Ponch

Off topic... Not so "many many" years ago (I truncated the quote on purpose ), but It seems an other country has taken over recently indeed (scroll up few lines). 2008 can be seen as an arguable transition phase. However, if you remove the engine... we're still ahead !

I lost my mum on saturday. I was holding her hand on her final breath. Her last move twenty hours before was an ultimate effort to hug my father. She was 76. I lost a sister in may last year as well. This comes quite hard. Life goes on.

Main missing feature in 2k was Windows Activation. Remember when people were demanding that for their next upgrade ?

Yes it is possible. But... the age of your machine might be a good indicator of the probability you come across an additional hurdle or not. If the PC is more than 4 years old, you have 50/50 chance that you can do it without having to provide drivers for the SATA controller. If it is more recent, the chances increase that you will have to dig out those drivers. -the drivers can be called "text mode drivers", "F6 drivers" or "floppy mode drivers" must come from the motherboard's manufacturer or from the controller's manufacturer (mainly Intel), NOT from the actual hard disk's manufacturer. So 1st thing to check is if booting from the XP cd, your HDD (and possible partitions) is listed when asked where to install Windows. If not, you might have a 1st backdoor in Bios, where you might find a setting to turn the SATA controller to "compatible" or "IDE" mode. That is most probably in the advanced settings of your Bios. You won't loose anything from that change. If still no luck (no such setting in Bios), you have two possibilities; -load the drivers when XP boots (when it says "Press F6 to..") by providing them on a floppy (might be an usb floppy) -rebuild your XP disc integrating those drivers with for instance a program like nLite. --> try the easy ways first if possible.

This is not nLite related. Check OEM folders. That would be one way to do it As your user's profile will not be created, you'll have to put that for "All Users". I'm not sure including media files onto the install disc is a good idea, surely not loads of them on a desktop. Maybe something like a shortcut to "D:\Music\" (or wherever your music is) would be a better idea.

Download link is dead.

complete quote is "Tried Windows xp $120 Bux. But Zilch." which probably doesn't translate to "with great success", like, say... "Boomshakalaka" would have.

I don't see anything in this thread that says XP was even installed on the machine.

What "System repair", booting from what ? If Vista install CD doesn't see your disk (when booted from cd), there is a problem. Is it properly detected by Bios ? Wow, Internet Really Is Amazing, It Can Even Virtually Test Your Disk For You And Set Uppercase For Every Word. XP does contain SATA drivers, which proportion of today's controllers I don't know (as it came out in 2001). As I don't see Asus providing XP "F6 (Text Mode)" drivers for your computer, I assume XP has them already. As for now, you gave lots of info but none of them precise enough to really know if -your disk physically has a problem -the file system is shot -you really wiped anything or not ( you "tried" a lot but never actually say what happened) So we don't know if the part needs to be changed or if a factory recovery is possible or an OS reinstall (XP or Vista) or even a total repair of your former OS is possible.

Of course now they're on D: More seriously, I hope the is a sarcastic to yourself and not a to Jaclaz . Otherwise you might be in for a bad surprise in a few months. Better get them back marked as "bad" before your OS tries to actually use them in an unsuspecting way. Knowing you had bad sectors, you should have gone for a full format on that c:.

Search for SpeechVibe, if you can still find an available download, it's the only shareware I can see (I searched 1 minute only).

Like chkdsk on the system disk or programs like "PageDefrag", it can still be performed at reboot while Windows load, so no need to reboot twice ("offline" then "online").

I don't understand what you did. Why are you "correcting" to different values when your problem comes exactly from that ? You install XP in English keyboard setting, you set your password for your "user" which contains a ";" as you pressed the "m" key on your physically belgian keyboard, then you log in and set Language/keyboard to Belgium (Nl); 813. When Going to Welcome screen, your password is typed correctly (well you think it's correct but in fact you do type an "m") on your belgian keyboard but is not the same as the one you entered before you log on (default is 409-US or 809-UK), each time you start the machine. Pressing CtrlAltDel twice, you could have tried that, it was my first advice. Sorry if you reinstalled already. 2 easy solutions; -offline registry editing from your other system -log in as admin (safe mode if needed) and change your password to none or characters that do not depend on "azerty versus qwerty"; no "a", no z, q, w, m.

apparently not obvious to everybody as at least one wrong answer was given..

Not unattended? (No WINNT.SIF, for one...)Not exactly. If you don't "use it", it keeps the settings (unattended or not) of the original disk. If you use it, it replaces all unattended settings (if any, in which case you get a warning) with only those supported/entered in nLite.

CtrlAltDel does revert to default keyboard (from registry's .Default), while Welcome Screen does not (you stay with the previous user's config). Belgian keyboard at the NATO,... makes sense.

There is a problem here: multiboot ("they never learn"). Obviously he can't get it right in both systems but you'd leave him with this in his alternative system: C: [D_XP_PRO_2] D: [C_XP_PRO_1] E: [E_Documents] F: [F_Videos]

nLite is made to remove components, include drivers and hotfixes in an install source, also has basic unattended functions and addon integrations (this you can use for program integration). You better check the forums "Unattended Windows 2000/XP" and "Customizing Windows" instead, as well as the addon subforum nLite forum.

I guess this and Submix8c answer your question. Disk Management shows drive in alphabetic "Volume" order simply because it is the 1st column in the window, regardless of the drive letter that appears after the Volume name. You could try renaming your drives to have them appear in the new order. 1_System1 (C:) 2_System (D:) 3_Data (E:)

You want to write Word and Excel add-ons for IE yourself ? for personal use ? Why don't you just download Microsoft's "Viewers" and spare a few years of your life ?

Can you try pressing CtrlAltDel twice at that point to enter your password and check keyboard is properly configured (typing in 1st box where you can see what you type)? Note that if I remember correctly, from there you should be able to login as Administrator as well. Only in XP Home do you have to get in Safe Mode to log as Adminisrator. Check the registry keys "Keyboard Layout/Preload/1" for both .Default user and your account. If not the same, that might be your problem.

With PDF application's plugins you can open a pdf straight from the File menu and it displays in IE. For doc or xls, they open in a separate Word or Excel window. For them to open in IE, they must be part of an HTML page.

Your translation is fine but the language looks italian to me. The clue is in the OP's flag. LISEZMOI.HTM would be the french file.

Do you have aWindows7 install DVD ? Even if it is an Upgrade version, you should still be able to install it without all the pain you've been through, just needing your physical XP media as well (I read your machine does have an optical drive). Have you tried ?

What's on your screen at the point you have to reboot ? Do you use Welcome Screen or CtrlAltDel ? XP Pro/Home ? Using built-in "Administrator" account ?