extracting .cab files form HP recovery discs.

[wax_eagle]

As something of a computer tweaker I have become increasingly
dienfranchised wiht the way mircosoft has forced OEMs to distribute
software on recovery discs, (or even just on back up partitions as in
many HP systems). And im wondering if anyone has written a program
that will easily rip the cab files from the 6 bootable CDs I created
or from the recovery parititon that is taking up my precious
harddrive space.

This mostly comes about because I am looking to re-format my system
and I would like to create a partition on which I can dual boot
either Debian or Suse Linux. Im currently dual booting with Redhat
after paritionting wiht BootitNG after installing Windows XP. Is
there a way to do this? Im looking for a challenge so I dont mind if
its somewhat difficult..

==============
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[gb]

My HP laptop's recovery CDs contain image files of the Powerquest DriveImage
variety (.pqi). Since they are password protected it is impossible to use
DriveImage to restore directly and thus control partitioning. However, the
first CD contains script files that run the recovery and these scripts can
be revised such that different partitioning is possible (including not
deleting ALL partitions when running the recovery). With a little work, it
is possible to create a new CD1 that contains a revised script.

If your recovery CDs are of this type, you should be able to search the
Powerquest (now owned by Symantec) web site for documentation on the
scripting (that's where I found it last year) and do what you are asking
about.

Of course, I have to ask: Why not just do a full recovery, use
PartitionMagic (or similar) to alter the partitioning, then immediately use
DriveImage, Ghost (or similar) to create a new "recovery" image to use in
the future?

In any case, good luck!

[David Efflandt]

On 1 Jun 2004 19:02:42, wax_eagle
<wax_eagle@hotmail-dot-com.no-spam.invalid> wrote: As something of a computer tweaker I have become increasingly dienfranchised wiht the way mircosoft has forced OEMs to distribute software on recovery discs, (or even just on back up partitions as in many HP systems). And im wondering if anyone has written a program that will easily rip the cab files from the 6 bootable CDs I created or from the recovery parititon that is taking up my precious harddrive space. This mostly comes about because I am looking to re-format my system and I would like to create a partition on which I can dual boot either Debian or Suse Linux. Im currently dual booting with Redhat after paritionting wiht BootitNG after installing Windows XP. Is there a way to do this? Im looking for a challenge so I dont mind if its somewhat difficult..

If you had a DVD writer, you would have ended up with just 1 recovery
tools CD and 1 recovery DVD. I have not needed them yet, but came close.

I just used a Linux rescue CD based on Mandrake 9.2 to shrink my XP Home
partition with ntfsresize and fdisk, so I could install 64-bit XP Pro and
Linux. However, I thought I had disabled virtual memory in XP Home before
the resize (but apparently forgot to hit Apply), so there was something on
the partition that limited its downsizing. Installing 64-bit XP changed
the hds/cyls so it could not even boot itself, which took some guessing
with Linux fdisk to straighten out. And SuSE 9.1 Partitioner tried to do
that to (even though fdisk in its console showed correct geometry). So if
you do any playing around with the partions, record fdisk -l for the drive
first so you can reconstruct partitions if necessary. I was lucky and had
no data loss.

--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored http://www.de-srv.com/
HP a530n AMD 64-bit 3200+