How to debug a VM with a serial port

1. Get your VM in Vmware workstation or Vmware server (with windows running as the host)
2. Add a serial port to the vm
3. Configure the serial port as

   

4. Configure Msconfig

   

5. Reboot
6. Configure BIOS (may not be needed) change serial port A and B

   

7. Install Debugging Tools for Windows
8. Open Windbg
9. Configure Symbol path (srv*c:\windows\symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols)
10. save workspace

    

11. Configure Kernel Debug

    

12. Save workspace
13. Go to debug>break
14. And it should connect

How to align Windows disks in VMware with Netapp disk

Warning: Always have a backup before you perform disk alignments in windows

How to check Drive alignment in windows:

1. run “System Information” (msinfo32.exe in Start-> Run)
2. and select Components .. Storage .. Disks
3. scroll to the bottom and you will see the Partition Starting Offset information.
4. This number needs to be perfectly divisible by 4096.
5. The default .vmdk, you will see the Partition Starting Offset set to 32,256  (32,256 / 4096 = 7.875)
6. and thus this file system is not correctly aligned.

 Align C Drive

To do this after a P2V or after the fact

http://blogs.netapp.com/storage_nuts_n_bolts/2009/01/mbrscanmbralign.html to use mbrscan and mbralign in the ESX console to align, you will need to go to the host the VM is running on to do the steps (not for ESXi because they are part of netapp host tools that needs to be installed)

New VM

create your vm and use a boot disk before you install the OS to align the disk (follow align other disk section)

How to align other windows disks

Important warning: If you do these steps on C drive you will lose your data

Note: if you have a misaligned disk you will need to create a new disk perform the steps and migrage the data, After you have added a new disk to your VM and NOT formated it follow the below steps, this might work with the align C drive steps to save recreating and migrating data, but have not tried it.

1. CMD>diskpart
2. DISKPART> list disk (disks should be listed)
3. DISKPART> select disk # (This selects the disk drive)
4. DISKPART> list partition (This step should result in a message stating “There are no partitions on this disk to show.” This message confirms the disk is blank)
5. DISKPART> create partition primary align=64
6. Viewing the disk using “System Information” the Partition Starting Offset is now 65,536… 65,536 / 4096 = 16, and thus this file system is properly aligned to the storage blocks.
7. Format it

Another note: is currently VMware converter does not align your harddrives this will need to be done after you do your P2V, and you do not need these steps for Windows 2008 it should be aligned from the install.

How to manage Termial services via Command line

I came a cross a problem when trying to connect to a system with the GUI Termical Services manager, had to use a different username and password and it came back as fail to login with the run as. I needed to clear some of the old disconnected sessions for a windows 2000 server. So I came a cross this blog http://weblogs.asp.net/owscott/archive/2003/12/30/Managing-Terminal-Services-Sessions-Remotely.aspx. about how to use qwinsta /server: and rwinsta /server: to view and disconnect the sessions, I did already have a IPC$ connection to the server with the user name that i needed not sure if that is why i did not get prompted for a user name and password via command line.

RAID calculator

I was contacted about a new RAID calculator to look over. http://raidcalculator.icc-usa.com/ It has some good RAID discriptions at the bottom of the page to show the different status of the different raid types, and what they look like.

How to merge split PDF’s for Free

PDFTK http://www.pdfhacks.com/pdftk/ is a command line free opensource tool that can do many things to PDF’s like merge and split them and you can get PDFTK Builder http://angusj.com/pdftkb/ that is a GUI for the main functions of the tool. This is better then spending lots of money for a tool and its small if you want the command line version. It is also available for other OS’s too.

How to share a workbook in excel 2007

I knew how to do this in 2003 but they moved it in 2007, found a good link for 2007 that tells how to share this.

http://www.lockergnome.com/windows/2007/06/07/share-a-workbook-in-excel-2007/

HP Systems Insight Manager Error 193: 0xc1

Trying to start HP Systems Insight Manager and you get a error 193: 0xc1, to get rid of this error and get the service started, look for a “program” file in the root of the installed drive. there is more info at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q325680. you can delete this file and get the service to start and get you back and running. I have not found out why this happens but thats how to at least get it fixed for right now.

GUI to add Portgroup to multi hosts

Warning: This tool is not created by VMware so use at your own risk, test it out before use

Ever needed to add a new portgroup to your VMware farm/cluster or enviroment? Well there is a GUI tool that will let you do this to 1 or more hosts. I did about 16 host in about 5mins with this tool so it may help you guys out.

Download: http://www.run-virtual.com/?page_id=160 There is also a screenshot of the tool too.

GUI Storage VMotion (SVMotion)

WARNING: This plugin is not created my VMware, so us at your own risk and test it out first before you try and use it in Production.

You can get a GUI Storage VMotion plugin for VIC 2.5 

You can download this plugin at http://code.google.com/p/akutz/downloads/list

This plugin acks as a normal VMware plugin (ie update manager, etc)

All you do is right click your VM and you will have move storage option at bottom, then drag the VM to a new datastore of your choose.

XP SP2 BlueScreen BSOD and DFS

Problem: Using Windows XP SP2 that is mapped to a DFS share will bluescreen when saving documents.

Recorded Microsoft KB artical: 906866  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906866

Other related post: http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Windows/microsoft.public.windowsupdate/2007-04/msg00848.html

Fix: SP3 Fixes this problem, or you can follow the steps lisked in the two articals.