Ponch

SilentNight MicroBurner is not bad either as ver5.0 is 1.2Meg. If I may add. Later versions are a bit nagging (free ... trials). It may lack some features of ImgBurn but does the basics.

Search for RyanVM's Post S3 update pack, that will bring you up to january 2009.

Most popular alternative is "Spybot Search & Destroy".

The only way to operate the computer at that stage without using your password is using an other login that has administrative rights, if there is any known by someone else than you. But that would cause your session to close.

ATA66 requires 80wires cable (see your own "ATA66" link few lines further).

who's "it" ? What did you think "format" means ? First thing, stop using that new OS you installed immediately. If possible, plug that drive as slave in your working PC. Depending on what you really did when partitioning, and more important the amount of your previous data that has been physically overwitten by your new system files, you might be able to recover part of your files using recovery programs as Recuva or Testdisk (see last example on this page). You will also have to find out what partition is on what harddisk and if any recovered files, save them on a partition of the other disk. Don't forget that each time you boot your new system, more files will be overwritten permanently, that's why you must NOT boot it anymore.

As alternative, I think (never tried), using this, PLOP manager, you should be able to boot from USB, using a floppy. It wouldn't take you much time to try anyway (download plpbt-5.0.2.zip that contains both .IMG and ISO files, expand the .img on a floppy). I did try to boot from USB using a CD (iso) and it worked. There is also Bart's boot disks that explains how to build a DOS boot floppy with network support. Providing your network card is listed or not, ... your mileage may vary (I should have put that one between quote tags) .

I've never heard of installing a driver trough "repair". I have no idea if it's possible, be it through nLite or standard cd. I can't even think of a reason why you'd want to. Maybe if you explained that, someone could come with a workaround ?

I've recently decided to ignore threads breaking forum rule #12. I'm in a good mood today so I make an exception, but I'm afraid i could only answer very small part of your questions. Anyway, a better title woud be welcome.

Is it a known brand or a "bargain" ?

Disabling prefetch is part of nLite tweaks. Wether you've done it or not, you should know. Note that as Johnc says, prefetch will not decrease your boot time, at the contrary.

nLite probably doesn't accept D:'s root as a valid working directory. Try puting all install files in a subdir, like D:\MyNewXP\

First, there is an nLite forum, hopefully this post will get moved. Then for your big mistake, I don't know what you tried to achieve with "making an ISO" of your running XP installation. An XP install disc has totally different files from a running Windows XP. Also the size difference should have been a hint. Given the fact that nLite modifies files, you can consider yourself lucky that it did not shoot and crash your operating system. Now for your try on D:, I don't know what went wrong, maybe you can just point to the cd and let nLite copy the files on your hard disk. Normally, copying the whole cd content to a directory on D: should work as well, providing the cd is an XP install cd, not a recovery that works in an other way that the standard MS XP installation.

Try with Computer Type on "automatic". Please report, as he hasn't.

What about just copy them ? Once. Before launching the process or after. Not erasing them when you reload other fresh OS files. Now that's the fastest way.

Are you sure it's not the WiFi that says "not connected" ? +Once you solve that cable problem, I think ICS needs automatic IP on the "receiving" computer.

Where does that "lite" XP come from ? What's written on the CD?

Could it be this is because you are working with an upgrade XP cd? If so, you could burn you original (Win98 or ME ?) to a DVD, be it RW to complete the install ?

You could say that about ANY technology pretty much. Next years' model will be better, faster and all that. Unfortunately, this time, last year's model was better.

As far as I know there is no way to transform a running french XP in an english XP. There are tools (MUI Packs) to do the opposite (add "foreign" to an english XP).

My conclusion is... don't buy LCD TVs, they are absolute crap. Wait a few more years for the technology to come with something decent. They'll impress with brightness, contrast, color, design... but as soon as a big object moves on the screen, or there is a travelling, like when watching football, sharpness is totally lost.

Common mistake indeed. The ISO is the whole CD, like Nero has its own propietary CD image format (.nrg ?). You do NOT add the files extracted from the ISO to a bootable CD, what you need to do is use (also in Nero 7) the menu BURN IMAGE FROM ISO, that cd is bootable by its own system files included in the ISO. As for the whole KB thing, maybe someone using the same method can help you. Most don't bother making an exactly up to date CD as it would be ...out of date after few weeks. An alternative is using update packs like for instance the one that RyanVM makes. They are kept updated quite regularly (this one is a bit more than a month old). Here you include the pack via nLite as is, no extraction needed. Good luck.

The config you use is probably such that it will install correctly to the 1st partition of your HDD. You have to change a parameter to install to 4th partition. Normally, when the install reboots, you skip "boot from cd" and boot from HDD. Here, you reboot from USB with no way to skip, and so the USB config has to know which partition to boot the HDD. As everything is artificially read only, there is no indication from previous text mode boot that says you install to 4th partition. I only use Prep8 once and I can't remember where the parameter for "default reboot" are. Anyway, there is a subforum called "install XP from USB" where you can get more help.

What about being bit positive and give a good impression for your 1st post ? nLites transforms an XP installation cd in an other XP installation cd, with modifications that make it more convenient for a given user/machine. That is the point of this program. Of course not having a starting point makes it more difficult but not impossible.

Drive letters are assigned in the OS, not by "the machine". Only question when you plug both in is which one will be given priority in the BIOS ? From what you say, when you first prepared your SATA drive, the IDE was set to boot first, unless no bootable partition on the SATA made it look like this. Try first as is. If still no SATA boot, you will need to find the right config in your Bios so that your SATA drive comes before the IDE (HDD1-HDD0 ?). Then your SATA will have the C: drive and load its XP. In that XP, the IDE will be given different drive letters.