How to Check the Hard Drive on a Mac

Computer hard drives don't normally fail without warning, unless you do something really dumb like I did one day. My daughter and I were on the LIRR going to NYC. She was eight years old at the time. Audra handed me her Macbook to carry....., as usual. As we arrived at Penn Station, I got up, my hands overflowing with everything else I was carrying, and I

The Case of the Unexplained 2010 SysInternals Review

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The Case of the Unexplained is an ongoing series of webcasts, by Mark Russinovich, based on real troubleshooting scenarios in Windows. Mark Russinovich is a Technical Fellow at Microsoft, which is the highest technical position at Microsoft. A Senior Architect in the Windows division, Mark was the co-founder and chief software architect of Winternals Software, co-author of Windows Internals 4th and 5th edition and Inside Windows 2000 3rd edition with

Sysinternals Advanced Malware Cleaning Review

Image by rwoan via Flickr

Trying to cleanup malware from your computer? Advanced Malware Cleaning, located on the Windows Sysinternals website, is a must watch video from Windows expert Mark Russinovich. Mark was the co-founder of Sysinternals before it was acquired by Microsoft in 2006.

Mark gives an overview of how SysInternals tools work, such as Process Explorer, along with using the AutoRuns utility,  SigCheck, and TCPView Utility to discover where malware is hiding on your computer and how to clean it. Mark talks about Rootkits and his own RootkitRevealer tool, an advanced rootkit detection utility.

Mark discusses the future of malware and how malware is becoming harder and harder to detect.

Windows Hang and Crash Dump Analysis Webcast Review

Recently, I spent an exciting Saturday watching and documenting a Sysinternal's webcast by Windows expert, Mark Russinovich, entitled, Windows Hang and Crash Dump Analysis. Mark takes you step by step into the internals of Windows to help you better understand how system crashes happen, what caused the crash, and how to fix it.


These are my notes I took during the Webcast. On a separate afternoon, while writing this blog, I tested WinDbg. Included in this documentation, are additional notes about what I did to create a crash dump, using the program Mark wrote called NotMyFault, and how I tested WinDbg. I am hoping the hours I spent watching and documenting the webcast will be useful one day to me and to my blog readers. The entire process has been a learning experience and very gratifying. 

And now, the Webcast....

How I solved code 32 for Optiarc DVD RW AD-7580S

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Yesterday morning my Lenovo laptop was unable to recognize a DVD in my Optiarc DVD RW AD7580S.  I hadn't used the DVD player for quite awhile and wondered when the problem actually began.

I proceeded to go into Device Manager to check the DVD/CD-ROM drives.  There was a yellow exclamation point over the DVD icon for the Optiarc DVD RW AD7580S ATA Device.  Since an exclamation point means there is some type of problem, I checked the Properties for the DVD player. An error code of 32 was generated in the Status text box on the General tab in the Device Manager Properties dialog box.

I linked to technet.microsoft.com to find out what Code 32 means.  Code 32: A driver (service) for this device has been disabled. An alternate driver may be providing this functionality.

Autoruns -Another awesome freee utility from SysInternals!

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This week I received an email from my brother complaining about his Windows XP computer's slow start up time. He said the normal startup time was about 40 minutes! Ray said, "the computer runs fine once it starts, the problem is totally within the boot up process".

Well, big sister to the rescue. Or, more like it, Sysinternals Autoruns to the rescue. My brother is in South Carolina, and since I am in Long Island, I used GoToAssist to do a remote dial-up session to his computer. After the session started, I quickly went to Live SysInternals to download Autoruns, written by the great Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, co-founders of Sysinternals, before it was acquired by Microsoft in 1996.

With Autoruns, you can check to see what is actually running at startup on your Windows computer, and I mean everything that's running at startup. Autoruns shows you much more than the included Msconfig Windows utility. You will be surprised by the number of third party items loaded into your system at startup. The longer you have had the computer, the more 'stuff' will be configured into registries and directories and loading automatically when you boot up.

Select the Options menu and click on Include Empty Locations, this will cause Autoruns to show all the locations it inspects. Under the Options menu, you also have the ability to hide Microsoft entries, a good thing to do so you won't deselect one of the needed system files by accident from your startup.  You should always combine the option to hide Microsoft entries with the option to Verify Image Signatures, to prevent hiding malicious programs.  Uncheck the unwanted third party items. If you are unsure about a particular item, Google it to see what it is.

I went through the Autoruns and unchecked many, many boxes. After closing Autoruns, I proceeded to restart the computer. This disconnected my GoToAssist session, so I waited for Ray to tell me how fast the boot up was. Ray was ecstatic. He has never seen such a quick boot up on a Windows computer.

I also have Autoruns loaded on my Windows Vista computer. My boot up is almost instantaneous, actually faster than my Macbook. And, I never thought I'd see that day. Thank you Mark Russinovich!  Windows is getting better and better!

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Troubleshooting Post-Installation Issues using msconfig

The System Configuration tool, otherwise known as msconfig, can help identify problems that keep Windows from starting correctly. The System Configuration tool can be accessed through the Run dialog by typing msconfig.  The System Configuration troubleshooting tool can be launched if you have administrative rights.

Plug and Play services causing Windows slow startup

When you start the computer, it now takes 20 minutes to complete the logon process. Once the computer is started, you cannot use any hardware connected to the computer. You discover the Plug and Play service is stopped, but you cannot get it started.

Explanation:

The Plug and Play service is the basis of all Windows services and must be running to have a stable system. However, once Windows is started, the service cannot be started.

First, you should start the computer from a bootable Windows XP Professional CD-ROM. Enter the Recovery Console before Windows starts. Enter R to repair the installation when the Welcome to Setup screen appears.

Choose the Windows installation to repair and enter the Administrator password.

You will be taken to the command prompt. At the prompt, type ENABLE PlugPlay SERVICE_AUTO_START. This command configures the registry to start the Plug and Play service automatically right after Windows starts but before the logon process. You should then restart the computer by typing EXIT.

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