ZaForD

I wouldn't dump the IDE drives or controllers just yet. I've had some problems running DOS and CD based Maintainance and Recovery Utils on some PC's with SATA CD/DVD's.

Thanks Severach, I'll do it the OLD FASHIONED way.

Hi Guys, This isn't a problem post, for a change I'm looking for some advice or opinions. B) As you know most recent Operating Systems will let you see and use HDD's which are larger than the BIOS limits of the Motherboard. I was think about taking advantage of this by using an old PII as a NAS for a local computer club I help out at. Does anyone know of any reasons not to do this ? Or any problems that can arrise by doing this. ? Thanks in advance, Guys.

Hi Guys, Will these XP filesets work with Win2K3 server ? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but its the first time I've been asked to work on Win2K3.

Quick Update I've been playing with this drive most of the evening. The good news is I've got almost half the data back. But I haven't stopped yet, B) One piece of advice I was given. That has clearly worked, although I have no idea why ??? But I feel is worth passing on to all the guys who have offered me help here. Beg, Borrow, or Steal an old Single Drive IDE cable [the old 40pin type] Use that to connect the Faulty HDD to the Primary IDE connector and set the drive to Master. Connect the boot drive and/or CD/DVD of the PC to the Secondary IDE connector [adjust BIOS if needed] Doing this allowed most of my old recovery utils to see and to access the drive. No more errors about the partition being bigger than the drive. I'm going to try some the utils you guys have posted here, to see if I have any more luck. Thanks for all your help and advice guys. This forum truely has some fantasic information and incredable people on it.

We've got systems here with Sony, LG, and TSSTcorp SATA DVD drives, all of them are DVD-RW's. I know I had to remove them.

Hi Guys, So much for my weekend project... I had the simple choice of going shopping for things we 'must' get this weekend. Or trying to recover the data and sleeping on the couch for the next month. So I'm going to have a go at this later in the week. One thing that is confusing me, is what would be the best way to format the drive ? My guess would be a quick format, but would a Fat32 format be less destructive ? Or should I stick to a NTFS format, as thats what the drive is at the moment ? Hi PuntoMX, I've tried every program and Util I could find, but none of them will read the drive or correct the Partition/Drive size problem. So i'm stuck with formatting first.

Thanks for the help and support guys. I've never formated a drive and then tried to recover its data, it all sounds very scarey But, if thats the only way. I'll have to give it a go. Having said that I think I'll wait till the weekend. That'll give some time to read up on whats involved and get some beers for either courage or celebrating. I'll report back on Monday with my results. Thanks again Guys.

Hi CptMurphy, I've tried it two other PC's now. Both BIOS's find and identify it fine. Windows see's it but can't access it, says it needs to be formated. Spinrite, Acronis, Ontrack, and Disk Commander either claim the partition is too large for the disk, or that its out of range. I tried repairing the MBR but that didn't make any difference, and I've scanned the drive for bad sectors again it comes back as being fine. I think it must be the partition table thats wrong, but I can't find much info on fixing that.

Hi Guys, I've got a fairly new HDD here [around 4 months old] which has failed and reports a strange error in Spinrite. Spinrite is saying the Parttion is larger than the drive, and to correct the problem before continuing. I believe the drive has been corupted by a bad/faulity IDE channel on the Motherboard. As it now won't find any drive plugged into that channel. Has anyone come across this problem before ? Or better still have an answer that will let me get some of my data back. Thanks in advance Guys.

Sorry puntoMX, I didn't know they had all been standardised. I had a look through some of the 'Installation Guides' we have here, thats why I was worried about the pins being different. Thanks for your help, I feel alot happy about trying this card reader now.

Hi puntoMX, Thats part of the problem. Both ASUS and Gigabyte use different configurations, which they both class as standard. This MoBo is from Foxcom, I've never used one of their MoBo's before, so I've got no guide. But thanks for trying.

Hi Guys, I've got a Dell Dimension 9200 here, that i'm trying to get some info on. On the Mobo just blow the Power Supply Connector, theres a connector for the USB card reader. It looks like a standard internal USB connector, but I'd like to check it out before I risk blowing the thing up. Dose anyone here know what the pin order of this connector is ? Or know where I can find one ? Thanks.

@eDOC, In another 2 years I may have increased my intellect enough to have thoughts like yours. In the meantime, I'll just have to put up with actually achieving the things I set out to do. Whether that be creating my own Unattended / Recovery Disks in XP and Vista, Thanking / Making Friends of the people that having taken the time to help and advice me, Improving my basic communication skills, and getting myself a life. Yours Most Sincerely ZaForD

@eDOC, Just because your not getting the answers you want, it doesn't mean the guys here aren't trying to help you. I've been making my own Unattended and Multi Disks for a couple of years now, and I've yet to be able to make one that works from my Vaio S-Series recovery DVD's. So its not something a beginer is going to be able to do. If you really want a 'Sony' install but without all the bloat, heres the only sensible way to do it. 1. Do a full restore from either your recovery patition or DVD's. 2. Go to Add/Remove programs and remove what you don't want. 3. Add any programs. util's or extras you want/need. 4. Image the disk and burn that to DVD. 6. Use that image everytime you reinstall. The only other way is to get yourself an OEM disk, rip it to your hard disk, Modify some of its files and Add others to it. As has been explained in this thread. But you won't have any of the 'Sony' programs or Util's, you'll have a basic install of XP. You'll have to go the Vaio site to get any of them that you want, and believe me trying to get those files from the Vaio website is not easy.

@Phil, Sounds like your in the same boat as me. I do IT, Admin for local Community Centres, Youth Clubs, and other Charities in the area. And if the hardware your dealing with in donated like most of the stuff I deal with, I don't think we'll ever have a better solution than the Unattended CD. Give WinPE a try, you'll suprised what it can do. I've only been using for a few months, but I think I'll be moving over to it fully soon. @Jaclaz, Like I said above, WinPE has suprised me with what it can do. I have two .wim images on a DVD [1x IntelP4, 1x AMD64] which can be started from either a Floppy or USB drive. I've used them on over 30 PC's so far with only 1 failure.

Hi Jaclaz, Yes, the process is the same. But by using a .wim image, you can add just about any driver combo you can think off, plus you can inject new drivers into the image as and when there released. Also, if you sysprep the system before you image it. Anytime you use that image, it will almost be the same as doing a clean install. Its fair more flexible than a normal restore/recovery cd, but it is still limited by the hardware architecture.

Hi Phil. This can be done by using the Vista version of WinPE. Which would mean using an image of the HDD, rather than installing the OS. And would also involve some scripts to automate the proccess.

Hi Guys, I hope this is the right section for this question. I just got a new PC, which has a SATA DVD as well as SATA HDD's. The problem I've got is when I try to use any of the bootable Utility CD's that are around. They boot up OK, and I can choose the Util I want from the menu. But, I only get as far as it loading the CD drivers, then it errors and hangs. Anyone have a solution to this ? The Utils I'm most interested in getting working are Ghost and Patiton Magic, both of which I have on Floppy. But how long has been since you got a Floppy Drive with a new PC.

@ ^_^ Your not quite the last one yet. I'm still there with ya.

Hi Leeoniya, I used to get a simular problem with Win98, that was down the a damaged 'Smartdrv.exe' I don't know if WinXP even uses that file. My advice would be to either make a new ISO and/or store the ISO in a different place on the system. Cos it sounds as though the install is have problems accessing certain parts of that image.

@anebg, You've answered your own question, my friend. Its the fact your using an Upgrade disk thats causing all your problems. I don't know which files you'll need to edit or swap to stop it asking for proof of an older version of Windows. Most people just use another type of disk. If your trying to use the CD Key that came with that Upgrade disk, you'll need to use a Full Retail disk as your source. Hope this helps.

Thanks Shark007, I was wondering why this image was 170mb bigger than the one I have, yet had the same file name. B)

@xehqter, Thanks for the info on the computer reports, i'll not bother collecting any more. But, I've always got my eyes open for new OEM filesets. I've spent alot of today reading up on both OEMScan & Siginet’s RVM Integrator, i think, i've got them worked out. I guess i'll find out for sure next week. I've seen and read a fair bit about installing and deploying Vista, most of which ignores OEM activation. But my guess is that'll change that in a couple of weeks.

Hi Guys, Sorry for the lack of input over the last few months, but we've had funding problems here. I see this thread has slowed down abit, is that because we've more or less solved the problem ? Or is everyone starting to move on to Vista now ? Anyway, I'm a little confused about if we still want/need computer reports. I'll post this one and hope i've worked it out by the time i get another.