Eddie On Everything » tech support

“Press Ctrl-I to enter configuration utility” Boot Failure Caused by Kindle

eddie — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:45:15 +0000

I had to reboot one of my computers, which a pretty rare occurrence around here.

The machine is a few years old Dell Dimension e520.

The problem: The computer wouldn’t reboot. After running through a little RAID dialog, the computer just hung, right after showing the message “Press Ctrl-I to enter configuration utility”.

The solution: I discovered that the problem was caused by my Amazon Kindle. Yes, you read that right, my Amazon Kindle prevented my computer from booting properly. I unplugged the Kindle, rebooted, and everything was magically fixed.

Discussion: I was a little nervous when I saw that this computer wouldn’t boot. I assumed that I had a hard drive failure, or hard disk controller failure. The message isn’t helpful at all, it just happens to be the message that gets spit out right before whatever caused the hang caused the hang… Anyway, I only use this computer as a media manager, so I wouldn’t have lost any irreplaceable documents, but it would have been a pain in the neck to deal with.

After rebooting a few times, and getting the “Press Ctrl-I to enter configuration utility” error each and every time, I started the process of narrowing down the problem. Fiddle with BIOS settings to verify everything is in order. Boot with some hard drives disconnected, in an attempt to narrow the problem down to a particular hard drive.

After about 15 minutes of messing with it, I noticed that my Kindle was connected via USB cable to the computer. I thought, “Hmm, I wonder if this Dell is trying to boot from the Kindle or something…” So I unplugged the Kindle. Voila! Problem solved!

Was the computer trying to boot from the Kindle? Probably not. I assume that the BIOS was trying to get information from the Kindle about what sort of device it was. The computer was asking, “Hey, you there on USB port 1, it’s KIndle, right? Ha, that’s a funny name. Anyway, what are you? Can I boot from you?” To which the Kindle probably replied, “DuuuurrrrrrrR?”

So anyway… If you’re having problems booting your computer, and if you’re getting the “Press Control –I to enter configuration utility” message, try unplugging all of your USB devices before you spend a lot of time troubleshooting.

How To Delete A File That Is In Use By Another Person Or Program

eddie — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:18:42 +0000

Ah, the joys of Windows XP. Ever go to delete a file, only to be met with the annoying error message, “Cannot delete It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again.” ?

This behavior is meant to prevent you from hosing things up by deleting files that shouldn’t be deleted. Unfortunately, while the safeguards work most of the time, there are sometimes glitches, particularly with network files and background applications. Sometimes, you are not able to delete a file, even though no other program is actually using it. In other cases, you don’t really care whether another program is using the file, you just want the file gone!

Of course, the first thing you should do is make sure you know what you’re doing. If you are sure that the file you want to nuke is not an important system file, or an important part of some software package, you have a couple of options.

One method of deleting locked files is to reboot your computer. When you restart your computer, you are killing all processes that might be using the file. This usually works. But not always. The downside of this method is that it can be annoying and time consuming to reboot your workstation.

Another method is to kill Windows XP’s “explorer.exe” process, delete the file, then restart explorer. To do this, hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE to bring up Task Manager, then highlight “explorer.exe” and choose “End Process.” However, this method is not recommended: when explorer starts back up, your computer may not be in the exact state in which you left it. (For instance, you may notice that some icons are missing from your system tray.)

Fortunately, there is another way.

Unlocker will remove a file’s access restrictions that prevent your from moving, deleting, or renaming a file. The way it works is this: You install the program, and it runs in your system tray. Whenever you encounter the dreaded File is in use by another person or program message, Unlocker Assistant will pop up and ask you if you want to break the hold that some other application has on your file. You simply highlight the file you want to delete, hit “unlock,” and voila, problem solved.

How to fix the ialmrnt5 display driver error

eddie — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 23:35:45 +0000

I’ve been having a problem with my graphics adapter for a while now.

What happens is that my computer freezes up for about 10 seconds, then resizes the monitor resolution to 640×480 and displays everything in 4 colors. An error box then pops up with some nonsense about the ialmrnt5 driver malfunctioning, and I’m forced to reboot the PC to get back to my normal display resolution.

The odd thing about this error is that it doesn’t occur when I’m performing any graphics-intense functions – it usually happens when my PC is just sitting there, minding its P’s and Q’s, and I move the mouse to get the monitor to turn on. (hmm, maybe it’s a power-save feature error?)

Anyway, some research suggests that installing the latest Intel video drivers will fix the problem. (Update: Page is down. Here is a cached copy.)

Download the drivers from here (Update: Site looks down. Here is a cached copy.)
Install and follow the instructions.

I haven’t had any problems since making the update — I’ll update if I do.

Eddie On Everything » tech support

“Press Ctrl-I to enter configuration utility” Boot Failure Caused by Kindle

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How To Delete A File That Is In Use By Another Person Or Program

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