JedClampett

Yes - the Copyright Notice when the install starts is SoftThinks 2001. The reason I tried to see if it would boot up OK, is this disk verified OK when using K3b under Linux. So that makes me wonder about other disks I have burnt using K3b that verified 'OK' ?

Thanks jaclaz and cdob for those replies. I have managed to use ImgBurn to successfully make a verbatim copy of the Advent 6415 Combo DVD (it shows as a CD image in ISOBuster or ImgBurn). I burnt it to a 700MB Maxell CD-RW disk OK. Placing that in the Advent 6415 Combo and it boots OK and starts the installation procedure. I guess the next thing to try is to build the ISO image manually in ImgBurn from a directory structure, write that back to this CD-RW, and see if I can boot from that. Update: I have just tried to burn the ISO image that worked on the CD-RW disk to a DVD+RW disk, and I'm getting I/O Error! on the verify cycle. http://i42.tinypic.com/mt41ud.jpg So maybe that media is at fault? Update: Even though the verify for the DVD+RW disk failed, the Advent 6415 is still able to boot from this disk, which could present a problem when running Windows after the installation completes. Jed

I'm using this OEM recovery disk mentioned on this thread: and the link to a picture of the DVD is here: http://oi51.tinypic.com/290v9td.jpg I have created lots of shiny coasters when learning how to burn my own CD/DVD Linux installation disks. So I just practice on DVD+RW disks, which means: 1) They only need to be formatted once. 2) If the burn goes wrong then I don't get another toasted disk. I can just do another test burn again on the same disk. Once I am happy with the resulting test disk, then I would burn it to write-once media, either CD-R or DVD+R. I'll give ImgBurn a try later today, with creating and burning a verbatim copy of this recovery disk, and let you know how it goes. There are 2 boot image files on the Advent 6415 DVD recovery disk: BootCatalog.cat Microsoft Corporation.img Do I need to add the BootCatalog.cat file as well to the new bootable copy? Jed

Thnx again jaclaz. I'm very taken with ImgBurn and have it installed on my Vista laptop OK. Following this IB forum article, it looks like I can do the whole remastering process just using ImgBurn? How to create a Windows XP installation disc (bootable) using ImgBurn http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=11190 Jed

Thanks for those links jaclaz. I'm going to install those programs you sugggested onto my Vista laptop and give it another try at creating a bootable DVD - basically just a cloned boot disk for now. Jed

Thanks jaclaz. I might try again soon on a Vista laptop, using something like Nero to create the ISO file and burn it to disk from there. See if that helps! Jed

Thanks for those replies. I seem to be getting nowhere fast with this I used ISObuster to extract these files from the Advent 6415 DVD: BootCatalog.cat Microsoft Corporation.img I have added those to the dvdrecorder directory that contains the DVD tree. I'm creating and burning the remastered ISO image on Centos 5.7 using this command to create the modified iso image file: #! /bin/bash # ----------------------------------------------------# # create the iso image file # This works OK, and creates the iso verbatim mkisofs -o Advent6415-WinXP-patch1.iso \ -volid Advent6415-WinXP-patch1 \ -sysid LINUX -rational-rock -joliet -joliet-long \ -untranslated-filenames -max-iso9660-filenames \ -b "Microsoft Corporation.img" \ -iso-level 2 \ -no-emul-boot \ -boot-load-size 4 \ ./dvdrecorder exit 0 At the moment I'm testing if I can remaster the original DVD and boot from it - there are no modifications made to it yet. When I try to boot from the new DVD the machine gets stuck after it has output: Searching for Boot Record from CDROM...OK That's as far as it goes. I'm wondering if the boot loader does a md5sum check on the media? This is inside Microsoft Corporation.img file: ... .Error! Could not verify CDROM image. ... Any suggs would be greatly appreciated. It should be OK to create and burn the DVD on Linux, as I have found this post here, about Bootable CD Wizard: http://flz.userdir.org/docs/bcdw/nemkisofs_e.htm

I have an XP Home Edition Recovery Disk for an Advent 6415 laptop, that I would like to remaster for another Advent laptop (a 7096). Is it possible to remaster a recovery disk so I can add the missing drivers for the later model laptop? At the moment XP Home installs onto the 7096 OK, but most of the hardware drivers are missing, even the USB ports and DVD drive will not work, so I have no way to get the missing drivers onto the newer laptop. TIA Jed

Thanks for all the help I've had with this so far. I'm taking another approach with this now. What I'd like to do is to add a hardware detection application to the XP source tree, and burn the new iso to a DVD, then install from the DVD to the advent 7096 laptop. So this is not slipstreaming - just adding something like Device Doctor to the pristine XP Recovery DVD so Device Doctor gets copied to the 7096 HDD. Where in the XP DVD image would I need to place the Device Doctor zip file for it to be copied to the HDD please? Once I can run Device Doctor from the Hard Drive, I can then get the HW ID's for the devices with the missing drivers. Then rebuild the XP DVD again with the missing drivers so they are copied across to the HDD at Recovery Disk runtime. Then the plan is to install those missing drivers from the HDD, and hopefully have a working laptop. Does that sound OK? TIA Jed

Granted, yes. But I'm talking about wiping the whole drive from start to finish - sector by sector - not just the MBR. But this is only if I decide to do a fresh installation of Windows - IIRC the OP wanted to avoid this, and I'm following this thread with much interest. Thanks to all the others that have posted in this thread so far. Surely if the whole drive is wiped - then nothing can survive that?

I'd like to learn all about computer Network Forensics - ideally how to recover MIME type attachments sent via email, and also downloaded over TCP connections. Is there a way to recover these types of data from a WireShark pcap (Packet Capture) file please? Is there a Computer forensics forum that somebody can recommend me to join to learn these techniques please? Jed

Whenever I do a new installation of Windows, I wipe the whole drive - sector by sector first, so it's totally clean and virus free. I use a program called Vivard, that is on the Ultimate Boot CD, under HDD Utilities: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ On version 5.0.3 Vivard is under: HDD->Diagnosis->Vivard, at the end of the available programs. Obviously I boot vivard from the UBCD, so the whole drive can be erased. In this case, this might not be a suitable option to wipe the whole drive, but you might find usefull in at other times. Jed

Thanks for the update Glen. I have installed the version from post #20 on my Win XP SP3 laptop, and it works fine. Under the settings it would be nice to set the pop-up info box as sticky, and also to be able to set the update interval in seconds, so the drive info is updated every n seconds? Would you be willing to release this as a GPL project please? I think it would be a good way for others to learn how to put together a simple Windows application - a bit like the famous 'Hello World' test program - or is there something like that already? Jed

Just got round to d/l it now. Will install and report back. Thanks for doing that Glen! I get so distracted, trying to get my head around several things at once - learning about streaming chat servers now, red5 and Radical Flash Chat! Then there was Driver Packs and UXPCD, and all the other stuff like sox, ices, and icecast streaming audio server on Centos! That's just a few things to mention - LOL. Jed

I'm Looking for a DIY video server program, that would enable an XP machine and a Vista machine to communicate directly using video and audio. So I'd basically like to avoid using the online video services, and set up my own private video client and server. Is there any way to do this on Windows OS please? Also I'm running a Centos 5.7 Linux box and I could setup the video server on my Centos 5.7 box if that is an option? Reason being I want to avoid sharing a popular video server (like Skype or YM or ooVoo) with millions of other users, for speed and security issues. Edit: found this framework here that looks promising: Radical Flash Chat - Flash Video Chat Framework http://en.cze.cz/Radical-Flash-Chat and here's the introduction video: Also found the following: http://www.flashpioneer.com/chat/help/RED5_install_l.htm and http://www.red5server.org/ Latest Official Release Red5 0.9.0 RC2 (RED5 downloads) Added: 27/11/11 6:00 PM Comments(1) Rating(4) Viewed(113991) By: AdminGlobal Keywords: Latest release Red5 0.9.0 RC2 Latest Official Release Red5 0.9.0 RC2 Red5 is an Open Source Flash Server written in Java that supports: * Streaming Video (FLV, F4V, MP4) * Streaming Audio (MP3, F4A, M4A) * Recording Client Streams (FLV only) * Shared Objects * Live Stream Publishing * Remoting You can download Latest release: Red5 0.9.0 RC2 OSX Red5 0.9.0 RC2 Tarball Red5 0.9.0 RC2 ZIP Red5 0.9.0 RC2 Source Red5 0.9.0 RC2 Windows This might be good enough for what I need, unless there are any other suggestions? TIA Jed

Thanks for all the replies thus far. This looks OK for what I need Glen: Is it - the 32 bit exe - available for download please? Jed

On Windows XP & SP3 is there an applet that will run in the taskbar, that would show in realtime the amount of free space on the hard disks please? So one can keep an eye on the total/used/free count for all hard drives? I have tried to find something like this online, but mostly they are complex apps that need to be run, so there's not much difference in doing the Start->My Computer thing. If not, would it be a hard thing to write this program myself? TIA Jed

Thanks for those replies friends. I will check those programs out ASAP and post my findings later! Edit: Thanks again. Gone for TeamWeaver! That's fine and it works well. I like the way it seems to negotiate firewalls (not that that is relevant on my LAN). I tested it on my LAN using my Vista laptop, talking to another laptop running XP. I was amazed at how easy it is to connect! Still learning how to use it properly. Shame about the price tag though, even for only one user Jed

Abiword can import and save in many different formats, including .doc and save to PDF! What Makes AbiWord Different? AbiWord is unique among word processors in its drive to become a fully cross-platform word processor. Our source code is carefully written so that AbiWord will run on virtually any operating system with a minimum of time spent on porting. This combined with our support for internationalization (the ability to run AbiWord in many languages) gives AbiWord a massive potential user-base. Currently we run on most UNIX systems, Windows 95 and later, QNX Neutrino 6.2. We also have a MacOS X native port available. There used to be a BeOS port, but that version has been unmaintained for too long and support for it has been discontinued. http://www.abisource.com/information/about/ Jed

I need to connect to my friends Windows PC over the internet, to provide RA for them. I will be using a laptop runing Vista Home Premium 32 bit trying to connect to a PC running Windows XP 32 bit Home Edition. I see in this post that Windows default programs are 'painfully slow'. Are there any other programs you can recommend to make this work faster please? I've done Linux <--> Linux RFB connections using Centos laptop to main PC, but not tried this out on Windows yet. Would using SSH -X be any quicker to run a specific application remotely, rather than updating the whole desktop? TIA Jed

I dumped that in 1990 after finishing my HNC in commercial data processing. I think it ran on a VaX - not the hoover, but a server feeding 12 or more BSD UNIX workstations. IIRC the 286 AT PC's were running Windows 3.x and Microfocus COBOL workbench was the greatest thing since sliced bread! Jed

Thanks jaclaz. I'll take a look at mingw ASAP. Jed

I have installed LyX Document Processor on Windows Vista, but it is quite complex to do, as it needs a lot of other packages installed first. It not the easiest program to configure or use either. But it does produce excellent DVI, PDF and Postscript output files, with automatic content, index, appendix and Bibliography generation. "LyX combines the power and flexibility of TeX/LaTeX with the ease of use of a graphical interface. This results in world-class support for creation of mathematical content (via a fully integrated equation editor) and structured documents like academic articles, theses, and books. In addition, staples of scientific authoring such as reference list and index creation come standard. But you can also use LyX to create a letter or a novel or a theatre play or film script. A broad array of ready, well-designed document layouts are built in." Can anyone please recommend a similar free PDF generator like lyx, that is easy to install and use ? This is for another user to install and use. It would be nice if it can at least automatically generate the book contents from the eBook sections. PDF editing is a plus as well. TIA Jed

I'm looking for a free Camtasia Studio alternative. So far I have found these two compilations: http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/10-free-screen-recording-softwares-for-creating-attractive-screencasts/ http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/freebies/free-screencasting-tools-video-tutorials/ Can anyone give recommendations for their preferred screencasting software please? TIA Jed

Thanks for the replies. So I might just put these ideas to one side for now. Obviously I want it to remain a native Windows environment, so any Apps I make will run on other users native Windows paltforms. Jed