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Today I updated my nasty Windows Vista installation to Windows 7. Also, I had to resize my C-Partition to use the remaining 350GB (swapped my HDD). To achieve this I did the following (and would recommend this way to anybody with similar needs):
The very (!!!) first thing one should do is making a backup. Skipping this step is a bad idea, except there´s nothing important on your machine. I was using Acronis True Image Home 2010, but any other backup tool you´re familiar with is fine. Closing all applications and stopping all unneeded services (e.g. local instances of mySQL and sort of) is also mandatory.
- I started Microsoft´s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and removed everything it told me (especially Toshibas Bluetooth Stack. It was causing problems with Windows Vista, so I assume it wouldn´t work better in Windows 7).
- Reboot!
- I removed crap files and cleaned the registry with Piriform´s CCleaner.
- Reboot!
- I created a full backup and had a beer in the meanwhile.
- Reboot!
- I used Partition Wizard Business Edition, which is free of charge. It did a great job and resized my partitions without a glitch. However, it needed two reboots (without user interactions). Afterwards I checked my filesystems with the chkdsk command (without /f). See the screenshots below to see how the summary should look like.
- The last and longest step was the updates. I started it at 11pm, and it finished somewhen at 1.30am. FYI, I´m writing this post on my new Windows!
Summary:
This task was rather time-consuming, but It worked without any problems. Also, my installation is noticeable faster than before. Thanks to Software Assurance I am up2date 
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So, finally I´ve installed FreeNAS and OpenFiler, each on it´s own SSD. By accident I stumbled across unRAID (which is described here, here, here and here on the developers site). Hmm, not too good, having 4 options for my NAS/Fileserver. Acutaly I tend to use OpenFiler, but the other options are good-looking too. Not to [...]
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Today, and the days before, I was messing around with a software based FAX Client. It works pretty well, until you try to send a mass fax to >3000 recipients. Everytime the software tries to spool the first pages, it simply freezes.
I cannot describe how annoying this error was. After having a chat with the [...]
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Today my Transcend SSD´s have arrived. Earlier than I expected! The installation of Openfiler on my D945GSEJT went almost flawless. Just when it tried to access the SSD, I got numerous of this error:
Assertion ((C * heads + H) * sectors + S == A) at
disk_dos.c:586 in function probe_partition_for_geom() failed.
They can be ignored. After this [...]
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Sine I got my D945GCLF2 Board to work with Mac OSX, I´m working on a nice case for it. IT should be small and have some style. So I decided to turn something oldschool into something newschool. As soon as I have my PicoPSU I will finish it and post some pictures.
Stay tuned!
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Recently I´ve implemented eTrust SCM in my company, to act as a Spamfilter and Webproxy. After the setup (which was a real pain) I wasn´t shure how I could redirect all my clients to use SCM. I could serve a nice GPO to my IE-Users, but what about all those Firefox/Chrome/Opera installations?
One of my friends, [...]
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Jeder von uns weiß, dass es eine Zeitaufwendige Arbeit ist, Festplatten sicher zu löschen. Vor allem bei den aktuellen Größen von >1TB kann das wirklich sichere Shredden einige Tage ins Land ziehen lassen. Das reine Überschreiben mit Nullen sollte eigentlich vor einer Neuinstallation des Betriebssystems gemacht werden, da das reine Formatieren nicht alle Bereiche der [...]
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Having a low-powered Linux-Server@home has some/many benefits. It can act as a Web/SSH-Server, or anything else you may imagine. The ALIX-Board from Swiss based company PCengines looked like a very promising platform for my implementation of a homeserver.
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Every free minute I do some research for my new Home-NAS. All available Makes and Models are somewhat shabby, or just too expensive. Most of the products share their drawbacks:
Volume: Most Systems are too loud to keep them outside the cellar.
Capacity: if one needs more than 1TB of (mirrored) spacem the range of products is [...]
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Some time ago I found a rather interresting .PDF from IBM, which covers some “pro-tricks”, helping stressed linux-admins to do their jobs. The author, Vallard Benincosa, is Certified Technical Sales Specialist. As many of my old IBM bookmarks are heading over tp the wellknown 404, I decided to put this very valuable document here:
l-10sysadtips-pdf