On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 2:24 PM, nate centos@linuxpowered.net wrote:

Boris Epstein wrote:

...

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

Pretty off topic but go build a PE disk, that is your best bet

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

You'll need your original OS media.

nate

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CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

Thanks Nate!

Unfortunately, this is no longer an option as these days when you buy a Windows PC you do not get any installation media, merely a recovery CD/DVD. Yes, you are reading this right - you are paying money for the OS but you ain't getting no disks with it!

And as the case happens to be with this particular machine I don't even have that "recovery" disk.

Boris.

Robert Heller wrote:

...

Unfortunately, this is no longer an option as these days when you buy a Windows PC you do not get any installation media, merely a recovery CD/DVD. Yes, you are reading this right - you are paying money for the OS but you ain't getting no disks with it!

NO, you were *never* paying for the OS! When you 'pay' for MS-Windows you are paying for the right to USE a COPY of it. You do not *OWN* anything. Microsoft *does not sell* the O/S, only licenses to use it. MS is just getting 'smart' -- by not shipping a installation disk with OEM copies they are just preventing pirating. Read the EULA.

furthermore, its not even necessarily true. you can order media with the system from many vendors, most others will supply the DVD for a nominal S&H fee. Anyways, its not Microsoft who's not shipping the OEM DVD, its the OEM vendor. You're less likely to get a disk with an elcheapo bigbox store retail system, where the $1 or $2 saved by not packaging the media is a significant chunk of the narrow profit.

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Neil Aggarwal neil@jammconsulting.com wrote:

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If I have a dual-boot machine (Linux and Windows) would I have any good tools under Linux that would allow me to look at the content of the Windows boot partition, administer it, clean up the registry,

What about mounting the partition on Linux: http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/centos_linux_guides/centos_linux_step _by_step_guide/s1-q-and-a-windows.html

Neil

-- Neil Aggarwal, (281)846-8957, http://www.JAMMConsulting.com CentOS 5.4 KVM VPS $55/mo, no setup fee, no contract, dedicated 64bit CPU 1GB dedicated RAM, 40GB RAID storage, 500GB/mo premium BW, Zero downtime

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CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

Thanks Neil,

I know how to mount Windows partitions under Linux. That's not a problem. The problem is, what do I do afterwards? Are there any tools I could use to go through the content of that partition with a view of turning it into a working Windows XP installation.

Boris.

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Neil Aggarwal neil@jammconsulting.com wrote:

...

...

If I have a dual-boot machine (Linux and Windows) would I have any good tools under Linux that would allow me to look at the content of the Windows boot partition, administer it, clean up the registry,

<snip>

I know how to mount Windows partitions under Linux. That's not a problem. The problem is, what do I do afterwards? Are there any tools I could use to go through the content of that partition with a view of turning it into a working Windows XP installation.

The only thing I know is the password cracker, which boots Linux, of course, and mounts the Windoze partition, then walks you through resetting the password. I *think* it lets you do some other things, *maybe* (it's been nearly three years since I needed it) has a tool for the registry.

I'm having trouble googling it - I'm being prevented by security here.

mark

On Fri, 6 Nov 2009, James Bensley wrote:

Hopefully this isn't going too off-topic here but;

Once an NTFS/Windows drive has been mounted under Linux, is it possible to view the registry in any way as normally it is inaccessible when booted into the Windows OS or does it lie on an NTFS Alternate Data Stream that is inaccessible from within Linux and only Windows?

not in centos, but out there http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/virt-win-reg-get-at-the-windows-registr...

October 29, 2009...4:03 pm virt-win-reg: get at the Windows Registry in your Windows guests [from Linux]

The author, Richard WM Jones, is in Red Hat's Emerging Technologies group, and an all around smart cookie well worth watching and building behind.

-- Russ herrold

On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 01:04:43PM -0700, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:

The only thing I know is the password cracker, which boots Linux, of course, and mounts the Windoze partition, then walks you through resetting the password. I *think* it lets you do some other things, *maybe* (it's been nearly three years since I needed it) has a tool for the registry.

I'm having trouble googling it - I'm being prevented by security here.

The name of the CD is ntpasswd. The web site is here:

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

It says that it also has a registry editor, but I've never used it except for resetting (note: not cracking) user passwords.

--keith

Reinstallation repairs reinit the registry which borks all the applications installed, so it is always better to just reinstall.

Not since XP. I've done half a dozen or so "Repair" installs of XP over the last couple of years and to date I don't think I've lost an app's config due to the re-install itself. The losses of apps were usually due to any corruption of the filesystem, missing files or the app's registry entries.

That said, it's always preferable in XP to start fresh if it's that bad. Sometimes you can't though.