Archive for March, 2009

Bypass this article and fix your Intel RAID Configuration immediately using my new application, RAIDFix

An update to this post can be found here

Many people seem to have found my original post about enabling ICH RAID after installing Vista quite helpful, so I thought it would be worth adding a follow-up post to add a few details.

First, some people have suggested that you can simply search for the iastor.sys file instead of navigating to the path I mentioned in the first post.  This should be a fine alternative to manually navigating there, but just be sure to pick the right iastor.sys file.

Second, some people mention that right-clicking on the iastor.inf file located in the same directory as the iastor.sys file gives you an “Install” option.  I have seen that option, and I tried installing the driver in that manner, but it did not  work for me.  Your mileage may vary.

Third, there is the question of ControlSet001 vs CurrentControlSet in the registry entries.  Without getting into too much detail, the CurrentControlSet value in the registry is simply a pointer to whichever Control Set has been loaded by Windows.  For simplicity (and compatability’s) sake, I have changed all entries in the reg file to point to CurrentControSet, rather than to a specific, numbered control set.  More often than not, your system will be using ControlSet001, but that might not always be the case.

Finally, Intel has updated their Matrix Storage Manager software as of 3/13, which means changes need to be made to the registry information in my previous post if you want to install the newest version of the software right off the bat.  If you would rather stick with the slightly older build, you can find it here.

What I decided to do was take a snapshot of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE portion of my registry before and after installing the newest version of the Matrix Storage Manager software to see what values might have changed between versions.  I suppose I can’t say that this is an absolutely bulletproof way of determining what has changed, but it’s a pretty darn good attempt.

Luckily, not a ton has changed – in fact, only one section of the registry file has been altered in the new release.

The second key in the registry file that adds data to the

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001

key has been slightly altered.  The changes to that section are on lines 2, 5, 6, and 7, which simply denote driver version changes:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001]
"InfPath"="oem9.inf"
"InfSection"="iaStor_Inst_RAID"
"ProviderName"="Intel"
"DriverDateData"=hex:00,00,97,ae,db,8b,c9,01
"DriverDate"="2-11-2009"
"DriverVersion"="8.8.0.1009"
"MatchingDeviceId"="pci\\ven_8086&dev_2822&cc_0104"
"DriverDesc"="Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO SATA RAID Controller"

That’s it – those are the only differences, aside from “Enum” entries that are specific to your computer.

Hopefully this helps some of you looking to switch on RAID in your Vista install.

Grab the NEW registry file here

Grab the OLD registry file updated to reflect CurrentControlSet here

Also, if someone would like to take a registry snapshot of their computer before and after both RAID is configured and Matrix Storage Manager is installed, I would love to see those registry files so I can do a bit of comparison.

By following these guidelines you will become a better player.  Soon everyone will want to play with you.  Caution, your friend’s list will fill up rapidly.

1.    Get to know your neighbor – It’s almost impossible to know everyone who plays Halo online and so it is important to introduce yourself.  Inform them of your impeccable skill level and how they don’t stand a chance.  This will reduce the feeling of failure at the end of the match.  Also, tell them how you would like to meet their mother and all the nice things you would like to do with her.  It’s also hard to determine the ethnicity of other players and so to avoid making horrible racial slurs ask them politely if they are of a certain ethnicity.

Method: Shout, “You guys suck”, “I’d like to f*&k your mom!”, and, “Are you a ni&#er?” in your microphone during the pre-game lobby in order to make the acquaintance of your new friends.

Continue reading “Halo 3 Etiquette Guidelines” »

If you are having a hard time getting your Xbox 360 DVD drive to open and close, odds are the drive belt is the problem.  It seems that due to heat and general usage, the drive belt that is responsible for opening and closing the drive will stretch or accumulate enough dirt that it starts slipping.

One way to remedy this is to open your drive and clean the belt, but more often than not the problem will recur relatively quickly.  After scouring the web, I have found what seems to be the consensus as far as which belt you can use to replace your existing drive belt.  Most people opt to purchase a replacement that is smaller than the existing belt in order to ensure that there is sustainable tension for the long run.  The replacement belt of choice has a 19mm internal diameter and is 1.2mm thick.

You can purchase a new belt at any of the locations below:

SBS2.6 Belt @ Studio Sound Electronics

FD36P Belt @ Maplin (UK)

SCX2.6 Belt @ Unicorn Electronics

To do the repair, simply open your DVD drive, undo the belt connecting the two points highlighted below, and then reattach the new belt in its place.  You will likely need to use a small screwdriver or needle-nose pliers to attach the new belt as it will fit quite a bit more snug than the old belt.  You may also want to limit the amount that you touch the inside of the belt surface as to reduce the likelihood of depositing residual finger oils on the rubber which may result in future slippage.

[Picture courtesy of Llama - www.llama.com]

On occasion, when installing Adobe Acrobat 9 (as well as some other versions) the application will fail to install the “Adobe PDF” printer that typically resides in your Printers and Faxes folder in Windows XP.  This not only prevents Acrobat from creating any PDF files, but it also breaks the PDFMaker plugin functionality that gets added to Office when installing Acrobat.

The following instructions will help you restore the missing PDF printer:

1. Open the Printers and Faxes dialog box and select Add a Printer
2. Click Next then select Local printer attached to this computer, and deselect the Automatically detect and install my Plug and play printer box.

   Click Next.

3. In the port selection box, choose My Documents\*.pdf (Adobe PDF) and click Next.
4. On the following screen, select Have Disk.

   Click Browse, then navigate to the C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\Xtras\AdobePDF folder.

   Highlight the AdobePDF.inf file.  Click Open, then OK.

5. When presented with a list of Adobe PDF Converter options, select the first item from the list and click Next.
6. When prompted for a printer name, change the value to Adobe PDF.  Naming it anything else will break the Office plugin functionality.
7. Click Next through the remaining dialog boxes, selecting the appropriate options for your configuration as you go along.

At this point, the printer should be installed.  If the application is requesting files from your Windows CD, you will need to locate the proper files for your service pack level either by browsing on your computer or downloading then extracting the service pack executable.  This portion of the install varies by computer as I have had the install require these additional files about half the time.

If you are later prompted for the ADPDF9.PPD file, it can be found in the C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\Xtras\AdobePDF\StdPPD folder.

That should be it.  once you have finished the installation and provided Windows with the additional files if needed, you should be well on your way to creating PDFs!

In a follow up to my Giganews recommendation a few months ago, I am happy to report that Giganews is now working up to 365 days of binary retention from the standard 200 days. Along with this new retention offering, they are cutting the price of their Diamond and Platinum unlimited memberships by 50% for the first three months of service!

This unprecedented move makes your first three months of unlimited Usenet access a paltry $12.49 a month.  How can you beat that??

This is why I said and still believe that Giganews is the best Usenet provider, hands down!

Sign up below:

The WP Stats plugin on my blog has not been working for some time, so I have relied on StatPress for my site visit statistics. I really like StatPress, but today it started bugging me that WP Stats was not recording any visits whatsoever. I know that my API key is correct, as it works just fine for Askimet, so I figured something else was wrong.

After minimal digging in the WordPress forums, I found that there was an essential component missing from my theme’s footer.php file. Right before the ending </body> tag in your footer.php file, you will need to enter the following:

<?php wp_footer(); ?>

This triggers WP Stats to pick up the visits and record them properly.

That’s all there is to it. A very quick fix for quite an annoying problem!

It’s nothing new, but it is quite a convenience. If you have ever been stuck typing a message on Xbox Live letter by letter with the controller, you know how frustrating it is and how long it takes.

Enter the Xbox 360 Messenger Kit:

This kit has been around awhile, but I just picked it up recently as I needed a new headset for my 360. The headset by itself runs $20, but the headset with the chat pad can be found for only $10 more!

I picked mine up at Microcenter since I was in the neighborhood, but it can be had for a few dollars cheaper online.  Depending on where you shop, the cheaper price will probably merely offset shipping costs, but your mileage may vary.

The headset is Microsoft’s standard fare, but is just fine for chatting on Live.  I could have sprung for the wireless headset but the convenience just didn’t seem to justify the cost.

The chat pad itself snaps on to the bottom of any controller, wireless or wired, and fits pretty snugly.  It was somewhat difficult to get on the first time, but that’s a good thing – you are pretty much guaranteed that it will never come off during play.

The chat pad is similar to a Blackberry keyboard, but just a touch bigger. The keys are easy to find, and for international users, there are plenty of options for foreign characters.  All in all, it’s a good thing, and I like it!

Bypass this article and fix your Intel RAID Configuration immediately using my new application, RAIDFix

On-board RAID controllers are becoming increasingly common, even among bargain-priced PCs.  With that, many people are opting to install RAID-0 and RAID-1 configurations on their home PCs.

One thing that you need to keep an eye out for is making sure to enable the RAID or AHCI settings in the computer’s BIOS before you install Windows.  Failing to do so can possibly cause a ton of headaches if you try to enable RAID after you have already completed your Windows installation.

I encountered these headaches while working on a new Dell XPS Core i7 box this weekend.  The SATA chipset in the BIOS was set to IDE mode, and I failed to check it before letting the Windows preinstall do its thing.  After configuring everything aside from the RAID-1 array my client wanted, I pulled the trigger in the BIOS.  On the next boot, the 64-bit Vista installation gave me a BSOD upon restart.  I tried rebooting the computer and came up with the same error each time Windows tried to load.  I decided to switch the SATA configuration back to IDE mode, and the computer booted into Windows just fine.  Clearly, the RAID configuration was the issue.

After Googling for a few minutes, I found a bunch of posts in forums and such asking about how to enable RAID after installing Windows.  Most responses boiled down to, “Reinstall Windows.”  There was no way I was about to repeat all of the work I just did, so I dug deeper.

The easiest solution that came to mind was to simply install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software and then give RAID another try.  For those of you not familiar, Intel does not offer a driver-only installation package for their ICH family of SATA controllers.  Instead, you need to install the Matrix Storage Manager software in order to make things go.  Any time I tried installing the software, I received an error stating that my hardware was not supported.  That made plenty of sense as the RAID option was not yet enabled in the BIOS, but it left me with a chicken/egg problem: “How can I install the RAID software that requires a RAID controller when enabling the RAID controller causes Windows to crash every time?”

I decided to give the install a try in safe mode to no avail.  Each time I booted in safe mode, the computer crashed when loading crcdisk.sys.  I searched a bit more and found that this file was not actually the problem, but that the lack of a proper RAID driver in Windows was causing the issue.  Back to square 1.

After a ton of research and forum scouring, I found an answer that seemed like it could work.  I hoped it was the fix I was looking for as I did not want to reinstall Windows.

I think that the solution to this problem originated on experts-exchange.com, but I found it on another site.  It goes as follows:

1. Download the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software.
2. Open a command prompt and type “iata89enu.exe -a -p c:\iastor” then press Enter – this will load the installer and extract all of the driver files to C:\iastor folder. Close the command prompt.
3. Copy iastor.sys to your C:Windows\System32\drivers\ directory
4. Copy the following text, paste it into notepad and save it as a .reg file, or download it directly:

   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\PCI#VEN_8086&DEV_2822&CC_0104]
   "ClassGUID"="{4d36e97b-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}"
   "Security"=hex:01,00,04,90,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,00,00,02,\
     00,4c,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,ff,01,1f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,\
     00,00,00,00,18,00,ff,01,1f,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,20,02,00,\
     00,00,00,18,00,9f,01,12,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,21,02,00,00
   "Service"="iaStor"
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001]
   "InfPath"="oem3.inf"
   "InfSection"="iaStor_Inst_RAID"
   "ProviderName"="Intel"
   "DriverDateData"=hex:00,00,cd,7f,6a,14,c9,01
   "DriverDate"="9-12-2008"
   "DriverVersion"="8.6.0.1007"
   "MatchingDeviceId"="pci\\ven_8086&dev_2822&cc_0104"
   "DriverDesc"="Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO SATA RAID Controller"
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor]
   "Type"=dword:00000001
   "Start"=dword:00000000
   "ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
   "Tag"=dword:00000019
   "ImagePath"=hex(2):73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,44,00,\
     52,00,49,00,56,00,45,00,52,00,53,00,5c,00,69,00,61,00,53,00,74,00,6f,00,72,\
     00,2e,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,00,00
   "DisplayName"="Intel RAID Controller"
   "Group"="SCSI Miniport"
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters]
   "queuePriorityEnable"=dword:00000000
   "BusType"=dword:00000008
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port0]
   "AN"=dword:00000000
   "LPM"=dword:00000000
   "LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
   "LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
   "GTF"=dword:00000000
   "DIPM"=dword:00000000
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port1]
   "AN"=dword:00000000
   "LPM"=dword:00000000
   "LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
   "LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
   "GTF"=dword:00000000
   "DIPM"=dword:00000000
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port2]
   "AN"=dword:00000000
   "LPM"=dword:00000000
   "LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
   "LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
   "GTF"=dword:00000000
   "DIPM"=dword:00000000
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port3]
   "AN"=dword:00000000
   "LPM"=dword:00000000
   "LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
   "LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
   "GTF"=dword:00000000
   "DIPM"=dword:00000000
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port4]
   "AN"=dword:00000000
   "LPM"=dword:00000000
   "LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
   "LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
   "GTF"=dword:00000000
   "DIPM"=dword:00000000
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port5]
   "AN"=dword:00000000
   "LPM"=dword:00000000
   "LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
   "LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
   "GTF"=dword:00000000
   "DIPM"=dword:00000000
   




5. Double-click on the .reg file and click yes when asked if you want to merge the data into your registry.
6. Reboot the computer and change the SATA configuration in your BIOS to RAID – Windows should load without any issue.
7. Install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software to complete the driver installation/configuration.
8. Celebrate the fact that you have now enabled RAID without having to reinstall Windows.

This process, as you might imagine, is exclusive to Intel ICH RAID controllers.  The registry file seems to indicate that it will support ICH8R, ICH9R, and ICH10R chipsets.  It worked fine for my ICH10R controller – I cannot say if it will work for future or older chipsets – your mileage may vary.

For other RAID chipsets, odds are you will be able to install the RAID drivers without a RAID controller present.  For some reason Intel does not allow the drivers to be installed without the RAID controller present, hence the issues I was running into.

Hopefully this info will help someone else out there – I know that I was extremely grateful to have found a solution to the BSOD issue.

Earlier this week I received my Xbox 360 back from Microsoft for it’s RROD.  Eagerly I sat down to play on my console only to discover that in the two week period of not having a 360, my controller was stepped on and a analog joystick was broken.  Yes, I was disappointed that my controller was broken and I set out to work out a way to fix it.

I did a little research and found out that if you have an original Xbox S type controller that you are willing to part with, you can fix your more expensive 360 controller on the cheap.

You see it turns out that the analog joystick pickups are the same in each controller, so it is simply a matter of cracking each open and swapping in the working part.

Continue reading “Xbox 360 Controller Thumbstick Replacement” »