I couldn't let this one pass... A laptop that would not boot is a real frustration. I had pushed the limits on my 3 year old laptop with 4 G. The memory modules I bought were too hot. The fan was always running at full speed.  I should have noticed. Well, it went on for 2 years and probably did some collateral damage to my H/W. Occasionally I used to get the bluescreen of death. After swapping memory modules, I noticed that one of them was a suspect. I got it out, bend it, threw it on the wall and dumped it in my trash can.

When it had the damaged memory, booting in safe mode would make my system get stuck at Mup.sys. It would not go past it. There are several reasons on why Windows XP could get stuck at Mup.sys.  There are several articles out there, which explains about Mup.sys failures. Here is a good one. In my case, I assumed that my registry was probably corrupted. My Googling showed that it has been a frustrating experience for so many people.

Here comes my savior, the System Resuce CD.  System Rescue CD is a Live CD based on Linux. You can download it here. You should be able to boot your system from CD to make it work.. The instructions fade into eternity, if you type too many commands. You may want remember the following commands.

For mapping your dead C drive from Windows XP : ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows
In this case- I found my SATA drive was mapped as sda1 under /dev.

For networking :  net-setup eth0. I used dhcp for easy setup.
For starting ssh : /etc/init.d/sshd start - It helps in transferring files to another system. Root users are configured for access in ssh. You can change your root user password, and use the new password for accessing the C drive from the outside world using scp or winscp.

At this point, you should have retrieved all your files. Well do the next steps at your own risk. Your Windows XP may not return to its full form after this. You might be able to get some functionality back. I found this Microsoft site on how to restore a system with corrupted registry.  I  could not follow all of the instructions listed here. But I did the equivalent of the  following MS DOS commands on my System running on Artificial Respiration (System Rescue CD). I was not having a Windows XP restore disk, and hence could not follow all of the instructions listed at the MS site.

md tmp
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak

delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default

copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy c:\windows\repair\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config\default

Voila!  I was able to boot. I first booted my system in Safe Mode to see if I was having the same problem with Mup.sys. It got past that point. In my setup, it created an Administrator.<bogus> user. I then rebooted back in normal fashion. For all the hard work and googling and this blog... my recovered OS is not going to stay. I will be replacing it with Solaris 10 x86 5/08.  Solaris does not have Mup.sys.. I am hoping that it was only the Memory that was damaged. About my memory stick. I pushed it under my trash can, below the waster papers and peanut shells, like spend uranium.. I am getting a new laptop. Of course with Windows XP !

After a some struggle, I was able to get my newly build system with Solaris 10 U4 to connect with outside world. 

I am building a Solaris 10 x86 box with Gigabyte M790X-DS4 motherboard. When loading Solaris 10 x86 U4 (8/07), the network driver was not getting loaded. The motherboard specifications said that I had a Realtek 8111B chip (10/100/1000 Mbit) onboard LAN with 1 GB speed. 

My googling showed that some solaris drivers may be available  at Masayuki Murayama's site
I downloaded the driver file gani-2.4.4.tar.gz for Realtek rtl8169 rtl8110 rtl8168 rtl8101 PCI/PCI-Express GbE chipset. I then built the drivers from scratch using gcc. I used option GLD version 2 to build the network drivers.

The Readme instructions were very good. After building, testing, sys-unconfig operations and reboot, I was connected to my router.  Thanks to Masayuki Murayama.

You may check /var/adm/messages file to see if the device is getting loaded properly. If loaded, it will show up as RTL8168/811B in the messages file.

You can check this just after you boot. You may also use ifconfig -a command to see if the NIC was getting plumbed. During Solaris 10 install, network configurations options will not show up, if network device is not getting loaded.

To my horror, I was also facing system freeze and desktop freezes. I increased the chasis fan speed using its stepper switch to make it go away. It must be the CPU / system board temperature. I may have to install an additional fan.

I just put together this blog, after I made it to work. Otherwise it will all disappear down my memory lane. When I get time, I will write about my adventures in building this box. BTW it has AMD Phenom.

This black friday I bought a 22" widescreen LCD monitor. It was a Samsung 2232GW. I connected it using the DVI cable which came with it,  to my laptop bay. I was hoping to get a high resolution  display without any headaches. Well, these days none of the electronics work that way.

 My laptop was a Toshiba Tecra M5 with Windows XP professional. 

My problem was that the display on the new Samsung widescreen LCD monitor wasn't going up above the resolution of 1280x1024. In the display settings drop down list,  there were no options beyond 1280x1024. I tried reinstalling the Monitor drivers, and it didn't work. The samsung driver installation confuses you with multiple options, and it is not very helpful.  I found that my laptop was using a Mobile Intel 945 Express chipset. I had also downloaded and reinstalled the latest display driver for  from the intel site. Na, na, it wasn't still working. I wouldn't get any listing above 1280, and also display looked odd. After 1 hour of Googling, I hit a page which talked about upgrading the BIOS. My Tecra bios version was 1.3.  You can locate the BIOS version without rebooting by navigating to   Start >All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Information. The Toshiba site for Tecra M5,  lists Version 3.3 of BIOS. Mine was version 1.3. I downloaded and installed it using the windows option. One has to be careful about the BIOS version and see that it matches the  laptop part no for tecra m5. The site lists two versions of BIOS 3.3, one starting with a part no of  PTM51U and the other with PTM50U. The part no. identification is located on the back of the laptop. After upgrading the BIOS and rebooting the laptop, I was able to configure the Samsung display correctly. I also found a few things like extended displays.

 I could not find any documentation on how to configure this, and hence the this blog..

 After using the big screen for a few days, I could not help adding this... With me moving into my mid forties and refusing to accept a pair of glasses, this might be the one little toy which can push out your plans to decorate your face.  The 22" display with its high resolution, brightness and clarity makes reading fine print more easy. Letters  stand out more larger and clearer.

 

 

 

Something caught my attention recently, which changed by perception about Web 2.0. If some of you think Web 2.0 is all about standards, follow the link below and read the 'long' article by Tim O'Reilly on Web 2.0 . Take your time and do not hesitate to read it a couple of times. Please also read the Wikipedia entry on Web 2.0. Thanks to Ed Conzel who send this information to our team.