rabster1

Your tutorial is very interesting, thanks for making it available. You might want too change "16 Kb, 32 Kb, 64 Kb, (elder models) to 128 Kb, 256 Kb, 512 Kb (common models)" to read Mb though? Have not tried ntfs as much of what I read, as you suggested, said it probably would not work.

Can you access the automatic updates site though the start menu and check for updates in internet explorer without error? The reason I ask is that automatic updates requires several other services to function iirc. If one of the other said services were disabled you might get this error, but if the above manual update runs without problems then I'm out of ideas...

Done! Had a lot of trouble formatting the stick so that it would boot. In the end the HP USB disk storage format tool did the trick. After that it was as simple as going to the xp recovery console and running fixboot on the usb stick. Then Copying ntdetect.exe, ntldr and boot.ini to the device. My boot.ini was edited to read: [boot loader] timeout=-1 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="windows" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect note the rdisk(1) to select the correct disk to boot. My only concerns are that ranish partition manager now says the disks partition has invalid values. Anyone know why? But everything now works as I wanted so I'm not too concerned...

Are you sure? I'm not trying to install xp onto the USB stick. Just have the USB stick boot the operating system from the Hard drive. Flashboot can do it, but it costs $20.

The best coarse of action is probably to Clean both intel and ati graphics drivers off your system as well as possible, note that this might involve registry editing and removing inf files. Check google for guides to uninstalling graphics drivers as the included uninstalls are usually far from perfect. Then do a fresh install of the latest catalysts.

3 things you can try: Removing the cmos battery and power cord. Look again It must be there, check you motherboard manual. Or Finmd the jumper on the motherboard that clears the cmos, again your manuals will help here. I've seen lists of suppossed backdoor passwords and password crack progs, but I've never tried these methods. The first 2 are much easier.

Kmeleon is a nice windows only gecko based browser. Very tweakable if you have the patience.

If you want to try it now then from your machine specs "pearpc" should emulate powerpc fast enough to make osx 'usable' on your system under windows. Otherwise wait/pray for the hack in some years time. I think this move will result in lots of interesting devices from apple in the future. Perhaps a tablet PC and definitly faster laptops. Intel has many interesting chips/technologies That apple will be keen to innovate around.

In start -> run type gpedit.msc Lots to do there. Or only let her use the guest account?

I like to keep my machines silent. For the CPU I generally get the biggest copper heatsink I can find. When appling heatsink paste use as thin a film as possble spread evenly over the die. I use a razer blade to spread the paste! Remember the paste is not an extra layer, but just there to fill any, hopefully very small gaps or imperfections in the contacting surfaces. For fans I like to to use a 80mm Panaflo with fluid bearings Also if temps are well within acceptable limits you can undervolt the fan from 12v - 7v quite easily. This makes the fan run slower and quieter.

I love alcohol. It is the most reliable image burning program I have used. Never seems to have any sector size issues that nero seems to have sometimes. I also like how alcohole has nice shell integration with its virtual drives. Just right click the drive and select mount image. Also I like the name Only really worth getting alcochol though if you also need some soft to copy cd's and burn images etc.

Check in control panel -> admin tools -> services Make sure automatic updates has its startup type set to automatic. Hope that helps? PS: you can disable the security center as a last resort if like like or as a first resort as I like to.

Perehaps check taskmanager to determine if It is lack of memory or cou cycles that is the problem. Protecting to the hilt may be what is slowing things down. All those antispyware/virus programs use memory, cpu and disk accesses when they are running. I would suggest that if you keep your XP uptodate and use an alternate browser and dont visit too many warez sites and be very wary of emails with file attachments you will be fine without all that stuff running! Keep the xp firewall. Keep the virus and spyware programs to but don't let them run in the backgound continously. IBM's website as enuffsaid mentioned is well worth a visit and one of the best for support and drivers amoung computer manufacturers. Tweak your XP by turning off unnecessary visuals and startup programs, I also reccomend nlite. XP can run great on as little as 300mhz and 128meg ram if setup properly. This spec can even play dvd's with some work as I found out last week when setting up a thinkpad last week... PCworld don't know s**t.

I want to boot windows XP on a hard disk from USB device and disable booting from the hard disk. The goal is that The PC must only boot when the USB stick is plugged in. Ideally the USB device will not have any files on it and be formatted as a ntfs drive. My initial thoughts were that this will be fairly simple. Just copy the bootsector from the hard disk to the USB device and clear the boot sector on the hard disk? Set bios to boot from USB disk. But reading further into the whole bootsect/mbr/usb thing I'm now quite confused Will the above or similar work? Will booting from the usb stick screw the drive letter assignments? Any comments or ideas? PS: I'm new here, great resource, hope I can contribute in the future. thanks.