Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

  • Rebuilding the W510 – DVD Driver Issues with x64

    I backed up my machine, copied a bunch of data to both a thumb drive as well as the second hard drive on my W510, and get ready to install Windows 7 x64.

    First I had to add memory. I had put 8GB in the bottom slot, but to replace the 4GB with 8GB in the top slots, I had to remove the keyboard. It’s actually easy, unscrew two screws (all the way out), pop out the keyboard, and then replace memory. The underneath slot is hard to reach, but it only took me about 5 minutes to upgrade to 16GB.

    Now time for Windows. Nervously I put the x64 image in the DVD drive (replacing it in the 2nd bay) and booting. Windows setup loaded and started and….

    Stopped. No DVD driver found. Slightly amusing to me since I had booted from the DVD drive. I tried again, and then went downstairs to search the ‘net. I found a few references but no drivers. The drivers on the Lenovo site were an install, which won’t work during setup. I downloaded Intel drivers, but those didn’t work. To top it off, my laptop was now not booting into the old Windows, saying I needed to run repair. I suspect setup has some boot files there, but now I was really nervous.

    I read on a Lenovo forum that someone had a similar issue and fixed it with a new .iso download. So I burned a new Windows x64 DVD from MSDN and tried that. Success!!

    Now the install is running and my fingers are crossed. We’ll see how well this works.

  • MCM Prep – Sliding the test

    If you can’t cram enough for the test, what’s the thing to do? Slide the test. I realized last night that I was scheduled for this Friday, but I’m nowhere near prepared. Not that I’ll be totally prepared, but I’d like to be well prepared in my mind and I haven’t gotten through all modules.

    I did XML last night, and realized I’m a little lost. The CLR I did today made sense, but I decided to give myself more time. So I moved it to late February, after vacation, where I think I’ll do some prep as well with all the flights and laying around the pool time. It will be good to keep the mind moving while I’m in the Bahamas.

  • MCM Prep – Only ONE Transaction Log File

    Unlike for data files, SQL Server does not use multiple files for the transaction log in any way that improves performance. The writes are not striped across files. Instead SQL Server will write to one file, then the next, then the next, wrapping to the first file when all the VLFs are full, just as it would with one file. In other words, it moves sequentially through the files for new transactions.

    I haven’t found a BOL reference for this, and don’t really feel like continuing the search, but Kim Tripp blogs about it here and it’s mentioned in the log file internals MCM video.

  • MVP 2011

    Microsoft_MVP_logo I was awarded the MVP status from Microsoft for 2011 on Jan 1, 2011. This is my fourth consecutive award and I am honored to be recognized for my efforts in the SQL Server community.
    When I opened the email last Saturday morning, I had mixed feelings. On one hand I think I deserve the award for my efforts in the community in speaking, writing, and promoting SQL Server. I think I do a lot, and while it’s my job, it’s also a bit of a passion for me.
    On the other hand, I always think “what was Microsoft thinking” when I consider the deep technical knowledge that so many of the MVPs display. I know a lot about SQL Server, but it’s in a fairly shallow, general knowledge area, though I do have a lot of experience in the past. I don’t do any earth-shaking work, and I certainly don’t impress many of the experts in various areas of SQL Server work. So in some sense I didn’t really contribute a lot to the growth of the knowledge base of SQL Server in 2010.
    The award, however, is very much a community award, and it is for the contributions in sharing knowledge and helping others work with SQL Server. Without the award, I wouldn’t do anything different. This doesn’t drive me, and if I lose it, it won’t change the way I approach the community.