Vaio Wrestling

I somehow got “voluntwisted” into fixing a coworkers Sony laptop. Well okay maybe it was my own doing. I love to recover data from presumed dead hard drives. His had been dead and powered up for so long, I presumed it was toast like so many laptop drives usually are. Much to my surprise it was mountable using an old Live Knoppix disk. So I simply plugged in my USB drive and with MC I did mass copies to it. Since it was a bad disk it did take about 8 hours to move about 2GB of data (music and pictures).

So next the coworker produced a replacement drive. One dilemma though… he didn’t have his recovery CD’s since he just moved here and having a tough time finding anything really. So I thought I’d try using my home Dell PC. OEM CD’s tend to require you to use their own hardware to do the installs so my XP Home disk would have to be installed using my PC. Ordered a laptop to IDE converter from RadioShack online; as they don’t carry them in the stores. All is well. Got that installed and next I plopped it back in the Sony. No go. CRAP! It’s an AMD. I used an Intel PC not to mention possible disk parameter differences. Back to the drawing board.

Now the coworker produces the CD’s! Well actually he produced them before I put the drive back in the laptop, but I already had finished the install with all the updates and transferred his data in at that point. They would be handy I’m sure.

So I booted up with the Vaio System Recovery Utility CD and get some dll sys file error. Doing a little research on the exact code I find other related pointing at the RAM. Others had simply re-socketed it but that did not fix my problem. I have an old copy of W2KPro so I stuck that on in hopes to prove the drive was ok and the CD drive was working fine. I attempted to copy the Recovery CD’s to the drive and it failed to read. So the disk is bad? I put the laptop drive back in my Dell PC and boot with the Recovery CD and it read fine but soon failed with a “blue screen of death”. Most likely because it wasn’t Sony hardware. Back to the drawing board again.

So I have a faulty CD drive, Original Sony Recovery disks, and no way to get it going.

Next I used the Live Gparted CD and smacked it clean. I created a small 2GB FAT32 partition and the rest NTFS. Using my USB DVD drive I copied the Recovery disks to the FAT partition and set it with a boot flag. Tried to boot but it complains it can’t find a bootable OS. CRAP! Something I’m missing about the way CD’s are bootable I’m sure. BTW, this is new enough P4 but can’t boot from USB. I have since re-partitioned and re-formatted using Gparted and re-installed W2KPro and find that it fails to boot on the first reboot after installing to the Gparted NTFS. So make a mental note of this. BTW letting the installer do the format (which takes a good hour or two!) proves the Gparted NTFS is not perfect.

So what is next? Running out of options. I found a retail version (I believe) XP Home CD but doubt it’s English. I guess I need to call Sony to see what they have to offer.

The Match is Over

This afternoon I went in search of speaking to a Sony support tech. and found they have chat support. The first guy read my request and promptly forwarded it on to another. Then the java based chat seemed to wig out on me so I had to kill Firefox and try again. This time I got a third guy and I noticed the exact same canned greeting and responses. Even the reply to some questions seemed robotic. Saying “no I don’t have the laptop with me” prompted a “Sorry about that” response.

My goal in talking with them was to find out if there was an alternative to using the boot CD. Hoping maybe there was a floppy alternate. Also to find out if the non working CD required the hidden Sony partition or not. None of which I believe the techs understood. This is a bit goofy too: the hours are from 8am to 3am EST. Why not just be 24/7?

This evening I couldn’t help but to try booting the OEM disk again to no avail. I guess if anything just to record the exact error messages this time. One think the tech mentioned; and pissed me off about was his suggestion to “purchase” the CD’s. As if I didn’t already tell him I have the CD’s already. But this got me to think “maybe I’ll just recreate them”. Using Linux of course and ‘dd if=/dev/cdrom of=vaio-cd1.iso’. Then burn the iso to CD-R. BINGO! That did the trick but not without a last jab back at me. I didn’t have to create all CD’s; just the first one. After finishing the installation, the reboot fails to just a black screen and a blinking cursor. No error or drive activity. Then I remember there was an option to do it custom or more advanced options method. After peeking at the partitioning using Gparted, I noticed the same scheme I previously set possibly untouched. So the second install I chose the custom method which let me choose partition size control and this time I stuck it to the mat.

Butting Heads with IT

Okay I said I would do some explaining. I don’t want this to get long so I’ll try to summarize.

My coworker who does GIS work here is using a workstation formerly used by another former employee. This PC has seen its day I think. All the form boxes in applications and websites are out of proportion and sorta smooshed into other text. I took a stab at figuring out what it was to no avail. Okay that was short and sweet. Then recently a couple apps started popping up the Windows installer every time the Desktop was accessed. Thinking he must have some spyware or virus, I scanned his machine and ultimately uninstalling one of the two troubling apps to work with one at a time popping up. As administrator things seem to work fine after going through the install motions but only for that session and IT has these locked down so that users can’t do installs. So in one effort to fix that dang form box monitor resolution issue, I install a different video driver and viola! it is fixed. Install one of the pissy apps and wham it’s all crap again.

This box has seen its day! So after finding the resource CD’s I format/reinstall from custom corporate CD’s and install Firefox, Gimp and Google Earth. Then I logged it into our domain but can’t add the computer to the domain as I didn’t have permissions. So I call IT and give them the scoop and all hell breaks loose. At one point I had to stop him (the IT guy) and tell him to spare me the lecture as I just knew I should have called them from the start. Me knowing me and they not, I didn’t want to waste time sending the machine across the States. This issue has been looked at once before to no avail. Heck if I didn’t know what I was doing I wouldn’t have been so stupid to think I could just TRY and see if I could fix it. The best way to fix Windows has always been to format c:\ right?

Well after all that he logged in remotely and called back to ask what the hell some of those apps I installed were. He asked about Gimp and 7zip then said Firefox is not allowed and he proceeded to uninstall it. To shorten further; he couldn’t get the box to register with the domain and INSISTED I send the box overnight to them.

Before they got the PC in their hands I sent him an apology email saying I was sorry for not staying within my domain and on and on. I didn’t want them to hold a grudge over my coworker is spite of me.

About two weeks later the whole company gets an email:

Good Afternoon,

The IS Department has noticed several employees have installed browsers such as Firefox on company machines.

We ask that you do not install or use any browsers other than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Version 6 (please do not upgrade to Version 7).

If you have installed any browser other than IE6, please remove them from your machine.

Thank you.

IS Support

My immediate response remains in my Drafts folder today in efforts to bite my lip.

Admittedly I was one of those who had Firefox installed and have since removed upon request stated below. However I would like to understand where the IS department is coming up with this decision. Before I state my opinion, I think it is necessary to give a brief background history of my usage.

I have been a Netscape user from the start before Internet Explorer ever made the scene. Remaining faithful to the line using the Mozilla suites into this day with Firefox. I have supported the online community in seeking bug fixes and support for users. This has always been the good nature of the Open Source community. I advocate Firefox as a far superior application to any other web browser.

To mention any of the shortcomings of Internet Explorer would be preaching to the choir assuming you know its history. I am not saying that Firefox is bug free either. One main difference is that bug fixes are applied within hours not days or even weeks that IE bugs go unfixed. The fact that IE 7 is not recommended yet by IT folks is the same you acknowledge. I understand that IS should disapprove IE 7 solely on the basis that it has not been tested with Webapps. Personally I use IE just for such purposes. Firefox does not work with sites requiring DirectX and luckily there are very few of those sites out there. But to assume that that should be the only use employees’ venture to the Internet is far from reality. I know this is where I should state why I could not live without Firefox when it comes to performing my job. I have thought long and hard about what answer to give, but no I truthfully don’t other than it has been a long time preference of mine. One of my previous careers as a Systems Administrator I converted the office to Mozilla for web and email. As an ISP business support, I advocated proper use of Firefox and helpful/powerful extensions available; suggesting to customers to use it as well in efforts to help keep spyware and other malice off their computers. Detection and removal tools alone should not be the sole method for fending from these attacks. Not placing the target (IE) on your back is the answer.

I hope you and the IS staff will do the homework and re-consider this decision. It’s a great tool full of productive and secure features by default.

Thanks for you time,

So anyway this is most not all of my relations with our company IT staff.

Auto Reboot after Update!?

Damn those company computer guys! I came into work this morning about 10 and load up my VMware Player running FC5 via USB and fire up CAD or other work apps as usual. I tinkered around in a report program called LogPlot that generates graphical logs of dill logs. I hadn’t done more than a half hours worth of work and I notice a window pop up showing a progress bar and two buttons: Reboot Now and a disabled Reboot Later button (Similar to shown but this one is from a more recent one). Not thinking much of it for probably 30 seconds, I decide “well I better start shutting VMware down just in case as you never know.” Besides I wanted a clean shutdown since this runs off my USB drive.

The progress bar got to the end and I half expected the “Reboot Later” button to become available but it didn’t and I started seeing the usual flickering of icons disappearing. Crap! I’m pissed! This wasn’t critical but could have been. So I decided to send IT a bitch email:

I just want to respond to whomever rolls out the workstation updates that I lost about a half hours work just now because I was unable to choose the “Reboot Later” button as it was disabled. Yes I briefly saw the message and assumed it was doing the installs and that the reboot later button would become available after the install. The lost work was not critical and can be redone quickly, but my point is that you need to loosen the grip and give us the chance to save. We are not all sitting at our desks to see these things just pop up out of the blue.

Thanks for your consideration,

Normally they are quick to respond but not this time. Will see what if any response they might have. IMO, they behave as if IT is what makes the company our primary business. I know company IT guys often get brushed off as not important, but in my position as a CAD guy, I generally look up to my superiors being scientists and engineers, not the IT guy. I’ll have to blog again to give a better insight as to why I have such a bitter stance with my own company’s IT guys later.

Like a Child

Forgot to bring lunch today from home and was left without my backup stock of Ramen Noodles. Running low on cash I decided to head to Wendy’s or to some of our cohorts “Wenchies”. I slapped down the Discover card as a means to get by. This time of the year I seem to always fall into the rut of waiting until the last moments to make those special purchases our loved ones “expect” of us to achieve. But I digress… that isn’t what today’s post is about.

Today I was reminded of one of Jesus’ stories about what it takes to be welcomed into the kingdom of Heaven in Matthew and Luke. As I sat eating my lunch I was reminded of this because I saw this man there who I see there all the time. He wears a watch on both wrists and loves to clap his hands out of joy as he reaches over his head. To many he is a nuisance and move away; to others they ignore and still others watch as if at the zoo. But I thought that this man; like the classroom of children visiting there for lunch today, didn’t really care much about what others were thinking of him. To think what we could accomplish if we only were like a child who does not worry about what others think. As adults we tend to hold back answering a question in front of an audience for fear of screwing up. He seems so innocent as he should because he is in the eyes of God.

But the second part of the story is a warning to those who might cause one of these children to sin. They’d be better off at the bottom of the sea than to have caused their sin.

Certificate Hell

Yeah I’m gonna burn out doing blogs soon enough. But I have so much to say! Earlier was just a follow up to yesterday so here is what I’ve been working on since noon.

Well last year around Thanksgiving my email server secure certificates expired and so I dreaded having to re-learn how to do this. I figured renewing would be cake. I really couldn’t find much in howto’s for doing this. So last year I just created a new one and oddly with an expired CA to the best of my knowledge. At any rate I just did a one year since I figured I would/should have upgraded or moved on by this time now. Trust me I have been trying to but very slowly. So I found a howto for renewing your certs. First off I followed the directions and all was swell. Then trying to get Thunderbird (TB) to take/see the new certs didn’t fare as well. Then I found that my CA expired in like August of 2004! Then after creating new ca and certs TB still didn’t see the new one. Aha! Forgot about the flip side of SMTP… IMAP. I thought I would cheat and just do a symlink to the existing postfix cert but that didn’t go well. Then I found the makeimapcert script and used that to renew one more year.

Trust me last year went much better but that was only because that was when I installed courier. So with this blog… maybe my documentation will help me get this figured out with less pain next year if I haven’t moved in to a new home by then.

Printing Now Fixed

As usual with most tech support I deal with they tend to have you rehash much of what you already have done; assuming you are technically savvy yourself. It infuriates me further to have to jump though their hoops to get any cooperation. The first reply this morning from IT is to “power down the printer and retry the same documents and report what the error logs say”. Well the only thing that proved was that this issue did not produce those error logs. Those errors were probably legit.

So on my own I attempt to print to file and use DOS to copy the file to the device. Here I get “The system cannot write to the specified device.” This sounds like a write permissions problem. Just before I even got the email off to report this to them, I got a message back stating they changed the spool settings and reboot our server.

You see, even in Windows I try my best to avoid rebooting servers. Perhaps they didn’t know you can restart individual services in Windows. Ah well, guess we’re good to go for another couple weeks before needing to reboot.

Windows Domain Printing Problem?

I’ve been able to print to our Lanier multifunction printer all morning. This afternoon, my coworker starts having trouble printing to any printer on the network. He can print Word documents fine but nothing graphical. I tested and can’t print graphics either now. I keep getting a balloon pop-up saying it failed consistently until it is removed from the spool.

Well with my history in dealing with IT issues in our corporate world IT team hasn’t been pleasant recently. So I decided not to dig too deep and called, left a message with them. I mentioned the error logs on the printer show different errors stating the stapler failed or the hole punch failed. Since this is a problem on at least three Windows boxes and two network printers I suspected the Windows server as the culprit. In my VMWare Player running Linux, I can print directly just fine.

So IT calls back and I luck out this time as he thinks it is probably the server too. Unfortunately he doesn’t have the confidence to dig into this issue and decides to pass the buck to another IT guy for tomorrow. Uh reboot?!

Chumber

I have decided to change my favorite color from blue to a burnt orange I like to called chumber. Not sure why I call it that. I suppose because it’s sort of an amber look. Actually I like the combination of black and orange with grays. My current favorite Firefox theme is the Orange Shift which displays a great example.

I think I first noticed I like chumber when I keep looking at cars of this color especially a nice glossy one.