Stepping into the (bluish) light

The holiday season here is very quiet.  Almost everybody takes the two weeks around Christmas and New Year's off.  This year, I'm carrying over a few days to take in the spring, when we go south on a Disney pilgrimage.

So, this is a great time to update the old beast to Windows 7.  I had moved this machine from XP to Vista just about a year ago, and that went reasonably well, so I thought this would be easy.

Well, the install was easy.  Pop the DVD in, spark up Setup, agree to some lawyerly mumbo jumbo, and click the shiny Install Now button.  Wait about an hour... then reboot.

Presto, it comes up great.  Crtl-Alt-Del, type in the user name/password, and... blue screen of death.

Try again.  Reboot, then... blue screen of death.  Same problem indicated, and I quote, "The driver is mismanaging PTEs."

Which driver?  Good question.

Spark up in Safe Mode, with networking.  That seems ok.  Fire up my handy Windows debugger windbg, and open the dump file.

3: kd> !analyze -v
  
**************************************************************** 
*                                                              *  
*             Bugcheck Analysis                                *  
*                                                              *  
**************************************************************** 
SYSTEM_PTE_MISUSE (da) 
The stack trace identifies the guilty driver. 
Arguments:

Arg1: 00000504, Type of error.  
Arg2: c04baa00  
Arg3: 00000030

Arg4: 00017540 
Debugging Details:

------------------ 
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT 
BUGCHECK_STR:  0xDA
PROCESS_NAME:  System

CURRENT_IRQL:  2

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER:  from 82c77df7 to 82caae1e 
 
STACK_TEXT:  
8efec964 82c77df7 82d4b820 00000030 00000000 nt!MiReplenishBitMap+0x238 
8efec9a8 82ca9428 82d4b820 00000000 86b48fc8 nt!MiEmptyPteBins+0xd2

8efeca0c 8b1d29d9 88469be8 00000000 00000001 nt!MmMapLockedPagesSpecifyCache+0x198 
8efeca2c 8b1d93b9 88469be8 00000000 86b48fc8 rdyboost!SmMapMdl+0x23

8efeca44 8b1c4bce 86b48fc8 00000002 86b8ad48 rdyboost!SmFpAllocate+0x1b

8efeca6c 8b1cfee2 86b6152c 0000114b 00000001 rdyboost!SMKM_STORE<SMD_TRAITS>::SmStMapRegion+0x68  
8efecab8 8b1d07e7 0000114b 8efeccec 884d85e0 rdyboost!ST_STORE<SMD_TRAITS>::StDmpSinglePageRetrieve+0xde
8efecd10 8b1d1d0e 86b48478 884d85e0 884d85e0 rdyboost!ST_STORE<SMD_TRAITS>::StDmPageRetrieve+0x103
8efecd28 8b1d1f08 86b48430 884d85e0 00000000 rdyboost!ST_STORE<SMD_TRAITS>::StWorkItemProcess+0x4a
8efecd50 82e1366d 00000000 a6a90788 00000000 rdyboost!SMKM_STORE<SMD_TRAITS>::SmStWorker+0xfe
8efecd90 82cc50d9 8b1d1e0a 86b48430 00000000 nt!PspSystemThreadStartup+0x9e  
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 nt!KiThreadStartup+0x19 
STACK_COMMAND:  kb 
 
FOLLOWUP_IP: 

rdyboost!SmMapMdl+23  
8b1d29d9 5d              pop     ebp 
SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX:  3 
SYMBOL_NAME:  rdyboost!SmMapMdl+23

FOLLOWUP_NAME:  MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: rdyboost

IMAGE_NAME:  rdyboost.sys

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP:  4a5bc19a

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:  0xDA_rdyboost!SmMapMdl+23

BUCKET_ID:  0xDA_rdyboost!SmMapMdl+23 

 

ReadyBoost?  WTF?  Open the Control Panel... yada yada... Services.  No ReadyBoost.  The darn thing was removed from 7 and rolled into something called SuperFetch.  Ok, disable that.

Reboot, then... blue screen of death.  Same problem.

Back to Safe Mode.  Google, don't fail me now...

Fast forward a couple of hours of fruitless Googling and rebooting, and I came to the realization that I've bricked the damn thing.

Ok, back in Safe Mode one more time, copy everything I want to keep over to the D: drive, and do a clean install of 7.

Reboot, then... holy shit - it worked!

Two days later, I've got almost everything reinstalled, and I didn't lose any data.  The last thing on my checklist of programs to install is Lotus Notes, but I have to go get bent over by the IT team for that one.

And that's how I spent the holidays.

Is there anything The Google can’t do?

 

Is there anything The Google can’t do?

DESPERATE dad Leroy Smith resorted to Google with the request "how to deliver a baby" when his wife went into labour.

He was so clueless when wife Emma suddenly started to give birth at home he opted to use the internet.

Mr Smith called a midwife for advice but before she arrived Emma, 25, began having powerful contractions.

So the 29-year-old grabbed hold of his BlackBerry, accessed the internet and sought help from search engine Google for step-by-step instructions.

And after following the detailed guide on the internet's wikiHow Emma safely gave birth to daughter 6lb 11oz Mahalia Merita Angela Smith.

2009 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials - recap

Let’s see how my predictions held up.

For the women, I said I thought Jones would take it, with my preference going to Kleibrink, and watch out for Lawton.

Well, even with Kleibrink in the final, I was cheering for Cheryl Bernard.  The best team all week should win these things, and they (just barely) managed to do it.  I was certainly happy to see the implosion of the Jones and Scott teams.  On the upside, the experience that Krista McCarville’s team picked up this week is going to help them out down the road.

On the men’s side, I had Martin winning, but I’d rather see Howard take it, and watch out for Koe.  Fewer surprises here, and Martin had the final game wrapped up after the third end.  Not quite as bad as the 2008 Brier final, but it’s disappointing that poor ice conditions played a part in this one.

The men get it going in Vancouver against a medal contender in Norway, on Tuesday February 16, and the women get their first action against another medal contender in Switzerland, later that afternoon.

OK, just a little pinprick

Finally got the flu shot last night.  Actually, got them both – seasonal and H1N1.

The last time I had a flu shot was 2000.  My daughter was days away from being born, and I figured that a flu shot was a good idea.  I ended up working late that night, and I was in agony.  I got the shot around 2:00pm, and by 8:00pm I had a high fever, was wrapped in my winter coat, with a toque on, and was trying to type while wearing my gloves.  I couldn’t lift my arm at all.

Yesterday, I had none of that.  My H1N1 arm is sore today, but working, and I didn’t have any fever at all.

Score one for the health system.  :)

2009 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials coverage

Ok, curling fans.  Hope you're stocked up on food and beverages.

Here's the draw sheet for the Roar of the Rings Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, which gets started Sunday afternoon.

The event website is here.

And you can follow live scoring here.  I recommend the CurlCast application – the link to that should be live on Sunday.

Conversation of the day

John: Hey, do you run Unlocker?

Me: No, why?

John: Well, I'm trying to install it, and my virus checker complains.

Me: Oh, right.  There's some adware in it.

John: That's too bad.  I'm trying to replace a dll and I can't.  Something has a hold on it.

Me [trying to rule out the brutally obvious]: Is the app running?

John: What, you think I'm some kind of idiot?  Of course the app isn't running!  [opens Task Manager]  Oh, FUCK ME!

Me: Nailed it!

John [mumbling]: Thanks for your help.

Quote of the day

Tiger Woods is a gazillionaire. He is married to a Swedish swimsuit model. And yet, it's all crumbling around him. He's paying millions to contain the damage.

All of which leads to today's quote of the day. I missed the guy's name, but he said:

"Did you ever think that you would wake up and say, 'Boy, am I ever glad I'm not Tiger Woods'" ?

Blacked-out vans, contingency plans

Looks like the black vans will be pulling up outside my door shortly…

Conversation of the day

Alan [watching Visual Studio crawl]: Damn it.  I'm going to take that fricking Resharper off.  It's dog slow.  It adds literally minutes to my life.

J-Rod: Don't you want more minutes in your life?