Ponch

An other info: -on the installs it doesn't work, the "webcam parameters" are not showing (they appear for a split second when I click the button.) -On the "clean install", I removed all Windows components (in "Windows Setup" or something) that could be suspected from making a difference, and it still works.

Hi, 2 months ago, I spent 5 hours reinstalling my niece's PC with ME (that's what was on it at first, ...don't ask). I added the latest unofficial SP, IE6, Office 2K, all latest drivers and patches, and it was running very well. Now... she bought a webcam "compatible 98, ME, 2K, XP" and it doesn't work on that comp. All seems to install OK but there is no picture from the cam. Only a black box. I brought the cam back to my place where I kept a ghost image of that PC and indeed, I have the same problem on my own computer (all drivers are installed). The cam works ok on XP and on 98 (also USP2, IE6 etc). I tried a clean install of ME... and it works. Sh.. As the istall takes more than 20 minutes (it installs DX9.0c, then copies loads of crap to the HDD), I'm not planning to go step by step to see what was THE modif that makes it not work anymore. Any body got an idea out of the blue ??? I'm clueless. Thanks. I'll answer all questions. You know how I feel. "Hercules Webcam Classic", drivers and program are up to date according to the "live update" they provide.

regardless of the OS, you cannot possibly recommend such a HDD for any use today. Unless you admit you need a 2nd HDD or partition for your data.

Is it possible that you reinstalled XP without SP1 and that your disk is bigger than 137Gig ? (just a shot in the dark, I never played with any HDD bigger than 80Gig.)

Most laptops when started with an external screen will use only that screen. There might also be a Function key (Fn F5 or something like that) to switch monitors (intern/exterrn/both). there is also an identical menu in the "advanced" menu of the graphic properties.

Would you not begin your journey on this forum with a little effort ?

They work for me. You have to download the .7z file in the 1st post. That's the one that has to be integrated trough nLite. Of course french pack for french XP.

a customer that formats NTFS can never go back to 9x ($$).

this is the report you got me: The type of the file system is NTFS. Cannot lock current drive. Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)

so the one that happens at reboot doesn't leave any repport ?

Where do I find a report from checkdisk after it's been run and shut ? Or is there anything I should do at first to have it save a report somewhere... I'd like to know if bad sectors were found but it just doesn't bother telling me. It just .... checks.

Obviously unless he's got 98se/XP running on a virtual box they are 2 diff boxes. ... ever heard of dual boot ? Unless there is more precision, the problem could be anything, answers are already mixing OSes use, burning programs, file types and different disc drives.

I think if you use an oher pair of USB connectors, it is normal that it is considered as new device and be reinstalled (usb mass storage, generic volume, and disk drive). But only once. So if you have a PC with 6 USB ports, you might have to install 3 times.

We miss the essential info... : is it all in the same computer and drive ?

Is completely false. It is perfectly possible to install BartPE on hard disk, and there is no need to have a songle partition for it on the disk, you will need a bootmanager like Grub4DOS, that's all. ... have you even read my post ? It is not completely false, not even false at all. I'm talking BartPE cd as is, not what you could do with it if you search forums and tweak it and install something else aside and blah blah blah. The disk I made long ago had an option in the menu allowing to install the system on the disk, but only suppressing all partition and reinstalling to one big partition. This is not "completely false", even if you say it is, there is no way you could prove it to me, that's what I saw and I still have that disk. Also in the one I made last year with a later version of PEBuilder, that same option is not present, still I did not chose to disable the option in the process of making the disk. This is not completely false either. You can add all the info you want, but don't say I'm completely false. Thanks.

Booting from a BartPE is easier than plugging your HDD from one machine to the other, so I think you have your answer. You can even use a USB key if you need to transfer data from one PC to an other.

lol ...you ask a question, people give a relevant answer and you tell them they don't know much about it.... that's a good one. As far as I know, downloading Windows from any site is illegal, wether you have a license or not. In my little experience, I can also tell you that your FE key should work for a SE version.

I made myself a BartPE disk last year and the option is not available anymore with the last versions (it is on the disk I made 3 years ago). Also you needed to erase and create only one partition dedicated to BartPE on the disk.

Quite the contrary."NTLDR is missing" means the drive is partitioned and working, only it was formatted with NT (and likely NTFS) so it contains the standard NT bootsector which looks for and loads NTLDR. If it was formatted in DOS/9x, the similar message would be "Invalid system disk.\nReplace the disk, and then press any key." Recommendation: Repartition with FDISK and format with FORMAT. hum... he is just doing a test with an other comp's HDD, so it would not be a good idea to repartition and format.

NTLDR missing does not necessarilly mean that the drive i not recognized. Did you check the jumper settings ? +Bios update is not an "option" in Setup, it is the replacement of the whole Setup program. You should find a download on Compaq.com for your specific model (very important) that lets you create one or 2 diskettes with explanations on "how to". Most the time, you boot from a diskette and launch a command that refers to a .bin file. That file overwrites your Bios wit a new version.

So that's 2 years waiting for the drive to come out and a few hours to format it. Negligeable . Or maybe 1 minute "quick format" with Ranish. I'd guess that Compaq 333MHz could handle 32Gig out of the box and probably 137Gb with a Bios update. Note that those Dynamic Drive Overlay program do not work in 100% of the cases. I had a portable (Armada 166MHz) that Compaq claimed could handle 4Gig wit a Bios update. Some folks on a forum said they used a 6 gig without problem, I tried a 20Gig but could never use it. It was detected as 20Gig in Bios, 8 gig by fdisk, format /s OK, but never booted. Even with maxtor's utilities. I tried all the possibilities. Got an other one (5gig) and it was OK.

so does it have a drive letter in disk management or not ???

I've had this problem 2 months ago on a client's computer, tried to fix it but also got the password error message. At the end it was a hardware problem (HDD as suggested by Nakatomi) so I'd also advise to check that first.

would you say booting Bart PE and simply delete the file was too easy ?

I'd say it's purely legal/commercial/license related. All keyboards are included in XP anyway.