Category: General Computing

Categories
Computer Hardware Hard Drives

ICH9R Fake Raid Failed when Reinstalling OS DISC?

Hello, if you’ve read anything on my blog, you’ll note that I had a 6 x 1 TB HDD SATA raid going through my ICH9R ABIT IP35 motherboard. I recently decided to reformat the ‘server’, and was told by a few that I should be able to reformat the OS drive (separate from the array), and I would not have any issues. So ahead I went … reinstalled OS, got into windows for the first time, and noticed the array was bjorked.

The array had gone into a failed state, and decided to pull 1 drive out of the array as well. I tried removing the 1 drive, re-adding it as a spare, but it would not take/rebuild. I used about 14 different recovery software applications (get data back, undelete, raid recovery, ubuntu live disc, R-Studio, etc) , over the span of 4 days and I could only recover 1/6 items I lost. I was hosed, as a last resort, I decided to rebuild the array, EXACTLY how it was prior to losing the data.

What I did was delete the entire 6 disk array, and re-built the array as I had done before this fiasco. My steps are a little more technical, these are assuming you know how to set up your own raid. If you need any more help, you can comment and i’ll respond.

Step 1 ) Remove array, via option 3 in CTRL – I
Step 2 ) Recreate array with the exact same HDD’s as before
Step 3 ) Use the exact same options as before, raid 5, 64KB strip, etc
Step 4 ) boot into windows
Step 5 ) Go to Disk Management
Step 6 ) It will ask you to specify the GPT or MBR, select the option you previously chose
Step 7 ) Go through the options, but do NOT format the disk
Step 8 ) Use Getdataback, or some other NTFS recovery software

It took about 5 minutes for GetDataBack to show me my entire file structure, and recover ALL of my data back, 100%.

This is all assuming you have NOT done the following :

1) formatted your hdd
2) raid 5, with ICH9R controller – fakeraid
3) you did NOT write any data to your hdd’s
4) technically, this should work with 5 out of 6 HDD’s, or 2 out of 4, etc for a raid 5

I did not think this would work, but boy was I happy I tried it.

^_^

Categories
Air Cards

Verizon Access Manager/US Cellular ERROR 720 – Cannot connect to server/remote server

I used to see this error constantly with some of our users who used Verizon Access Manager, and ANY type of Air Card; PC5750, PC5740, PC5220, tethering with Blackberries, etc. Using the VZAM software, or US Cellular sometimes you will not get an error, sometimes you will. The best way to test what error you are getting is to insert your air card, and use the Dial Up connection that is created by the software to attempt to connect (in Networks Connections). You will always get some sort of error. So far I have not seen this on Windows 7, only on Windows XP PRO SP2, or SP3, so I will write this up assuming you have Windows XP.

CAUSE: This issue may occur if the TCP/IP protocol has become unbound from the dial-up adapter, or if a conflict is created when a second WAN Miniport IP device driver loads. Back to the top Back to the top

RESOLUTION: To resolve this issue, uninstall the WAN Miniport IP and PPTP devices. To do so, follow these steps:

To be safe, uninstall the CISCO VPN (if you use it). You should also remove the BB, or Aircard from device manager.

Step 1:

1. Open Device Manager
2. Under the View menu click Show hidden devices.
3. Under Network adapters, you will see WAN Miniport IP devices. If a WAN Miniport IP device is listed, continue to the following step. If no WAN Miniport IP devices are listed, go directly to step 16.
4. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
5. Locate the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
6. On the Registry menu, click Export Registry File, type backup-key in the File name box, and then click Save. (Note You can restore the changes that you make to this registry key. To do so, double-click the backup-key.reg file that you saved.)
7. Click each of the registry subkeys under this key, and then view the Data column of the DriverDesc value to determine which of the subkeys corresponds to WAN Miniport (IP). For example, the 0005 subkey.
8. Right-click the subkey whose DriverDesc value data is WAN Miniport (IP) or WAN Minport (PPTP); (for example, right-click 0005), and then click Delete. Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the key.
9. Quit regedit
10. Open Device Manager
11. On the View menu, click Show hidden devices.
12. Under Network adapters, uninstall the WAN Miniport (IP) and the WAN Miniport (PPTP).

Step 2: Reinstall the WAN Miniports

1. Find netrasa.inf in c:\windows\inf
2. Make a copy of the file and name it netrasa.inf.save
3. Open the original copy of netrasa.inf
4. Under the [ControlFlags] section: place a semicolon in front of the line that starts with Excludefromselect=\
5. Continue to add semicolons to all the lines beneath until coming to the line: MS_NdisWanNbfIn,MS_NdisWanNbfOut

Step 3:

1. Start the Add New Hardware wizard from the Control Panel
2. Select the hardware is already installed.
3. Select “Add a new hardware device” from the end of the list.
4. Select Install the hardware that I manually select from a list. (Advanced)
5. Select “Network Adapters” followed by “Microsoft” and then both the PPTP and the IP Wan miniport one at a time. (NO need to reboot between these steps)
6. Reboot after running through the wizard for both the PPTP and IP miniport.
7. Select Start -> Run and type: netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt (For details, see KB299357)
8. Reboot and try your connection. This worked for me and has worked for others.

Hopefully this helps some people, Verizon has no idea what’s going on, so I had to find this on my own.

update July 26th 2010 : This also fixes the US Cellular’s error 720 with a UM175, or 185.

Categories
Operating Systems

How to disable Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration for server 2003/2008

I get a lot of people asking me how to disable IE’s Enhanced Security Configuration, so this is how to do it for server 2003, and 2008.

Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration places your server and Microsoft Internet Explorer in a configuration that decreases the exposure of your server to potential attacks that can occur through Web content and aplication scripts. As a result, some Web sites may not display or perform as expected.

For Windows Server 2003 Users

The quickest way to remove it for Server 2003 is to uninstall it: Go to Control Panel, then Add or Remove Programs, then click on Add/Remove Windows Components uncheck the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration and click on next.

[zenphoto src=”2003server.png” album=”blog/os_stuff/” width=”500″ /]

For Windows Server 2008 Users

In Windows Server 2008, you have to click on the root folder in server manager. Then you scroll down to the Security Information Section and click “Configure IE ESC”. You can turn off IE ESC for Administrators and/or for users. The latter in a Terminal Server environment.

[zenphoto src=”2008server.png” album=”blog/os_stuff/” width=”500″ /]

Categories
Computer Hardware

Poor laptop

This is what happens when you run over a Dell D620 with a Caterpillar D9N. I feel bad for the dell tech that has to fix this, got to love Dell’s CompleteCare warranty :).

This is a D9N :

[zenphoto src=”d9n.jpg” album=”blog/bad_laptop” width=”500″ /]

This is the poor aftermath :

[zenphoto src=”runover1.jpg” album=”blog/bad_laptop” width=”500″ /]
[zenphoto src=”runover2.jpg” album=”blog/bad_laptop” width=”500″ /]

Categories
Computer Hardware Hard Drives

ICH9 + 6 1TB Seagate (ST31000528AS) in a RAID 5

Hardware :
Motherboard : Abit IP35+ICH9
CPU : E8400
Memory : 2GB x 4 OCZ DDR2 running @ 399MHZ (5-5-5-18)
OS Hard Drive : 1 x Seagate ST31000528AS
Raid Hard Drives : 6 x Seagate ST31000528AS
Raid info : RAID 5 64KB strip
PSU : Antec Basiq BP430 430W

Software :
OS : Windows Server 2008 Data Center Edition R2 x64
Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver Version : v.8.9.6.1002
Benchmark : ATTO Bench32 v2.41

Here are some photos of the box, not the best quality (iPhone), but you get the idea :
[zenphoto src=”1.jpg” album=”blog/nas” width=”500″ /]
[zenphoto src=”2.jpg” album=”blog/nas” width=”500″ /]

Here are the benchmarks with write back-cache on

[zenphoto src=”bench1.jpg” album=”blog/nas” width=”500″ /]
[zenphoto src=”bench2.jpg” album=”blog/nas” width=”500″ /]

Now here they are with benchmarks with the write back-cache off

[zenphoto src=”bench3.jpg” album=”blog/nas” width=”500″ /]
[zenphoto src=”bench4.jpg” album=”blog/nas” width=”500″ /]

Overall, a great little set up, where I did not have to purchase a RAID card, the ICH9 was plenty fast for my home storage. I run it with write-back cache on, for the obvious reason. I would see sustained copy (When I want to write a file from my Windows 7 box to my NAS box) speeds of around 120MB/s, bursting to about 170MB/s. I have played 48GB movies off the NAS streamed to my PS3 with no hitch (via Ehternet).

I have been running this set up for a little over 5 months now with the 430W Antec PSU in an Antec 300 case. No drives have dropped from the array, I have not had to rebuild at all. I have zero errors in the read/write area as well so all is well. I have been adding/removing movies/media/files/storage/backups from that array since it was set up and running. I have a 7th ST31000528AS running as my main OS Hard Drive, so the NAS is purely for storage.

For reference, you can get ICH9 beta software/drivers from this website :
http://www.x-drivers.com/catalog/drivers/sata_controllers/companies/intel/models/ich9/index.html

Categories
Computer Hardware Hard Drives

oczssd2-2sld120g – benchmarks

[zenphoto src=”as-ssd-bench.png” album=”blog/OCZSSD2″ width=”500″ /]

[zenphoto src=”as-copy-bench.png” album=”blog/OCZSSD2″ width=”500″ /]

[zenphoto src=”attossdocz.JPG” album=”blog/OCZSSD2″ width=”500″ /]

Very fast drive, very comparable to the INTEL X25-M G2 80gb