MMZ

CloneCD is the answer. While CloneCD will only show the .ccd file in the 'burn image file' dialog box, all that the .ccd file contains is information on the image type, clone CD image making version, etc. The .img file is the actual disk image. The .sub file is the subchannel information - that's harder to explain. Usually, though, CloneCD will also produce a .cue file, though I'm not sure if it requires it or not in order to burn the image.

Why are you using the table.field notation on the inserts?

It depends on the OS you want to boot up... I seem to recall old distributions of Slackware Linux coming with a tool that let you 'boot' Linux from a DOS prompt allowing people with Windows 95/98/ME to install Linux without having to configure dual-booting. It was called... loadlin. If you can boot off of CD, floppy, or anything else you could boot to a DOS prompt and then load Linux off the USB drive (Kernel would need to be on the CD/floppy/hd/whatever, but it should be possible.) Hope this helps.

I've seen schools where the student network is blocked off but for access to a VPN server which students use to access the outside world (keeps the configuration simple while keeping non-students off the network. Also prevents anyone from seeing what you are doing online.)

I disagree with VaKo's post 3 posts up ^ - while it is not the fastest it surely is not completely useless. IMHO it would actually be better for many tasks than 'modern desktop systems' as these servers were designed to run 24/7/365 and most 'modern desktop systems' are designed to last 3 to 5 years with 8 hours of daily usage and utilize some of the cheapest parts I've ever seen. While a P2 450 isn't bad a good question is what does the system support in terms of upgrades? Check the manufacturer out, there's a good chance you can get up to a P-III 600 going in there. If the system supports multiple CPUs you can even double up. I got a pair of P-III 600s with matching VRMs for $12 each on ebay a while back. RAM is probably going to be 'special' if it is a true server system (ie registered buffered ECC SDRAM) but I recently got 1.5 gigs of PC100 Registered buffered ECC SDRAM for free. I've seen it on ebay for as low as $30 per gig. Larger SCSI drives are expensive no matter what. But you can get 18 gig drives off of ebay for $10 to $20 each, and that could be more than enough storage depending on what you want to do. (Just make sure you get the right drives and/or hotswap bays as the server supports it and has free slots. If you have any questions about server hardware feel free to PM me the make and model information and I'll tell you what you can/can't do with it in terms of upgrades.) Operating systems? Linux - A distro without X (or with X disabled) would scream on that system (upgraded or not.) (I like Slackware 11) Windows 2000 - would run quite nicely (don't worry about it taking 5 to 10 minutes to boot up in Windows 2000, that is the OS and not the hardware (My dual Xeon 2.4 with 3 gigs of RAM takes 12 minutes to get to the desktop - takes an additional 4 minutes or so to complete booting.) OpenBSD - Why not? Solaris x86 - Not sure how it'll do, but you can give it a try and let us know... As for what you can do with it - to review.... If you want to / do web development it would make an excellent LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) test box. All you need is a good Linux distribution (I prefer Slackware, though installation isn't as simple as other distros,) Apache HTTPD, PHP, and MySQL (versions of all 3 can be installed with Slackware 11 (avoid 12, it has a few issues.)) If you want to learn JSP or similar add Apache Tomcat to the above. If you're an ASP guy that system is more than enough to run Windows 2000, IIS, MySQL/MsSQL, PHP, and anything else. If upgraded with a few IDE or SATA drives, it'd be an excellent file server. Personally I'd use Slackware Linux, though aren't there some Linux systems that basically give you a web-based configuration system similar to a consumer-grade NAS system? The system is more than enough to run even some of the most modern dedicated game servers (especially under Linux without X.) I can host 32 player games of UT2k4 and COD2 simultaneously on a dual P-III 600 running Slackware Linux. For routing/VPN, I can get a sustained throughput of 65Mbit/s between two networks using two P-III 500s with Linux and OpenVPN to create a tunnel. It all comes back to what you want to do.

I think the real question is - what do you want to do with them (edit: and just how fast are they anyways?) If you don't have a server at home but do web development work at home you could use one as a LAMP box. If you have multiple computers at home and are always trying to figure out what file is on which you could use one as a fileserver (as others suggested, use SATA or IDE drives on off-board controllers for cost-effective storage.) If you like playing with software, put a different OS on each and play - if you want to/work as a net admin, try to get all the different OSes to talk together... securely. If you like gaming, set up a dedicated game server and/or a tunnel server(hamachi? OpenVPN, etc) to game with friends who aren't in the same building. Put all your security tools and utilities on it and use it to get jobs performing security audits. If you are in to home automation, use one to start controlling your household lights, appliances, etc. If you like talking on the phone, set up Asterisk and find free or 'almost free' VoIP services and build your own VoIP network. If you like modern art and don't need the computers for anything, turn the machines into a lawn ornament (I once saw a 3' tall dragon built entirely out of computer parts... was kind of cool.) If you don't already have a PVR, Media center PC, or Media player hooked up to your TV, create one or more of the above. If you don't have a router but want to be able to hook up multiple PCs to share one internet connection, use one as a router/firewall. If you hate computers, hit up ebay and turn your spare systems into cash you can spend on something else you enjoy. If you enjoy cooking, get a touchscreen and build yourself a touchscreen-activated digital cookbook in one of your kitchen cupboards. Depending on the size, you can stack them up and use them as a chair - or in the case of a 2U rackmouse case, put it on legs and use it as a coffee table - yet another options is to mod it with windows and floors and things and use it as a hampster cage. As for what I would do - I don't know... I just finished turning my last 'spare' server into a LAN party server. I tweaked out the system with a second CPU, as much RAM, and as many disks as I could. It has all the dedicated servers ready to run. It also has 5 copies of each patch, utility, and installer that are typically needed at LAN parties (each copy resides on a seperate drive to decrease install delays due to seek times.) As for SCSI/SATA... For volume go SATA with an offboard controller. If the server has a RAID controller you can use smaller SCSI drives in a RAID 5 array for OS, software, and small file storage but it'll give you redundancy and screaming speed (assuming you don't get like 50-pin SCSI-I drives.) If the server doesn't have a decent hardware RAID controller, just stick to IDE/SATA. Keep in mind that while many servers may have onboard IDE in addition to SCSI, the IDE chain *may* not be bootable and *may* only be ATA-33 (designed for CD, DVD, or tape drives where speed isn't as critical) so if you have a pile of PATA disks lying around, get an off-board controller anyways, it'll most likely give you much better performance and may be required in order to have the system bootable without a SCSI disk.

So I have a Sun Ultra 5 and an Ultra 10 that I got when a company surplused them. They didn't come with HDs or RAM so I only recently got RAM installed but I hit a roadblock in attempting to install Solaris. The firmware prevents booting from CD unless you supply a password. Sadly the company I got the systems from disposed of the firmware password records when they got rid of the systems so aren't any help. My best option is to simply replace the firmware but before I go about ordering a new firmware I would like to try something different. There is a command that root can run in Solaris to change the firmware options (ie disabling security.) So I can maybe change the security options if I had a hard disk I could boot off of. Does anyone have a compatible Sun system and would you be willing to do a minimal install with an known root password on a small HD (was thinking 10 Gb,) create a sector by sector drive image under Linux or something, and then upload the image to my FTP site? I would then, hopefully, restore the image onto a drive, boot the system, log in as root, disable firmware security, and then install Solaris myself. In terms of hardware, I have the option of working on either the Ultra 5 or Ultra 10 though the only difference is the Ultra 10 has the Creator 3D graphics card. Both of them use IDE drives. Thanks in advance

What I really want for christmas is four 750 gig HDs and a SATA RAID controller. Sadly no one in my family has bought me a piece of computer hardware in well over 10 years. Things I'd also enjoy (and am probably a lot more likely to get) include an air compressor, a plane (the hand-operated tool and not the flying aid,) a sleeping bag, a magnifying light, and a network colour laser printer.

I assume that you have ensured that your laptop can access the router's configuration panel and have gone through and configured the router for the proper connection type, etc... Depending on your ISP, if your cable modem was installed originally with your PC, it may have locked onto your PC's MAC address. In the web control panel for your router, somewhere, there should be a 'clone MAC address' option. Using that may fix your problem... good luck. (Please note that you'll need to use a wired connection from your laptop to the router when doing the cloning so that the router clones the wired NIC's MAC and not your wireless MAC.)

File server 1 (Custom) P4 2.4, 1.5 Gb RAM, 1.2 Tb HD, Windows 2000 Server File server 2 (Compaq Proliant 1600) Dual P-III 600, 768 Mb RAM, 120 Gb HD (RAID), Slackware Linux Main desktop (Custom) C2D 6320, 3 Gb RAM, 500 Gb HD, GeForce 8600 GT, Windows XP Video editing system (Custom) P4 2.6, 2 Gb RAM, 800 Gb HD, Radeon All-in-Wonder, Windows XP Email / chat system (Custom) P4 2.4, 1 Gb RAM, 120 Gb HD, GeForce 7600 GS, Slackware Linux I have a few other systems, but they are mostly testing/playground/backup/spare/guest things where details are always changing.

I had a cheap Asus board where the onboard Realtek NIC disappear from the PC and nothing would bring it back. (Windows wouldn't detect it, all the lights on the socket / the network port were always black.) I finally broke down and installed a PCI card. (Wasn't even able to disable the old card in the BIOS.) After installing the PCI card the onboard card suddenly decided to reappear / start working again. I was then able to remove the PCI card and the onboard NIC hasn't vanished again... Was really odd.

Don't simply replace explorer with another shell and forget about explorer... There are usually very easy ways to launch explorer. As such, I'd suggest using tweakui to clear out everything you don't want from the start menu. There will also be a few dozen reg changes that can be done in order to disable other functionality (disabling shuthown, reducing options, etc.) Lastly, after installing all the games, make the default user account a limitted user account (remember to password protect the administrator account.) If you hit all the right settigns you should be good... as an alternative / backup plan you can probably find a system re-imaging tool which, after each user is done, will automatically reimage the machine off of the server... that way if you missed something / couldn't fix everything / a new windows exploit appears and someone uses it as soon at the user logs out the system will be returned to the default and any changes / stuff done will get erased. Even if you don't go for automatic imaging, I would still suggest using Acronis or a similar product to image the computers and periodically restore them as it'll erase any changes, customizations, etc that people do.

Windows 2000 and Windows XP / XP SP1 are, by default, all limited to 137 Gigs however you can overcome that limitation by getting the 48-bit LBA patch. Check Microsoft's or your HD manufacturer's website for that. As for other operating systems / hardware, everything depends on your exact situation. Some older hardware's BIOS may not recognize the drive or may freeze when scanning the drive, You can either install an off-board IDE controller which should allow any drive to work, but you need to pay for the new controller - but you mentioned you were getting a new off-board controller anyways. I have a few circa 1999 PCs. I you have trouble with an offboard controller, try updating the MB BIOS and/or the controller firmware - sometimes does wonders. Alternatively, if you decide to stick with the onboard PATA ports and your OS ignores the BIOS set your BIOS to 'none' for that drive so that it doesn't scan it and let your OS deal with the drive itself. The only problem is that, in this case, you would need a smaller drive to hold the boot sector (and/or the OS) so that the computer will actually boot.