batch or .cmd file, can simplify noticeably the sintax of the commands. It has an incredibly vast number of other uses, by the way. jaclaz

Dont know if this could be useful, maybe it's worth a try anyway. Try to use this nifty little tool: Serviwin freeware from Nirsoft http://nirsoft.multiservers.com/ or http://freehost14.websamba.com/nirsoft/utils/ http://freehost14.websamba.com/nirsoft/utils/serviwin.html a 30 Kb download, needs no install, can run from within a zip. It puts together an easy way to access both services AND drivers, has interesting export and saving features. Most of all it shows (both for drivers and services): Name Display name (what you see from within MMC console) Status Startup Group File description (what you see if you select the file and look for properties) Filename (including full path) FileVersion Company Product name Description (sometimes it is not the same as File Description above) It can change both the status (start/stop/restart/pause/continue) and the startup type (automatic/manual/disanle). The excellent feature is that you can select multiple services and apply the same settings to the selection, moreover, with a little registry hack documented by the author you can have different start type services in different colours: Blue All started services/drivers are painted with this color. Red All disabled services/drivers are painted with this color. Purple All services/drivers that starts automatically by the operating systems (with 'Automatic' and 'Boot' Startup types) that are not currently running. jaclaz

@jdeboeck No, sorry, but you are missing a little bit. A drive (it does not matter if floopy, zip, hard or pen) to be bootable needs to have a boot sector (sometimes referred to as boot record). The boot sector holds two kinds of info: 1) A boot loader (i.e. a program that loads the operating system) 2) The partition table (i.e. how files are stored on the disk) In older dos/win9x the bootsector's bootloader contained just a call to load the dos system files IO.SYS MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM. In more recent OS's WinNT/2k/XP and Linux, the bootsector invokes an "intermediate" bootloader (NTLDR in WinNT/2K/XP) (LILO or Grub in Linux) that load a "settings" file (boot.ini in winNT/2k/XP) (lilo.conf or other in Linux) that gives the user the choice of how / what to boot. Bootpart is just a nifty utility that can write (actually copying it from an image it has inside the executable) the bootsector's bootloader part for some standard operating systems: MS-DOS 6.22 Windows 9x Windows NT/2k/XP leaving unmodified the partition table part. To boot a drive (any drive) with win NT/2k/XP you need to have on the drive: 1) a bootsector bootloader part that loads NTLDR 2) the NTLDR (which calls BOOT.INI) 3) NTDETECT.COM (which actually loads the Operating system according to what you selected in boot.ini) Of course before this, the BIOS must call the bootable drive, so if you haven't got an option in your Bios to boot from USB device, you cannot use this feature. Hope the above clarifies the matter, here is some reference: http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/13462/13462.html http://www.pcplus.co.uk/tips/default.asp?p...ubsectionid=111 http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/info/bootini.shtml jaclaz

This is a good article about USB stick booting: http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.php However there are two requirements: 1) The BIOS must support USB booting 2) The stick itself must be bootable Another app, apart from BART's MKBT (which transfers and adapts a boot record) is BOOTPART : http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm which actually creates it, wonderful utility for recover of problems booting, too. I think that zips are still a very good thing to have around, I use them a lot, and they are pretty inexpensive (the media). I use them to make provisional backups of projects I am working on, as soon as the project is finished I burn it on a CD. jaclaz

I just found about this bootmanager WWBMU: http://lab1.de/Central/Software/System-Tools/WWBMU/ From my little German knowledge, and with the help of Babelfish, I gathered enough to understand that it enables the possibility of switching systems via hardware. This looks to me as a very promising approach to multiboot. Is any member fluent in German willing to translate the page and/or contact the author to see if it is possible to have an English version? Thanks in advance, Jaclaz

Well, it's quite a delicate topic, not very easy for a newbie. In my experience latest versions of Partition Magic are not that good. Moreover Partition Magic has some non-standard ways to write partition tables and in certain configuration can really mess up your system. If you want to go Commercial, I suggest you Acronis http://www.acronis.com/products/ However if you want to learn how to manage your partitions the best tool is Ranish Partitionmanager (freeware) http://www.ranish.com/part/ Using it together with XOSL (same page) and Bootpart (cardware) http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm you can setup a system ANY way you want to. Another few useful tools: Restart http://www.gabrieleponti.com/software/index.html Bootini C.U. http://www.dx21.com/SOFTWARE/Dx21/ViewItem...I=2&SI=2&OID=14 (though not stated works with Xp boot.ini as well) So answers are this: 1. You would better read all docs about Partitionmanager, Bootpart and XOSL and re-install accordingly. 2.Put the swap file on the fastest drive, see 3. below 3. In Nt4/Win2k/XP (and to a less extent in Win9x too) you can assign letters to drives from within the OS, though there are some limitations about the boot drive letter. These settings are only pertinent from within the booted OS, so you can easily find yourself with different lettering if you boot from a floppy or CD or from a second OS. I always recommend to format the hard disk so that any OS will read partitions and assign letters at least in the right ORDER. Here is a couple good links: http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=108 http://www.dougknox.com/tips/xp_drive_letters.htm and subsequent MS ones Here is the general way I suggest to setup a system, found it some time ago on another board and sticked to it since, (adapt it to your needs): My experience (just read winXP instead of Win2000): NTFS is a great filesystem, but if something goes wrong, it may become a pain in the neck, even repairing it with software like Winininternals may reveal to be tricky business. This is what I normally do when I setup a new system: 1) Make the first primary partition (C: FAT16 about 1 Gb in size 2) Make an extended partition of the rest of the drive 3) Make inside the extended partition the following volumes: D: Fat32 about 2 Gb in size for a Win98 installation (if needed); E: Fat32 about 700 Mb in size for Data (the size is made to be sure that everything goes on a cd without trouble); (if you need more space for data repeat the above n times) F: NTFS rest of the space to install Windows 2000 S: Fat32 (as it is slightly faster) for the swap file size = 1,5 x your total memory installed, as a SWAP FILE separate from the System partition (speeds a little bit things, but most important simplifies the defrag process and, by not continuosly overwriting free space on the partition you have data on, increases probability of recovering erroneously deleted data) 4) Install Windows 2000 TWO times, the first on F:\WINNT\ with a full install, the second on C:\nt911\ with a minimal install for recovery purpose 5) install WIN98 (if needed) on D: 6) install DOS 6.22 (if needed) on C: 7) use Bootpart http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm to manage the multi-booting environment This way I achieve a few results: 1) I can always use Bootpart to repair bootsectors 2) I have a second install of win2k for recovery purpose 3) I have all data ready to backup on a single CD 4) "Dumb" viruses will just wipe something in C: or the first n sectors of the drive, leaving data and system partitions untouched and easy recoverable In your case putting the SWAP file on a separate DRIVE will really speed up things. 4. No, except for the (rare) case above of "dumb" malware that always look for C:\ Hope the above helps. Jaclaz