Bissell SpotBot Pump Repair
While not the geekiest thing in the world, cleaning is something that has to be done.
One tool that I use to keep things tidy happens to be a Bissell SpotBot. I have a cat, and as cats are known to do, she enjoys leaving hairballs in all sorts of inconvenient places. The SpotBot is a miracle worker when it comes to cleaning up the aftermath. I fill it up, set it on the spot, hit “Surface Stain” and I walk away. The machine sprays, scrubs, and suctions off all the nasty stuff while I go about my other business. Anyone that has a pet or child under their care knows that stains on the carpet are inevitable, so I wholeheartedly recommend this machine to everyone.
Bissell SpotBot - The lazy man's steamer
That said, after 5 years of abuse, my SpotBot stopped spraying solution. I knew that something was up a while back when the manual attachment stopped spraying anything more than a trickle. The death knell came the other day after my cat spewed up what appeared to be a completely separate feline in various places throughout my house. The SpotBot stopped spraying altogether right as I started cleaning. The pump, it seemed, had given up the ghost.
Because I am a geek at heart, I will not let any electronically powered device I own hit the trash heap before I get a chance to take it apart. I thought that the pump was dead, but I wanted to ensure that it was not just a simple blockage or crimped hose.
A word of caution – This tutorial involves the disassembly of a consumer product that utilizes 120v A/C current. Taking this device apart not only voids your warranty, but it may also be dangerous. Exercise caution when working on this machine as it operates using water. As you may recall from childhood, electricity and water do not mix. For safety’s sake, at least unplug the SpotBot before working on it!
Taking the SpotBot apart is a pretty easy task. All you really need is a Phillips head screw driver and a few minutes. A pair of pliers will be useful later on when moving hose clamps.
Termtek TK-3370 Thin Client Repair
Recently I acquired 17 non-working Termtek TK-3370 thin clients from a friend who works in the e-waste industry. All were in great physical shape but none of them would power on. The repair turned out being identical for all 17 units.
Recover/Gain Administrator Credentials in Windows
Forum member RaZ0R put together a little tutorial to demonstrate how one would gain Administrator privileges on a Windows machine from within a limited user account.
In a few easy to understand steps, you can go from a limited account to power user in minutes. This can be helpful if your administrator profile happens to be come corrupted, or if you just need to quickly get administrator access, for whatever reason.
Obviously, use this on computers that you own, on which you are permitted to have administrator access!
Configuring VyprVPN
Having been a customer of Giganews for several years, I recently received an email detailing their new service for Diamond Members, called VyprVPN. The service is exactly what it sounds like – a VPN tunnel through which you can direct your Internet traffic.
If you happen to be in a relatively insecure location, like an airport or hotel with free Wi-Fi, or if your ISP has been using traffic shaping to slow down your favorite apps, a VPN is the way to go.
If you are a Diamond Giganews member, the service is free. I do not believe it is open to the public as of yet, but I would guess that the service will run somewhere around $15/month once it is.
I decided to give VyprVpn a go the other day, and unfortunately could not connect to the service. The “Installation” instructions found on their site are pretty well detailed, but they seem to be missing a few configuration options that prevented me from connecting. Each time I tried to connect, the Windows VPN client would get stuck at the “Verifiying user name and password” dialog prompt. No matter how long I let the VPN client sit, it would not connect.
After poking around awhile and tweaking various settings, I found a solution to my issue. Follow the initial configuration instructions found on the VyprVPN site, then before you connect for the first time, do the following:
In Windows 7:
1) Open the Network and Sharing Center, click on Connect to a network
2) In the list that appears, select your VyprVPN network connection, right-click, and select Properties
3) In the Options tab, uncheck the Include Windows logon domain check box
4) In the Security tab, select Point to Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) in the Type of VPN drop down menu.
5) Select Maximum Strength Encryption in the Data Encryption drop down menu
6) Uncheck all protocols in the Allowed Protocol section, aside from Microsoft CHAP Version 2 (MS-CHAP v2)
7) Click OK and then connect to VyprVPN using your Giganews user name and password
Connecting with Windows Vista is just as easy:
1) Open the Network and Sharing Center, and on the left side, click Connect to a network
2) In the list that appears, select your VyprVPN network connection, right-click, and select Properties
3) In the Options tab, uncheck the Include Windows logon domain check box
4) In the Networking tab, select Point to Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) in the Type of VPN drop down menu.
5) Click OK and then connect to VyprVPN using your Giganews user name and password
For the sake of full disclosure, my Vista PC is part of a Windows domain, but my Windows 7 laptop is not. I don’t know offhand if the fact that I am running Vista Business and Windows 7 Enterprise has anything to do with the issues I was experiencing, but maybe someone out there can try this on a “Home” version of Windows and let me know how it goes.
Overall, I like the VyprVPN service now that I have it working properly. In my preliminary speed tests, I found that I could max out the download speed on my network connection at work, after taking encryption overhead into consideration. The upload speed was sufficient, but somewhat lacking. I have yet to try it out on my 20 Mb/s connection at home, but I assume I will have similar results. While I really plan on using the service while away from home and stuck on shared, open Wi-Fi, it is nice to know that there is a healthy amount of bandwidth available if I need it.
VyprVPN gets an A+ in my book so far. Stay tuned for a secondary review a few months down the road.
Configure Anonymous Samba Sharing in Ubuntu
I was setting up some Ubuntu virtual machines for folding when I decided that I wanted to monitor them all via a single interface in Windows using FahMon. I also wanted to be able to alter the folder where the folding client resides in case I ever have to do a little maintenance. The easiest way to accomplish this is by setting up shared folders on the Ubuntu VMs and pointing FahMon to those folders. For me, security is not a concern as the files are not sensitive and the virtual machines are pretty secure on my LAN, so I decided to set up Samba shares on the VMs with anonymous sharing enabled.
In Windows, setting up a file share is relatively easy, but it takes a few more steps in Linux. Follow the steps below, and you will be on your way in minutes:
First, you will need to install Samba if it does not already exist on your system. Do so by running the following command at the terminal:
sudo apt-get install samba
Next, open the Samba config file in your text editor of choice, whether it be graphical or something like vi. Make sure you are logged in as root or that you launch the editor using sudo, otherwise the file will be read-only!
The path to the file is:
/etc/samba/smb.conf
At the end of the document, we are going to add the following:
[folding] path = /home/DrNathan/folding available = yes read only = no browsable = yes public = yes writable = yes guest ok = yes only guest = yes guest account = nobody
The first line, surrounded by square brackets, specifies the name of the share. The next option specifies the full path to the shared folder. The subsequent settings are pretty straightforward, but the guest ok = yes, the only guest = yes and guest account = nobody settings are important for our anonymous sharing goal. They basically tell Samba that we want to allow only the guest account to access this folder, and that the guest account includes all anonymous users.
Now, save the file and close your editor. We now need to restart the Samba daemon with the following command entered at the command line:
sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart
You should now be able to access the share from your Windows machine by typing the path to the share in an explorer window. My path is the following:
\\foldingpc\folding
Where foldingpc is my Ubuntu machine’s name and folding is the share name.
If you try to edit, create, or delete a file in the folder, you will realize that you are denied access to the files. You need to complete one more step before having full anonymous access to the folder.
In a terminal window, browse to the folder just above your shared folder. In my case, this path is:
/home/DrNathan
You now need to change the permissions on the folder to grant yourself write permissions on the share. I did so by typing in the following:
sudo chmod 757 folding
This basically tells the system that I want to grant the group “others” (essentially anyone not the owner or in the same Linux group as the file owner) the ability to write to the directory named folding. The previous permissions on the directory were 755, so if you want to revert your changes, simply enter sudo chmod 755 folding at the terminal.
That’s it, now you should have full anonymous sharing configured on your system. What happens if you decide you would rather secure the folder using a password instead. Follow the link below for more:
Follow Up: A New Method to Enable Intel ICH RAID after Installing Windows (Plus Updates to the Original)
I have three pieces of information to share with those of you looking to enable RAID on your Windows PC after having installed Windows without RAID enabled in your BIOS settings. Now that you have rebooted past a handful of blue screens and searched Google to find some help, I am here to tell you that you have come to the right place.
I have written on this topic twice before, once when I first figured out how to fix this problem, and again when the drivers had been updated by Intel. Once again there are driver updates, so I wanted to provide you the appropriate registry file as well as the steps required to enable RAID on your system.
But first, I wanted to mention an extremely easy and fast solution. After studying the problem for some time, I have put together an application named RAIDFix which installs the proper registry keys and drivers to get your Intel RAID up and running in seconds. As I pointed out in the large link above, fix your RAID issues immediately by clicking here.
If you prefer to fix the problem manually, read on.
Method #1 – The Long, but Tried and True Process
- Download the Intel Matrix Storage Manager v8.9.0.1023 installer (Dated 7/17/2009) from Intel.
- Open a command prompt on your machine and navigate to the folder where you saved the IMSM software in step 1.
- Type “iata89enu.exe -a -p c:\iastor” and press Enter – this will load the installer and extract all of the driver files to C:\Iastor folder. Close the command prompt.
- Copy the appropriate iastor.sys file from the C:\Iastor\winall folder to your C:Windows\System32\drivers\ directory
- Click here to download the registry file, or copy the text below and save it as “Intel.reg”
- Double-click on the .reg file and click yes when asked if you want to merge the data into your registry.
- Reboot the computer and change the SATA configuration in your BIOS to RAID – Windows should load without any issue.
- Install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software to complete the driver installation/configuration.
- Celebrate the fact that you have now enabled RAID without having to reinstall Windows.
- With RAID disabled, boot into Windows and start Regedit.exe
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorV
- In the right-hand column, you should see a value named Start. Double-click this entry and change the data from 1 to 0.
- Reboot with RAID enabled – Windows should load just fine. Now install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager as you usually would. This time around, it should detect your hardware and install without any issues.
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"="oem39.inf"
"InfSection"="iaStor_Inst_RAID"
"ProviderName"="Intel"
"DriverDateData"=hex:00,c0,44,67,a7,e4,c9,01
"DriverDate"="6-4-2009"
"DriverVersion"="8.9.0.1023"
"MatchingDeviceId"="pci\\ven_8086&dev_2822&cc_0104"
"DriverDesc"="Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO/PCH 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
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\oromVersion]
"MajorVersion"=dword:00000007
"MinorVersion"=dword:00000005
"HotfixNumber"=dword:00000000
"BuildNumber"=dword:000003f9
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Enum]
"0"="PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_2822&SUBSYS_82771043&REV_02\\3&11583659&0&FA"
"Count"=dword:00000001
"NextInstance"=dword:00000001
Good luck with your RAID install! Feel free to ask questions here if you need help.
Method #2 – Peregrinus’ Hack
A reader named Peregrinus discovered that there might be an even easier method to get your computer up and running again. Instead of expanding drivers and manually adding registry information to your computer, you can fix the problem with one small registry tweak.
I do have to add the disclaimer that I have not tried this method, so your mileage may vary. Peregrinus stated that this worked for him, so I am publishing this information on his recommendation.
Follow-Up: How to Enable Intel ICH RAID After Installing Windows Vista
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.
Quick Fix – Manually Installing The Adobe PDF Printer for Acrobat 9
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:
- Open the Printers and Faxes dialog box and select Add a Printer
- 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.
- In the port selection box, choose My Documents\*.pdf (Adobe PDF) and click Next.
- 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.
- When presented with a list of Adobe PDF Converter options, select the first item from the list and click Next.
- When prompted for a printer name, change the value to Adobe PDF. Naming it anything else will break the Office plugin functionality.
- 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!
How to Enable Intel ICH RAID After Installing Windows Vista
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:
- Download the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software.
- 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.
- Copy iastor.sys to your C:Windows\System32\drivers\ directory
- 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 - Double-click on the .reg file and click yes when asked if you want to merge the data into your registry.
- Reboot the computer and change the SATA configuration in your BIOS to RAID – Windows should load without any issue.
- Install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software to complete the driver installation/configuration.
- 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.
Posted in Tutorials | Tags: Blue Screen RAID, ICH10, Matrix Storage Manager, RAID BSOD | 
121 Comments »
121 Comments »
Xbox 360 Controller Thumbstick Replacement
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.
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