cmoud

Recipe: how to lose 2TB of data

mart — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:59:12 +0000

You will need the following ingredients:

- Promise FastTrak 4310 SATA RAID controller with latest BIOS (2.8.1.0004) and drivers (2.6.1.318)
- four Hitachi HDS721010KLA330 1TB SATA drives
- 2TB of really important data

1. install the Promise controller in PCI slot
2. boot to OS and create RAID5 array on all 4 drives
3. start transferring files to the newly created array
4. fill up 2 terabytes and enjoy the error message
5. spend two days trying to recover the files
6. spend another two days trying to recover yourself

This recipe is OS independent.

giving Vista a second chance…

mart — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:29:53 +0000

In February 2007 when Windows Vista was released I gave it a try and was as many many other users quite disappointed. The main complaint was the bloody hardware requirements, very slow performance and some of the new features being more restrictive than helpful. My computer was kept occupied all the time only by the operating system and I was thinking, what would happen if I actually try to run some applications? Like Visual Studio? Or games? Network performance was also an issue, transferring files between two computers made me remember 90’s and coax 10Mbps ethernet. So after only few days - actually even hours - I gladly returned to Windows XP.

With the release of Service Pack 1 earlier this year Microsoft addressed most of the issues that everyone was complaining about and Vista actually became quite usable OS. Shall I give it a second chance? The decision was made when my 15krpm Ultra160 SCSI Seagate system drive moaned loudly and simply stopped spinning. So I just grabbed the original 160GB SATA drive and used it instead. The PC I tried it on is pretty obsolete in 2008 - HP dx6120 with 3GHz Pentium 4, 2GB RAM and i915G chipset - anything new you buy these days is better than that.

Funny thing - when the new installation of OS, all drivers and applications was finished, miracle happened and the Seagate came back from the dead… Murphy was right!

The installation was fast, done in about 20 minutes, everything worked fine except the AC97 sound - I downloaded it from HP website. The default WDDM video driver for i915 was behaving weird when playing movies (using ffdshow), I installed the latest i915 driver for Windows XP and problem was gone.

Note - i915G chipset, both desktop or mobile version, is not able to run Aero - blame Intel for that one, though they clain the chipset was designed long before Vista was released and that’s why it is not supported, even older GeForce and Radeon cards happily work with Aero, so something stinks here. Vista will work in ‘basic’ non-Aero mode but from my experience it looks much worse and is much slower than the fully accelerated Aero engine. So if you have free AGP or PCI-E slot, sacrifice 50USD and get a cheap DX9/10 GPU - it is worth it.

Get at least 2GB of RAM, especially DDR2 is so cheap these days, Vista (unlike XP) takes full advantage of it. IThere are lots of complaints that Vista uses all memory there is - and that’s true, it does. What is the use of having lots of memory when it is not in use? When other applications need memory and ask for it, it is freed immediately, until then Vista uses it used as a system cache.

Multi core CPU is not necessary, HT works fine, and my other computer with 2GHz Pentium M runs Vista quite as well.

I also noticed it takes couple of days for Vista to get used to the hardware and optimize itself, after that it runs much faster. So it seems that the prefetch and optimalization crap actually works…

The only problem I had was obtaining the Vista SP1 installation DVD - slipstreaming the service pack easily into the installation DVD as it was done in Windows 2000, XP and 2003 is no longer possible. I found an article compiled from various sources how to make a SP1 DVD from the RTM + SP1 installer and it was really long and complicated story. I cheated - downloaded the ISO image from MSDN.

So after my first negative review I have changed my mind and am now a happy Vista user. And since Windows XP is getting harder to get these days and in few months it won’t be available anymore, like it or not, Vista is the only choice. Le roi est mort, vive le roi.

Well, of course, if you have so much spare time, don’t know how to use mouse or still run on 386SX, you can go for Linux…

Windows XP SP3 Release Candidate

mart — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:47:11 +0000

A litle belated news but for many people quite important - on 12/18/2007 Microsoft released for public testing third service pack for it’s so far most favourite operating system Windows XP. You can download it here - it’s 336MB. It doesn’t include any new functionality and is just a rollup of all hotfixes and updates since 3+ years old SP2. It would have been nice if it included Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player 11 but ‘thanks’ to idiots in various EU and US commities ‘protecting’ us from MS monopoly it is available only as a separate download.

As with any other RC sofware it is not recommended for production machines. but from my experience so far is pretty stable with no big problems. Windows Vista SP1 RC is out there as well though not widely available (but those who want it know where to find it

OS/2 FixPak installation from hard drive

mart — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:42:44 +0000

IBM unlike MS provides (well, not anymore) fixpaks in the form of diskette images. Because floppy disks are notoriously unreliable, slow and expensive these days, it is much better to install FixPaks using other method - extract the content of all the diskette images to hard drive and then apply it to your OS/2 installation.

You will need the following:

1. FixPak files (from IBM FTP server)
2. latest version of RSU Corrective Service Facility (CSF) (from IBM FTP server)
3. DSKXTRCT utility for extracting the diskette images (from Hobbes FTP server)

Then follow these steps:

1. Extract CSF ZIP archive into a directory, for example C:\FIXPAK.
2. Use DSKXTRCT to extract all the diskette images to the same directory using syntax:

DSKXTRCT /S: /T:

3. Start FixPak installation using following command:

OS2SERV

In our example it would be OS2SERV C:\FIXPAK\CSF C:\FIXPAK

Multimedia PC for $160

mart — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:51:20 +0000

If you were trying to assemble small computer that would fit into sexy case that looks just great in your living room and could act as a multimedia center PC to play music, DVD and even some simple games, until recently there was only one option - all-in-one mini-ITX boards from VIA. These included VIA C3 or C7 CPU, integrated graphics, audio, LAN, USB and firewire. There are however few problems with these mainboards - the CPU is everything but fast, the graphics is good only for 2D, and the price is way too high even for the lowest model. And since every component is soldered to the PCB it cannot be replaced or upgraded at all.
There is new competition in the market that comes from the current king of CPU’s - Intel. Same mini-ITX format of only 172×172mm, the better of two available models BLKD201GLY2 called ‘Little Valley’ has the following specs:

- SiS662 + SiS964 chipset with integrated SiS Mirage 1 GPU
- up to 1GB DDR2 PC4300 memory
- Intel Celeron 220 @ 1.2GHz - based on Core 2, TDP 19W
- 1x IDE, 2x SATA, 1x PCI, 1x 10/100 Ethernet, 6x USB, VGA, audio

From the specs it is obvious that it is no miracle performer, graphic adapter is as bad as the one in VIA, but the CPU is about 4 times more powerful than the C3 and most importantly - for 1/3 of the VIA’s cost.

The street price of the above configuration, believe it or not, is $75. Just add $25 for 1GB DDR2 memory module and $60 for 60GB 2.5 inch mobile hard drive and you have fully working computer that would be powerful enough for majority of users. And since the board is so small it deserves to be placed into small computer case, which ironically would be the most expensive part of our PC - but nice ones including 100W power supply can be bough for as low as $120.

Recovering failed RAID0 on Promise 20579 controller

mart — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:21:49 +0000

I know it is a stupid thing to use two 160GB drives in a pseudo-hardware RAID0 array for storing 300GB of important data. It all started as experiment to see how the array will perform and compare the performance with standalone hard drive. My MSI K8T Neo2-F mainboard has two SATA ports included in the VIA 8237 chipset and two additional SATA connectors provided by Promise 20579 chip.
So I created RAID0 array in the Promise BIOS without any problems and happily used it for couple of months. The performance was better than single drive which was good news. During the time I collected many files, database dumps, source codes, but also family pictures and videos, some movies, music and games - about 300GB of data. And just when I was finally about to backup everything and connected external USB drive, one of the hard drives in the RAID0 array made awful ‘I-just-had-enough-of-this’ click sound and the array disappeared from the system.
The management software provided by Promise is a joke - it is actually very ugly looking monitoring tool that doesn’t allow to do anything useful except showing message that array is in ‘critical’ status because one of the two hard drives is missing. So i rebooted into the Promise BIOS in hope to fix the problem from there.
Both hard drives were visible, the first one still a part of the array, the second one as ‘Free’. After some clicking I found out that the BIOS is so simple and stupid that there is no way how to rebuild failed RAID0 array. I’m screwed. The only options available to me were to display status of the array (critical) or to delete the array. Very nice!
So I called myself many names for being such idiot and accepted the loss of all my data. I decided to delete the array and never use it anymore. But to my surprise when destroying the array it asked me if I want to delete all information from the hard drive or leave it as it is - so I decided to leave it. I was surprised by that choice but then I thought that maybe there is still a hope for me - I tried to create new RAID0 array from the two disks and it asked me again if I want to initialize the disks or leave it as it is. Second choice is right, array was successfully created, I booted into Windows - and whew, my precioussss is back!
So in case you experience the same problem as me with Promise 20579 controller, as long as the disks are not physically damaged or dead you can still recover your data quite easily.
By the way - after backup the RAID0 is now gone. Next time I might not be this lucky.

Adding your own search provider to IE7

mart — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 12:24:00 +0000

Internet Explorer 7 has built in search and by default it uses Live Search by Microsoft. You can however choose from a list of other providers that is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/en-en/default.mspx

Recently I was looking for some movies and TV series on Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) and I thought it might be nice if I am able to search not through the website but directly from IE. But since IMDB is not one of the listed available providers, I had to find a way how to add it manually myself. Programmers in MS are not stupid and made this task quite easy - all you had to do is to follow the 5 steps shown on the website:

Put the following line in the first box:
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=TEST

The simply add a name for the search provider and you’re done. Easy!

Installing SLES 10 SP1 on IA64

mart — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:50:05 +0000

I admit it, I’m a Windows guy. Almost 20 years ago I started with MS-DOS, continued on Windows 3.11, then 95, replaced them with OS/2 Warp (may it rest in peace…), back to Windows NT, then XP and 2003, now friendshipping with Vista. But time to time I get the crazy idea to try something new and I’m off to hunt penguins.
Yes, Linux has improved in the past few years and the installation of many distros is quite simple and straightforward - as long as you don’t have any ‘exotic’ hardware. If you find out that your audio, video or whatever card is not supported, then you’re in trouble. Especially when you don’t expect it just like me…

Last week I decided to try SLES 10 SP1 on my Dell PowerEdge 3250 server. Knowing that there are actually only THREE different mainboards made for Itanium 2 CPU’s (all from Intel and two are no longer manufactured) I didn’t expect any problems since it seems quite easy to test the final release on three different configurations. Oh, how I was wrong.

Just when the graphical part of the installation (YaST2) kicked in, the screen went blank and greeted me with ‘Signal out of range’ error. Ok, maybe I overlooked something or made wrong selection, let’s try again and reboot…

Second try, and the same result. I didn’t notice any errors or anything out of ordinary, so maybe the LCD in the rack tray is too crappy. Connected regular 19″ LCD and tried again. ‘Out of range’ again, with additional information about the frequency YaST2 is trying to use - 125Hz. Wow, even CRT can’t do that!

I’m starting to wonder if guys from SuSE actually tested the installation since the magnificent almost-dozen-pages installation guide covers anything except the installation process.

So I spent couple of hours searching on internet with no luck. Then out of desperation I ended up on Intel’s website and found Intel® Server System SR9000MK4U Operating System Installation Guide (maybe this is where I should have started in the first place, but…). This is actually guide for the new dual-core Montecito Itanium systems, mine is using the older and now obsolete SR870BH2 board. But the solution works for all three mainboards and is awfully simple (and stupid).

The graphical user interface (GUI) for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 is not supported on the
Intel Server System SR9000MK4U. These instructions install the operating system using the
text user Interface (TUI). The GUI will be supported in a future release of SUSE.

CAUTION: This process formats the media and deletes all content from the attached SAS drive.
1. Attach the SAS hard disk drive to the left drive bay (SAS(Pun0, Lun0)).
2. Insert the SUSE* Linux operating system CD.
3. Power on the server. It might take up to 20 minutes before the video is initialized.
4. Select the Boot Option Maintenance menu from the EFI Boot Manager.
5. Select the Boot from File.
6. Select the Removable Media Boot option representing the CD-ROM drive.
7. Type textmode=1 and press .
8. Select the appropriate options.
9. After the system restarts, select SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 in the EFI Boot
Manager Menu to continue the installation.
NOTE: After the install is complete the system boots into the SUSE GUI causing the screen
to go blank.
10. Reboot into the EFI Shell.
11. Go to fs#:\efi\SuSE\, where # is the file system for the drive where SUSE is
installed.
12. Type edit elilo.conf
13. Change the line from:
append = “ splash=silent”
to
append = “ splash=silent 3”
This forces SUSE to start in text mode.
14. Press to save, to confirm, and to exit.
15. In EFI Shell type exit to return to the EFI Boot Manager menu.
16. Select SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and press .
17. The system boots into the Text User Interface (TUI).

I would say that SP1 is a future release (couple of months has passed since the GA) and still it won’t work. Is it really so hard to write a working IA64 display driver either for ATI Rage XL (SR870BH2 and SR870BN4) or ATI ES1000 (SR70000MK4U) when the x86 driver works without any problems?
Funny thing is that in SLES 9 the video driver works just fine. Seems like comrades from Novell made a mistake somewhere…

Shopping for treasures on eBay

mart — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:56:29 +0000

Couple of weeks ago I got hooked to eBay.co.uk since I was able to find some great hard-to-resist deals on computer components. It started with simple task - replacement board for dead 7U Xeon server in our office that we used as database server. Not exactly the same board, this one was from SuperMicro, but it had everything I needed - only after I paid I noticed it also has couple of 1.8GHz Xeon CPU’s. Price? Amazing GBP40 including shipment to Czech republic.

My Pentium M based desktop computer is slowly starting to show it’s age and I decided to give it a boost with more memory. All computers stores here in Prague ask ridiculous prices for 1GB DDR333 memory modules - got online, spent couple of minutes on eBay and voila! 2GB DDR333 with warranty and including shipment to Prague still cheaper than 1GB purchased here.

The greatest deal however was purchase of two used Dell PowerEdge 3250 servers. Dual Itanium 1.4GHz, 1GB DDR RAM, 2x 16GB U320 SCSI 15krpm hot swap hard drives, 2U rack mountable chassis. Since each server weights about 80 pounds it was not possible to send it abroad, I had to drive to get it. Basic price in 2003 when server was announced (with 1CPU and diskless) was $6229 - including the fees and gasoline, it cost me 15% of the original price.

Try it as well - it’s fun, it’s addicting, and it’s worth it!