Restore missing CD Drivers in Windows XP

I was working on a computer for someone and the motherboard died on me. So I had to replace it with a spare that I had from another PC. Unfortunately the original motherboard was an Intel board and the replacement I had was an AMD, so I had to do a repair install of Windows XP.

When I rebooted the PC everything came back successfully except for the CD-ROM drivers. I kept getting the error ""Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)" in Device Manager. I tried reinstalling the CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives but that just came to the same result. I figured the original Windows drivers were corrupt so I copied them back from the Windows installation CD, but that didn't solve the problem.

Eventually I came across a forum on kioskea.net that discussed missing or corrupt Windows CD Drivers, so I had a browse and I have to thank the member named "Matt" for his solution that solved the problem. The steps you need to take to restore Windows CD drivers are:

• Go to the start menu, run, and type regedit
• Look for the registry key HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
• Delete the entries for "UpperFilters" and "LowerFilters" if they exist
• Reboot your PC

This should restore Windows CD drivers. Thanks Matt!

Moodle live over a network

As part of a project for work I'm investigating Moodle and it's use within a school as a learning platform. It's been a massive learning curve for me as I have no knowledge at all of using Moodle and there have been several problems I've experienced that have been worthy of blogging, but this one was both complicated and mind-numbingly simple at the same time!

I had Moodle set up with some basic pages, had logins based on Microsoft Active Directory, and was ready to let my colleagues have a go on my test site. However whenever I tried to load the site on another PC I kept getting an error:

“Incorrect access detected, this server may be accessed only through “http://localhost/moodle” address, sorry.
Please notify server administrator..”


I wasn't sure if this was a Moodle error or an Apache error. I figured that it must be a setting in one of the config files but do you think I could find it or any information online as to where to find it. After much searching I found a website called Utterly IT566 whose author had encountered the same error when using Moodle. The solution was so obvious I couldn't believe that I hadn't worked it out for myself: 


In the Moodle main config file there is a line that goes something like this:


$CFG->wwwroot = ‘http://localhost/moodle’;


It turns out that when you setup Moodle it automatically defines the localhost as your webserver. All you have to do is change the URL to that of your server name or website name, and then it works perfectly. Simple when you know how really! 


If you want to read the full article then go here.

Make VirtualBox use DHCP

Have you ever setup a virtual machine using the free software VirtualBox? I gave it a try for the first time just recently and I have to admit that it's a fantastic piece of software considering it's given away free of charge. Previously all of my experience of virtual machines was using VMware Player. However I'm more than happy to change, especially because it seems that the latest offering from VM suffers some problems on Windows 7.

However I had one issue that I couldn't work out with VirtualBox. When I logged into the virtual machine I was getting a strange IP address 10.0.2.2. I tried manually setting the IP but then my network connection stopped working. I took to hunting online with Google for an answer and eventually found what I was looking for.

Many thanks go to R3dux and his blog for the answer to this one. Whilst his advice was based on using VirtualBox on Linux, the same theory applied exactly to Windows. So here's the solution:

Go into the Network settings on the virtual console window and change the network adaptor from NAT to Bridged Adaptor. This then forces the virtual machine to share the network card settings from your host PC and therefore contact DHCP for an IP address.

If you want to read the whole article and see the screenshots, check out R3dux's blog.

Linux Server

I've got an old PC that I wanted to use as a home server, mainly to backup the documents on mine and my wife's laptops and PCs. I downloaded a copy of a low spec, low power linux OS called WattOS and thought that I could build a basic file server off of that.

Setting up WattOS was easy enough to do. Once installed, the desktop is easy to use and the apps installed are basic and low power, just as stated. Unfortunately I'm not a Linux guru and am still getting to grips with terminal commands. Most of the guides I could find to setting up Samba seemed too complicated to follow and I quickly lost interest. Lucky for me someone has come up with a web-based configuration app for Samba, called SWAT (Samba Web Administration Tool). It's a great idea and greatly simplifies the process of setting up Samba without the need to go near the terminal.

But the problem I found again was a lack of documentation explaining how to setup shares using SWAT. I tried the guide on the SWAT website but the shares were not appearing on my Windows XP laptop. I could see the server but as soon as I tried to connect I kept getting permission errors. I tried all sorts of solutions in forums that Google found for me, but in the end I've had to call it a day. As a Microsoft trained IT Technician I think I'm going to have to give in and get a copy of Windows Server to do what I want to do.

While I still believe firmly that Linux is the best way forward, and capable of everything Windows can do and more, a serious lack of documentation is holding it back.

Revo Uninstaller

I've used this software several times now and it has once again proved its usefulness today. My sister's laptop had a piece of software installed that appeared to have been deleted though not completely uninstalled. The uninstaller for the software was unable to run correctly due to the deleted files and she wasn't sure what to do. I suggested Revo Uninstaller and it completely removed all traces of the software from her registry, start menu, installed programs list and c: drive.

Another successful user story for Revo Uninstaller! If you ever need to make sure that you completely remove any software I recommend using this program. It appears to work far better than any other I've tried AND there's a completely free edition available to download (with slightly less features than its paid for brother).

You can download Revo Uninstaller here.

Reso - Resolution Changer

I recently discovered this excellent free little app that can automatically change screen resolutions for you. It can even create shortcuts for any program so that you can launch an application at a set resolution. Whilst I'm sure this is of limited appeal to most people, on this particular occasion I found this program to be a life saver.

My problem was that I was installing a piece of educational software in a school, that was written some years back when 800 x 600 resolution was the norm. I was trying to install it on Acer One netbooks for the pupils in the school to use but it just wouldn't run because the netbooks were 1024 widescreen resolution that was non-standard.

After much searching and nearly giving up I came across this gem of a program and it has solved the problem entirely. I was previously using Display Changer but for some reason this wouldn't work under Windows 7. I'm so glad I discovered Reso as it works perfectly!

If this is something that might be of use to you, you can download it here.

Burning Fail, ErrCode: 0xeb020b88

If you ever see the error "Burning Fail, ErrCode: 0xeb020b88" then I've found the solution today; Turn down the write speed of the CD-R / DVD-R drive to a lower setting and this seems to do the trick.