On 5/6/2013 12:21 PM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote: >> run it from hirens usb ? that can boot to a winPE style environment. > Never heard of it. Just looked at it... winPE - is that the miniXP? > > And it bothers me that I've never heard of hirens - I*do* have to be > aware of security. I'm still thinking of wine. Hirens has been around for quite a while, and gets updated periodically. its a all-in-one CD or USB boot full of mostly open source tools, can boot into memtest86, a linux kernel/shell/gui environment, or into a 'bartPE' mini-XP environment. freedos too, I think. hirens themselves only distributes the kit to build it, since it involves some licensed software, but pre-built ones are available from somewhat marginal sources (bit-torrent, etc). you could, of course, simply use a plain BartPE boot, too, that you built yourself (Bart provides a toolkit for creating a winPE style environment). you need access to a Windows desktop system somewhere to build one of these, along with the Windows XP CD to get the required files. -- john r pierce 37N 122W somewhere on the middle of the left coast