Category: Troubleshooting

Script to Re-Map Windows Shares

I had some problems with the Windows Shares becoming unavailable at odd times, just randomly now and then. This meant I could no longer list and open my media files from my LG Home Theater or my Raspberry Pi.

I discovered that restarting a few services associated with Windows Folder Sharing solved the problem without the need to reboot.

This is a quick little script that I use to re-map my shared folders in Windows, including the disk shares (i.e. d$, e$) every night:

net stop LanmanServer /y
net start LanManServer
net start Browser
net start HomeGroupListener

Copy these lines in to a text-file using Notepad and save the file as “Sharemap.bat”, for example.

To set up an automatic scheduled job to run the script, open Task Scheduler (Start -> Run -> taskschd.msc) and set up a basic task: Right-click the folder area on the left and select “Create basic task”.

For the actions pane, select “Start a program” and point to the Sharemap.bat script.

For the triggers, you can set it to run every night at 5 in the morning or something similar.

If you’re using TrueCrypt and need to make disk shares (d$, e$ etc) map up after TrueCrypt mapping has taken place, create a trigger and set it to run “At log on”, with a delay that’s long enough to allow you to mount the TrueCrypt volumes before it runs (5-10 minutes maybe).

Alternatively, you can simply create a shortcut to “sharemap.bat” or save the file directly to your desktop and run it manually as needed.

How it works:
Stopping the LanmanServer service automatically stops the child services Browser and HomeGroupListener as well, automagically – so we only need to start those services, or at least I chose to do it that way to be on the safe side.

These network services are responsible for making Windows Shares available on the network, so it is sometimes necessary to restart them if there are any issues with finding shares, especially disk shares that are not automatically mapped by Windows, caused perhaps by delayed mounting from TrueCrypt or similar applications.

How To Turn Off The Prompt For Active Content When Opening Local Files In Internet Explorer

I just ran into this little issue when testing a small JavaScript, where Internet Explorer came up with this annoying little pop-up on the bottom of the page every time I wanted to test a new change in the code:

Internet Explorer restricted this webpage from running scripts or ActiveX controls | Allow blocked content

Unless I clicked “Allow blocked content” every single time, JavaScript was simply disabled.

That’s just no good… Continue reading

Website Owners Getting the AdSense “You have rejected ad requests, which will result in lost revenue” Message

Update: This issue is now marked as “RESOLVED”. Here’s the official word:

Update (11am, August 31): The issue with our notification system has been resolved. If you’re still seeing an alert in your account that you have rejected ad requests, please follow the instructions in the Help Center article linked from that alert to resolve the issue. Thanks for your patience as we resolved this.

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How to Resolve the “Setup was unable to create a new system partition” Issue During Windows 7 Setup

Just the other day, I stumbled upon a couple of challenges when trying to install Windows 7 on a RAID array of two SSDs on my computer.

1st Issue: The missing RAID drivers

Since they didn’t exist when Windows 7 SP1 was put together, I had to load them manually inside of Windows 7 Setup.

This was simple enough, though:

  • I got on my laptop and downloaded the Intel RAID drivers from the ASUS support page for my Sabertooth X79 motherboard, then extracted the files to a USB drive.
  • I unplugged the USB disk from my laptop and loaded the driver from within Windows 7 Setup by connecting the USB drive to my main computer while in the “Where do you want to install Windows?” screen. I clicked “Load Driver” and browsed to the “Driver\Disk\64bit” folder. The next screen let me choose which driver to install (only gave me one choice).
  • The driver loaded in a couple of minutes and the disk showed up, just like a good student to school.

2nd Issue: “Setup was unable to create a new system partition”

This issue was a little trickier. To my disappointment, Windows 7 wouldn’t let me install on the RAID disk array I had chosen, giving the following error message:

“Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition. See the Setup log files for more information”. Continue reading

SSD Not Available During Windows 7 Setup

Intel X25-V SSD - Still Not Getting The Daily TRIM

Intel X25 SSD: Sometimes not showing up to the party

There’s a lot of people who have had issues with their SSD not showing up in the list of available hard drives when installing Windows 7, and today I got to be one of them. I wanted to do a fresh install of Windows 7 on an Intel X25-V SSD (40GB), but the disk just wouldn’t show up.

This particular disk was used as a swap disk in a different system, so I figured it might have some problems related to formatting. Changing from IDE mode to ACHI mode did not do anything. (For Intel SSDs, IDE mode is required for the Intel software to work).

After looking around for a solution on the interwebs, I found two possible solutions, listed by “ease of use”. The second one worked for me, as I happened to have a bootable USB with GParted on hand, but the first one should work too.

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