Ponch

...still seems a problem today bye. sorry.

IF ! Check their forum before install, if you do. "Windows 9x is not officially supported by VirtualBox team, which means, that it lacks Guest VM Additions, and it runs slowly, because VirtualBox is not optimized to run Win 9x"

Maybe nothing wrong ? I searched this forum for "win32k.sys" and someone reports having a problem in a VM but not on real hardware. Which is strange indeed.

It's all about age like you say. Most early 486 (40MHz and before) were limited to HDDs of 528MB. Finding a bios update for those dinosaurs might prove tricky. "Drive overlay" programs were a solution.

Most HDD makers have diag programs on their site. Your BArtPE might include one as well.

I fail to follow your reasoning here (that ensuring a clean software install would eliminate a potential hardware symptom). I was not suggesting a "virtual clicking state", I was suggesting a possible electrical shortcut. Anyway, before anyone ( ) kicks off to pedantic mode, DBAN doesn't format hdds, it wipes them. HDDs don't even get formatted. Partitions do. And yes, a failing HDD can lock your system for few seconds or minutes or even forever. There are diagnostic tools for that.

how would you reinstall on a same machine if at this moment you're only considering installing XP on it ? +Discussions on this subject are not only old, they are border line with the forum rules.

Or at least check that it is "cleanly" broken. It is possible that the "gone" mousepad is reacting as if a button was pushed (just an idea). But anyway, the flat cable to a mousepad usually has only very few wires and it should be repairable indeed (did you break more than the plastic that fastens the cable ?).

First welcome to the forum. Now... Installing nLite, you agreed it was for non commercial and personal use only. This seems to cross the border. You might want to check other ways to achieve your goal.

Tick box = change from default value.

There also is a sticky thread that discusses "imaging softwares" in this forum, I guess it is somehow relevant.

A standard XP is about 1.6GB, if I remember (pagefile included). So the answer to your question is "of course". After that it all depends on what you add after install, what you use it for and if you have alternative storage capacities.

32k in bad sectors is really not the end of the world, your drive should be able to survive a copy. You're more stressing a drive copying file by file than copying the partition (see the time it takes as a hint). You can't "make a drive bootable without installing an OS", you always boot "an" OS, be it aPE, or a command line something. You can format your ME partition with an ME boot disk (floppy or cd) and the "/s" switch (or if still available on ME boot disks use "sys c:" command ) but it's more complicated for the XP partitions and I don't think that this method is the good one. If really you have 230Gig of data and can manage to create each partition so that all the data fits in, you are going to end up with 4 crawling OS's having their respective partitions more than 90% full.

Well... I guess I'm tired. Sorry.

Just a very simple question. Why is there still 2 "Install Flash Player.exe" listed everywhere (here for instance) and different ways to get it from Adobe's site, one for IE one for alternative browser, when a binary comparison says the 2 exe files (3meg) are the same (idem for previous version10.2)? Is it a conspiracy with hardware storage manufacturers ?

To complete Jaclaz's post, you seem to see the problem the wrong way around. It is not the computer that boot "a" drive, it is a drive that is installed (means an OS is installed onto a drive) to boot "a" computer and if put in an other computer doesn't have the good configuration to run the hardware. A bit like .... you don't ask "how do I get a Formula1 to be driven by my very efficient truck driver". You don't, you need a Formula1 driver.

There are questions and answers on that page you link, and it says NO. You could consider using your "Express Card" port, I think you'll find 10/100 cards for cheaper than that, + you could go gigabit as you wouldn't be limited by USB2 speed.

Have you tried this ?

True Well... if the goal is just to have the guest OS install and see it run/test it, I've done it with 512MB (reserving half for the guest, and XP as host). Of course if you intend to actually use the OS, or have Vista as host, it is different. After all, according to Microsoft, XP does install with 64MB.

If you say so... I first had my doubts, but then on the 3rd time I thought I'd mention it

I used ISB_Multiboot a few times and I remember there was a twist in the way "unattended" was performed. I never tried to understand that one because I had no problem with it. Maybe you beter start a new thread in the other subforum. I don't see you saying you had problems with "%Source%\$OEM$\", you just jump to changing it to %Source%$WIN_NT$.~LS\$OEM$\ In any case (if you had to, which I doubt, because the source IS $win_nt$.~ls), there is a back slash missing between your "%Source%" and "$WIN_NT$.~LS".

What's exactly written on your CD ? (Sorry I don't have a clue why that [components] section is ignored).

funny you mention the install from usb, I was thinking about that! I will check that out. Well.... have you ?

Hello, please attach (not paste) your Last session.ini rather than pasting your winnt.sif. Do you start with a fresh original set of file and run nLite once? Have you checked those addons "change lists" (what they really add) to see if any of them include cosmetic changes ?

Yes it does, and we shouldn't be hesitating to say it clearly, cause you and me know, check your facts before being slapped on the wrist !