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BlackBerry Won’t Boot and Has Blinking Lights

I attempted to upgrade a BlackBerry Curve to the v4.5 handheld software.  Half way through it, either the software crashed or the Desktop Manager crashed and stated it had lost the connection.  After that. the BlackBerry would not boot and would only show 2 blinking lights continously.  Desktop Manager would not recognize the device.  Obviously, the handhelf software was corrupt.  I tried some instructions I found at blackberryfaq.com about using the Jl Cmder to wipe out the device, but that didn’t work for me.

Here’s what I had to do to get it going again:

1.  Disconnect the BlackBerry from the computer.

2.  Install the latest Desktop Manager Software and Handheld Software on your computer (if you haven’t done so already).

3.  Make sure Desktop Manager is not running.

4.  Go to the Command Prompt and go to: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Research In Motion\AppLoader

5.  Connect the BlackBerry to the PC.

6.  Enter the following command at the Command Prompt: loader.exe /nojvm

7.  The Application Loader wizard will open.

8.  Click Next.

9.  You will see a drop-down list with the COM port and a USB entry.

10.  Select the one that says: USB: UNKNOWN

If you don’t see USB: UNKNOWN or USB: BBPIN, disconnect the device from the PC, take the battery out of the BlackBerry, and put it back in.  When the red light appears, reconnect the device to the PC.  As soon as USB: UKNOWN appears on the screen, click Next.

11.  You should be able to re-install the BlackBerry Handheld Software onto the BlackBerry at this point.

In my case, it failed the first time, and told me it lost communication with the BlackBerry.  I took the battery out and put it back in.  Then, I started again from Step 6, and it failed again, but it got further this time, and showed a 507 error on the handheld.  I started from Step 6 a third time, and finally got it working.

Posted in BlackBerry, Handhelds.

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By admin – February 3, 2009

Backup Exec Slow Backup

I had a client with two brand new Dell servers running Windows 2003 Server with Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 installed.  The first server was a Domain Controller, while the other was a member server with Exchange 2003.  When I would start the backups, they would move at a decent throughput, but a few minutes later, the job rate would get slower and slower, and eventually just get stuck at some pathetic speed, hoping to just die.  This was happening on both servers.  The same thing would happen when I would run Microsoft Windows NT backup as well.  Then, I remembered both servers were running Symantec Endpoint (I hate any antivirus software from Symantec, by the way) and decided to disable it.  Still, no luck.  Finally, I uninstalled Symantec Endpoint and rebooted.  Guess what?  Backup Exec was flying.  Check your antivirus software and make sure it’s not the culprit.  Don’t just disable it, un-install it to test it out.  I haven’t experienced this with any other antivirus vendor, though.

I can’t begin to tell you how much I hate all of Symantec’s antivirus products.  They are all garbage.  Don’t believe any of the online reviews; most of those people have no real world experience.  I can’t believe the number of times I have tried to uninstall their products and ended up with a blue screen.  You know the products sucks when they have to create a standalone uninstaller for everything they make.  The only reason why Backup Exec is good is because it originally came from Veritas.  Hopefully, they don’t screw it up.  There really aren’t too many good backup options out there.

Update:
Symantec apparently has a maintenance release for this issue.  Too late, I already un-installed the software.  Oh well.

Posted in Software, Symantec Backup Exec, Windows Server.

3 comments

By admin – February 3, 2009

Vista Boots to Black Screen with Cursor

Update!  It looks like the original solution I posted  did not resolve my problem.  The problem is back again.  After spending a few hours searching the web, I found that it may actually be a hardware defect and that the NVIDIA GPU may have a problem.   Un-install the drivers and use the standard Windows VGA drivers as a temporarily solution to make the machine usable.  Your computer  may be covered under under HP’s extended warranty.   The laptop I had was not covered.  What finally solved my problem was a complete wipe out of the system and re-install of Vista.  Please check out these links if the solution below does not work for you:

GEFORCE GO 7600 Driver - NVIDIA Forums

HP Pavilion dv2000/dv6000/dv9000 and Compaq Presario v3000/v6000 Series Notebook PCs -  HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement

I recently received an HP Pavillion dv9000 with a NVidia GeForce Go 7 7600 video card with Windows Vista boot to a black screen with just a cursor.  This is now affectionalty known as the Black Screen of Death in the industry.  Ctrl-Alt-Del didn’t do anything.  System restore was not enabled either.   I could get the machine to boot into Safe Mode.  In Safe Mode, I un-installed the NVidia GeForce drivers, rebooted, and booted fine in Normal Mode.  However, it attempted to automatically re-install the video drivers, so on the next reboot, same problem.  The second time around, I booted into Safe Mode, removed the video drivers, booted into normal mode, and let it install the drivers again (I can’t figure out a way from stopping Vista from doing this).  Once it installed the drivers, I un-installed them, but this time in Normal Mode, I had an option to remove the drivers from the computer.  After that, it booted fine.  I went to NVidia’s site and downloaded the lated GeForce Go 7 7600 drivers.   Here are a couple other solutions you can try if it’s the video driver.

1.  System Restore (in my case, System Restore was not enabled, so this was not an option).

2.  Run a repair installation of Vista.

3.  When you get to the black screen with the cursor, hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, run Task Manager, then end the explorer.exe process.  Then, go to File -> New Task and type: explorer.exe.   If that works, then a repair install should take care of your problem.

I tried several variations of the NVIDIA drivers and they all caused my system to blue screen with nvlddmkm.sys.  Again, I believe wiping out my system and doing a fresh install of Vista has resolved the issues.  One thing that you should be aware of is the Windows Update has a driver update for the GeForce 7600, and I have a suspicion that is what may have originally caused all the issues.  Going into the Windows Update settings in Vista and hide this update, and only allows security updates.  Do not allow Windows Update to do hardware driver updates, I have seen it cause problems before.

Posted in Windows Client Operating Systems, Windows Vista.

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By admin – February 2, 2009

BlackBerry Contacts Will Not Sync

If you have a BlackBerry that won’t sync the contacts but will sync everything else, here’s a couple things you can try:

1.  Check the BESAdmin account and make sure it has Send As and Receive As rights on the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Store.

2.  Re-do the BlackBerry Enterprise Activation.  Delete the user from the BlackBerry Enterprise server, remove all the users BlackBerry information, re-add them to the server, then re-activate the BlackBerry.

3.  On the BlackBerry Curve, go to Options -> Advanced Options -> Enterprise Activation.  In the email field, press and hold the ALT key and type CNFG.  It will not display CNFG, however, what should happen is a hidden menu will appear.  Change Wireless Sync to No.  Exit the menu, then wait 30 seconds and repeat this same process, except turn Wireless Sync back to Yes.  This should repair the wireless sync settings.  On the BlackBerry Pearl, use ALT 788445.

If none of these solutions work, wipe out the handheld and re-activate.

Posted in BlackBerry, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Handhelds, Software.

2 comments

By admin – February 2, 2009

Computer Won’t Boot - Blue Screen STOP Error 0×000000F4

I had a Lenovo ThinkPad x60s that would not boot intermittently.  I would also occasionally receive the following blue screen STOP error:  0X000000F4 0X00000003 0X8A085DA0

The problem ended up being the SATA ports motherboard (or planar board as Lenovo calls is), so they had to replace the entire board.  Check your SATA connectors and SATA interfaces.  It could be the cables, or the interface on the motherboard or the drive.

Posted in Hardware, Windows Client Operating Systems, Windows XP.

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By admin – February 2, 2009

ActiveSync Support Code 86000108

I client of mine was getting this error on their Treo linked up to Exchange via ActiveSync.  There seems to be all kinds of reasons for this one.  One solution I found was to tick off the Calendar, Contacts, and Inbox from sync, and then tick on just the Calendar, or just the Contacts, etc., and try to see if it syncs.  Once that works, re-sync each of those folders one at a time.

What worked for me was just going to the command prompt and running:
iisreset

Posted in Activesync, Handhelds, Treo.

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By admin – February 2, 2009

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt

You may receive one of the following error messages and Windows XP won’t boot.

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE

Stop: c0000218 {Registry File Failure} The registry cannot load the hive (file): \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE or its log or alternate

System error: Lsass.exe
When trying to update a password the return status indicates that the value provided as the current password is not correct.

Microsoft has an article on how to recover from this:

How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents windows XP from starting
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

However, there’s a MUCH easier way.

Pull the hard drive from the system that’s not booting and add it as a slave drive into another system that works.
Fire up the working system.
Make sure you are viewing Hidden and System files (Tools -> Folder Options -> View).
Navigate to x:\System Volume Information (on the slave hard drive).  If you get an “Access Denied” error, right-click on the folder, go to Properties, Security, and then add Everyone to the list with at least Read rights.
If you don’t get the Security tab, you need to turn off Simple File Sharing (Tools -> Folder Options -> View).
Once you’re in, go to the _restore{bunchofnumbersandletters} folder.
In that folder, you will see a bunch of folders with an RP prefix.
These are the restore point folders on the system.
Check the dates and open the latest one (such as RP1153, or whatever).
Open the snapshot folder.

Copy the following files to C:\windows\system32\config:
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM

You can now close the snapshot folder.

Go to c:\windows\system32\config
Create a subfolder called backup
Move the following files to the backup folder you just created:
SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE, SYSTEM

Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM to SAM
Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY to SECURITY
Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE to SOFTWARE
Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM to SOFTWARE

That’s it.  Shut the system down, put the hard drive back into the other system, and it should boot.  If it doesn’t, try another restore point.

Posted in Windows Client Operating Systems, Windows XP.

1 comment

By admin – January 22, 2009

Event ID 1030 and Event ID 1058

I had a Windows 2003 Small Business Server report the following in the Event Log.

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    Userenv
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    1030
Date:        1/22/2009
Time:        1:07:13 PM
User:        NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer:    SBS200
Description:
Windows cannot query for the list of Group Policy objects. Check the event log for possible messages previously logged by the policy engine that describes the reason for this.

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    Userenv
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    1058
Date:        1/22/2009
Time:        1:12:13 PM
User:        NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer:    SBS200
Description:
Windows cannot access the file gpt.ini for GPO CN={8E967417-276A-4972-AE41-10ED4DF53628},CN=Policies,CN=System,DC=PR,DC=LOCAL. The file must be present at the location <\\DOMAIN.LOCAL\SysVol\DOMAIN.LOCAL\Policies\{8E967417-276A-4972-AE41-10ED4DF53628}\gpt.ini>. (The system cannot find the path specified. ). Group Policy processing aborted.

When I ran Group Policy Management, I received the following error when click on Default Domain Policy and Default Domain Controller Policy:

The system cannot find the file specified

This is an indication that the Default Domain Policy and the Default Domain Controller Policy are corrupt or missing.  I dropped to the command prompt and issued the following command to fix the problem:

dcgpofix /ignorescheme

Posted in Windows Server, Windows Server 2003.

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By admin – January 22, 2009