Tag Archives: clean

Windows Disks ‘CanPool’ set False?

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3

KB ID 0001560

Problem

While attempting to create some Storage Spaces in Server 2016 today, I presented a bunch of ‘new’ disks and some of them were flagged CanPool as false?

CanPool simply means the disk it available to be added to a storage pool, Id just removed all the arrays from these drives so I was confused?

Solution

Just because we’re on Powershell does not mean I can’t go old school! Launch Diskpart and list disk. You can see some of the drives (the ones I’m having trouble with have a partition on them, the asterisk in the GPT (GUID Partition Table) column gives that away? 

WARNING: I know the drives, (apart from the 100GB one,) SHOULD be blank, and I know I can erase them safely, MAKE SURE the disk(s) you are looking at are not in use, and do not have important data on them!

To clean/erase

[box]

select disk {x}
online disk
clean
offline disk

[/box]

If it tells you;

Diskpart has encountered an error: The media is wrote protected.
See the system event log for more information

[box]

attributes disk clear readonly
clean
offline disk

[/box]

Note: In some cases I’ve had to physically reboot the server, before all the disks were CanPool = True.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Manually Remove VMware Workstation?

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KB ID 0000576 

Problem

Tried to upgrade my VMware Workstation Version 8 today, then my laptop has a BSOD with a NETIO.SYS error, I bought it back up again, and attempted to manually install the newer version. This failed with an obscure .msi error. Even running the installer for the older version would not help.

Solution

Rather than picking it out of the registry, you can run remove it by running the install .exe file with a “/clean” switch.

1. Navigate to the directory that has the setup file in it, and run it from command line or via the Search run box in the start menu, with the /clean switch.

2. Follow the on screen instructions.

3. When complete, reboot your machine, and then you can re-attempt an install/upgrade.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Installing Windows From USB

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KB ID 0000191

Problem

This weekend I needed to install Windows 7 on my shiny new Acer HTPC, but having no internal CD/DVD drive I needed to do this via USB.

Quite a few times now I’ve needed to install Windows (Particularly Server 2008), on a machine that has no DVD Drive. You can now install both products from a bootable USB drive by doing either of the the following.

Note: You will need a USB Drive with enough free space on it to hold the Windows setup files (Windows 7 and Server 2008 require 4GB ish, depending on versions).

Solution

Option 1 (The quick and dirty techie way!)

1. Pop in your USB Drive > open a command windows and execute the following commands:

[box]diskpart {enter} [launches the disk partition program]
list {enter}[Displays all the disks you can work with]
select disk x {enter}[Select the USB Drive number]
clean {enter}[Wipes the USB Drive][/box]

2. Execute the following commands:

[box]create partition primary {enter} [Creates a new primary partition]
select partition 1{enter}[Select the partition you have just made]
active {enter}[Makes the partition bootable]
exit {enter}[Closes diskpart][/box]

3. Now use a utility like 7-Zip to extract the Windows Install media .ISO file to your USB drive.

4. Now boot your device from USB, (Enter the BIOS boot section and change the boot order), or press the key the machine says will load the boot options when you first turn it on.

Note: Some machines require you to change USB emulation before you can boot from them like so.

Option 2 (The lazy way!)

Download Novicorp WinToFlash

7-Zip

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

Also see Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool (Thanks to Fred de Jonge)