Saturday 24 April 2010

SBS 2003 R2 server NTFRS event error 13552 and 13555

The NT File Replication Service (NtFrs) was throwing up errors on a Small Business Server 2003 R2 box. There's only one server in that organisation, so no additional domain controllers to worry about.

Typically every morning there was an Event ID 13552 for source NtFrs:
The File Replication Service is unable to add this computer to the following replica set: "DOMAIN SYSTEM VOLUME (SYSVOL SHARE)"

Followed by Event ID 13555
The File Replication Service is in an error state. Files will not replicate to or from one or all of the replica sets on this computer until the following recovery steps are performed

Restarting the File Replication Service or rebooting the server wouldn't clear the errors. The following steps did clear the problem.

- Stop these services: Net Logon and File Replication Service
- Take a backup copy of the C:\WINDOWS\NTFRS\JET directory
- Delete all the files and directories out of that JET directory
- Restart Net Logon and File Replication Service

If you look in the Event Log you should see entries reporting the NtFrs service has started ok AND no more 13552 and 13555 errors :-)

Thursday 15 April 2010

HP Color (Colour !) LaserJet 2500 - Density sensor out of range

HP CLJ2500 was showing error 54.7.0 Density sensor out of range and refusing to print from the main paper tray (tray 2) but was ok from manual feed (tray 1)

Printer maintenance company that attended site first offered to sell client a new fuser for £150 or a replacement Panasonic printer - thanks guys, don't miss an opportunity will you!

I loaded hp color LaserJet 2500 series toolbox from the original HP CD (unfortunately not available as a download - couldn't find it in HP Easy Care either).

- Fire up the Toolbox,
- go into the Troubleshooting tab
- choose the Cleaning Page option from the left side.
- It prints a page with a big black diagonal line across it.
- You put that face down in the manual feed tray 1
- go back to the Toolbox and choose the Clean button.
- Then press the green button on the printer for a manual feed.
- It will print really slowly

and it cleared the '54.7.0 Density sensor out of range error' ... I'm sure a new Panasonic printer would have fixed the problem too ;-)

Friday 2 April 2010

Dell Teac CA-200 card reader drive icons in Windows 7

My Dell Vostro 200 came with a TEAC 13-in-1 memory card reader (not the one with the Bluetooth option). Since I upgraded to 64-bit Windows 7 I've not had the drive icons that were on Vista previously. There's no official driver support at the Dell site for Vostro 200 or the card reader and this OS.

Its not a biggy and certainly doesn't stop anything working but rather than having several generic drive icons which look the same as flash drives when connected (I'm easily confused) - I'd rather have the old TEAC drive icons that showed exactly which memory type was on which drive:
They also greyed out when not in use, so you can see at a glance what's loaded, which is a nice touch.

I found a some articles that put me on the right track, but involved quite a bit of registry work to fix, e.g.
http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/262307-need-help-missing-flash-drive-icons-file-open-save-dialog-box-2.html

Here's the easier option - you need to download the Vista 64 bit driver for TEAC CA-200. I found it on the Dell support site here (its download R176598 - same as R175675)
http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R176598&formatcnt=0&libid=0&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=240261

Run the download and it will unpack into C:\Dell\Drivers\R176598, auto-run and fail with a waning about incompatible Windows. Now if you go look in that directory you'll find a file called IMGR64B.EXE, right-click on it and choose Properties then Compatibility (you may need to click Change settings for all users).

Tick the 'Run this program in compatibility mode' and choose Windows Vista SP2 then tick the 'Run this program as an administrator' at the bottom. Click OK and run the program. It will install successfully this time. Make sure you give it plenty of time to finish as it will remove the current drive letters and reinstall them - takes a few minutes and it may not appear to be doing much at the time.

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