Monthly Archives: March 2008

Using Diskpart to Align a Windows Disk Partition

There is an EMC whitepaper titled Using diskpar and diskpart to align partitions on Windows Basic and Dynamic Disks. This paper describes how legacy Windows issues cause a single disk I/O to span multiple tracks. This puts an unnecessary load … Continue reading

Posted in Performance, Windows OS | 6 Comments

MD5 Hash Utilities

FCIV.EXE is a handy little utility to snap a MD5 hash of a single file or multiple files. Optionally it can recurse directories and produce XML output. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841290 MD5SUM.EXE is a more commonly used utility that runs on a number … Continue reading

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Simple SQL Server Log Filter / Review Script

Here’s a very basic log filtering /review script that you can run on a daily basis to review your SQL Server logs. It shows the last two days of log entries filtering out logon and backup entries. — daily log … Continue reading

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Basic Database Inventory Script

CREATE TABLE #tempresults2 ( database_name NVARCHAR(128), backup_start_date DATETIME ) INSERT INTO #tempresults2 SELECT database_name, backup_start_date FROM msdb.dbo.backupset AS b1 WHERE backup_start_date = ( SELECT MAX(backup_start_date) FROM msdb.dbo.backupset AS b2 WHERE b1.database_name = b2.database_name AND TYPE IN (‘D’, ‘I’) ); WITH … Continue reading

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Starting Windows Performance Logging at boot time

Performance logging will not start on its own at boot time. Here’s how to get around that problem.   Applies to: W2k3, XP Using the Performance MMC, create a set of counter logs. Use a specific name to save the … Continue reading

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