Category Archives: Digi Related

Samsung bootloop

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Just a small post about my old 2011 Samsung tv.

Today it did not start and was rebooting in a loop.
After some googling i found a YouTube post how to reset the Eeprom.

Unfortunately it did not work (i think) so i did read some more post about problems with a bootloop. Some person suggested to place the main board into the freezer for 2 hours.

Instead of placing the complete main board in the freezer i did freeze the NAND memory chip with a little gas bottle to refill a lighter. (using a cooling spray is a bit smarter, but i didn’t have cooling spray)

After cooling the NAND chip for 30 second i waited a few minutes so the liquid was vaporized.

I have to admit that a was surprised that this step did solve the bootloop.

The tv was starting normal and i needed to reinstall the settings, but its working again.

Offline wifi setup raspberry

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This was a situation where i needed to test a new raspberry image on my raspberry pi-A, and i could not find my usb hub.
So i needed to do a offline wifi configuration to boot the device with a wifi dongle, and configure the device from ssh.

  1. Download a image from https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/
  2. Extract the image
  3. Transfer image to memcard
  4. Mount the memcard on your computer

If you have a win32 device you can download extfs for windows on the following link:

You will notice that this software will add a normal drive letter to your extfs partition

I use Notepad ++ to edit the file, i have problems with the standard notepad on the line breaks
Edit the file /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
and you will read :

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

update to file something like this:

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
network={
   ssid="changethis"
   psk="changethis_also"
   key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

Be sure to change the ssid and the psk for your wifi network

Save the file, dismount the extfs partition and dismount the memory cart
Now insert the edit memory card to the raspisystem, and boot.
If you have a dhcp server on your system, your device will be connected to your network, and you can continue to connect to your raspberry with putty.
The username is pi, the password raspberry
p.s. you can use fing (on your mobile phone)to find the ip address of the raspberry, if you can’t read your dhcp leases.

 

If this info is usefull, just give me a hello.

stop c000021a

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stop c000021a

This was a situation where i had a small problem, and after some changes it got bigger and bigger.

The original problem i had was a non working hibernation system on a Windows7 computer.
The reason was simple. I did have a small boot partition and the system was a factory default fujitsu. I did not like the idea of the small boot partition because i also wanted to use a other BCD loader, so i first made a image of the bootpartiton, and then a remove the boot partition.

After i made a reboot i got this message on the screen

autochk program not found – skipping autocheck

After this i got a stop C000021a error, and i was expecting a easy fix with a Windows7 bootrepair cd.

The complete error i got was:

STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error}
The Session Manager Initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc000003a (0x00000000 0x00000000)
The system has been shutdown.

Bootrepair failed
sfc /scannow failed
boot with option “Last Known Good Configuration” failed
fixing the MBR and BCD failed

To make a long story short, i got it fixed without re installation by using the following steps

First boot with a bootrepair cd/usb
If you don’t have it, create one on another working computer
If you don’t know where you can find the option of creating a System Repair Disc, just use google to find out, its just a option on any Windows7 computer.

Then boot into WinRE and launch Command prompt
Then open regedit and take a look at HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
These keys are NOT the value of your own registry, but from the ramdrive environment

Next load the registry hives from your own system into a subkey
First just klik on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then click on File, Load hives
(in dutch its Bestand, Component laden)
Then browse to your local windows installation and load the file SYSTEM (normally its in c:\windows\system32\config)
Just name the loaded hive something simple like “temp” and go to the
HKLM\temp\MountedDevices
Then hit on delete, so you completely remove the complete key and subkeys.
Then go back to the temp key and select File -> Unload Hive
Then make a reboot and if you’re lucky your problem is fixed.
If you’re not lucky then the keys are regenerated with the wrong values, but is easy to fix.

Just repeat the above steps and take a look at the values of both the HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
and the HKLM\temp\MountedDevices
You will notice that value of \DosDevices\C: will not match the discid, or that the driveletter is simply wrong
\DosDevices\F: for example instead of \DosDevices\C:
Take a look at the values on the ramdrive HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices and you will understand the problem and know what to change.

I hope this info will be helpful for some other people.

p.s. After this fix my hibernation problem was also fixed 🙂

Running esxi on lacie 5big

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If you are wondering if its possible so install esxi5 on a 5big (office) ,the answer is yes.

The way i did it, was to place the disc on a laptop with a esata connector
Then i installed esxi without any special option’s

After setup i placed the disc back into the 5big, and it did NOT startup
After some trail and error i was sure i needed to reset the netwerksetting, but there is no vga output so you need to do this blind.

I simulated the network reset on a other esxi system and i wrote down all the keyboard sequences.

The blind reset is:

0- hook up a USB keyboard on your 5big
1- wait until the system is started (wait 5 minutes, just to be sure)
2- press {f2}
3- press {enter} {enter}
4- press 4 times {down}
5- press {enter} {f11} wait 5 seconds, {enter}
6- press {esc}, wait 5 seconds, {f12} {enter} {enter} {f11}

Now the system wil reboot and if you have a DHCP server running, you will see that your 5big wil get a IP number, and you can connect

Because this system has only 2 Gb memory and not expandable, its not a very useful environment for a Esxi server.

At this time i’m not using the Lacie as a Esxi server, I made a downgrade to WHS2003
See this link for info: https://www.digisaster.com/?p=286

I will post some printscreens of the running esxi environment as soon i have the esxi bootdisc found.

 

Downgrade your Lacie 5big office to WHS 2003

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Downgrade your Lacie 5big office to WHS 2003

I got a nice Lacie office box as a replacement for my old server
My old server was using 120 Watt power, This one only use 40Watt.

This box is running Windows Homeserver 2011 and i was very disappointed about this OS
I was used to work with WHS 2003, and i love this version. Its simple, and it can be used to backup up almost any OS like XP, Windows 2003, Windows 2008 both 32 and 64 bits

For WHS 2011 backup, you need to install framework 4, and it will not even backup a 2003 file server.

So i was wondering if there is a (legal) way to install WHS 2003. I know there was a 5big release with the name “5big backup” and this one is running 2003
I did search on the Lacie site and found this

http://www.lacie.com/support/drivers/driver.htm?id=10209

I just wanted to play it safe, so i swap the drive for a black testdrive and try to setup the server with the downloaded 5big backupserver recovery
To my surprise it just worked, and now i have my server running with WHS 2003

Firewall service not starting on Windows Vista / Windows7 / Windows10

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This problem was driving me nuts. I did read at least 50 articles on how to debug firewall problems. I did all the stuff like “sfc scannow”, the microsoft fixit, tech articles, service repair programs, and still a nonworking firewall.

Just when i was giving up, and made a prepare for a full system reinstall, I got it fixed.

Problem description:

When typing net start MpsSvc you see the following info

The Windows Firewall service is starting.
The Windows Firewall service could not be started.

A service specific error occurred: 13.

If you don’t have a error 13, just skip the complete article. This article is only for people with a error 13. Also its a last resort. Don’t blame me, if your computer is not working after my suggestion’s.
If you have a error 5, I suggest to read the following link

With the software serviwin from nirsoft you will see the following message on the service

Here are the steps:

This solution is for Windows Firewall error in Vista. In the Event Log you will find the following message.: “The Windows Firewall service terminated with service-specific error 13 (0xD).”

The way i fixed this was to delete the complete regkeys under

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Sevices\SharedAccess\Parameters\FirewallPolicy

So, open Registry Editor (Start->Run->regedit). Navigate to the key, and delete from the key “FirewallPolicy” but DONT delete the FirewallPolicy itself

you should have

Open a command prompt with admin rights and type

net start MpsSvc

If you have the firewall running you need to restore de default set of rules
Click on Start->Type Windows Firewall in the search box. Click on “Windows Firewall”

Click on “Allow a program through Windows Firewall”. Click on Advanced Tab->Restore Defaults.

You can also type in the following command in a dosbox (admin mode)

 

Audio muted on every reboot

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Took me some time to fix this annoying problem, and I’m sure that this is not the way to fix this problem, but it worked for me.

Problem description

i’m running a linux fedora environment with a nvidea card and digital audio output

On every reboot i see (with alsamixer) that the S/PDIF1 is muted and i need to unmute this to hear audio.

Tried lots of things to save the settings, but somehow it’s always muted on a reboot
(like alsactl store 0. alsactl store 1 and lots of other things like changing permissions on files)

I can unmute with the following command:

amixer -q -c 0 sset ‘IEC958’,1 unmute

So i just put this line in the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file
and now my audio is unmuted on a reboot.

If someone know how to fix this in a more decent way, just let me know.

Ntbackup problem on 2003 running on esxi

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Global description

After virtualisation of a 2003 SBS server we have the following error on the tape backup

Het apparaat heeft een fout gerapporteerd bij deze aanvraag: gegevens naar medium schrijven. Fout: Ongeldige opdracht. er is mogelijk een hardware- of mediumprobleem opgetreden. Controleer het logbestand voor systeemgebeurtenissen voor relevante fouten.

This is the dutch error for the following English error

Error: The device reported an error on a request to write data to media.
Error reported: Invalid command.
There may be a hardware or media problem.
Please check the system event log for relevant failures.

This error is popup as soon as the tape is being written.

The backup log looks like something like this

========================================================
Error: The device reported an error on a request to write data to media.
Error reported: Invalid command.
There may be a hardware or media problem.
Please check the system event log for relevant failures.
The operation was ended.

Error: C: is not a valid drive, or you do not have access.

The operation was ended.

———————-

The operation did not successfully complete.

———————-
=========================================================

How did we narrow down this problem?

First we created a virtual XP machine and attach the tapedive to this machine
This test results in a working tapebackup. So we where 100% sure that this problem was not related to the device, or the tape

Then we re attach the tapedevice back to the 2003 server, and the problem was returning

Somehow the disc can’t be accessed when the tapedevice is starting

How did we solve this problem?

We created a extra scsi adapter in the ESXI environment. First we could not find a way to insert a extra scsi adapter, but after some search we find out to simply select device (1:0) on the tapedevice, and a 2e scsi adapter will appear on the ESXI config.
I changed the device to a buslogic parallel, so i would still know the difference between the virtual scsi controller for the discs, and for the tapedevice

After this change the problem was solved.

 

Service not started message on console

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You get this error on the server console, but you cant find any services who is failing to start.

Ten minste een service is bij het starten van het systeem niet gestart. Raadpleeg het logboek voor informatie.

The English error is:


At least one service or driver failed during system startup. Use Event Viewer to examine the event log for details

You will find this error on you system log


Application Popup system-id 26

The way we solved this:

There are 2 type of services
You have the normal service, and you have the devicedrivers who are also some kind of service

If you download serviwin from nirsoft you can see all the device services who are not running
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/serviwin.html

Here you have a view how to find the responsible service

I did sort the list on startup type, and you see the service streamdispatcher not running, but because the startup type is automatic, its the cause of the error.
after some research this failing device was the result of a leftover rootkit. The rootkit itself was intercepted by the virus scan, but the service was still present.

Of course its possible that in other situations, its a other service
A common service who can fail is the parport service. If your hardware don’t have a parallel port, this service will fail, because the default startuptype is automatic

How to delete/control a deviceservice from the commandline

In the above situation you can use the following command

how to stop a service
C:\>sc stop “StreamDispatcher”
[SC] ControlService MISLUKT 1062:

De service is niet gestart.

how to change the staruptype
C:\>sc config “StreamDispatcher” start= disabled
[SC] ChangeServiceConfig VOLTOOID

how to delete a service
C:\>sc delete “StreamDispatcher”
[SC] DeleteService VOLTOOID

After changing the serviceconfig the problem is solved