Friday 18 January 2019

Problems Imaging a microSD card with Win32DiskImager or balenaEtcher- Access is Denied Error 5. Bonus Safe Mode From Windows 10 Easy Access.

So I dusted off our RetroPie and was trying to reimage the microSD card in it.  Should have been easy-peasy, but instead, it was very frustrating.  I tried using the recommended "balenaEtcher" but got nowhere but unhelpful "denied" type errors.  I also tried using the tried and true Win32DiskImager and still received the same messages.

I puzzled over it a few hours, repartitioning, reformatting, trying to use my phone or camera to low level format the card, using different SD to USB adapters and different cards, all to no avail.

Then I contemplated that perhaps Windows 10 was doing fritzy stuff in the background with the card.

A quick reboot into safe mode, and things worked just fine.  It is annoying, and takes twice as long to do, but it works.

Safe mode in most versions of Windows wasn't challenging to access by tapping F8 while booting up.  Windows 10 has changed that, so it's easiest to get access by holding down the Windows key and pressing "R" (for run).  Then type in "msconfig" and tap enter.  Select the "boot" tab, and then check the box for "Safe Boot".

Apply/OK (what purpose does having two keys serve?) and you're all set.  Reboot your system, image your card, and reboot again!

Friday 4 January 2019

Accessing Hidden Advanced Settings on a Linksys EA9200 Router

I'm having a few regrets about supplying this router to a client.  It seems to have some spotty connection issues, so I've swapped it for an Asus and brought it home to test on my own home network.

It was very disheartening to realize that it doesn't support any third party firmware (no DD-WRT, OpenWRT or Tomato?!)

In the meantime, I wanted to play with some of the more advanced settings on it to suit my own situation - and low and behold, they've not provided access to those settings for owners by any documented manner.

Fortunately, I did find a reference to similar models having a "hidden" advanced settings screen that does indeed work on this model too.

When you hit up the home screen of the web interface, simply substitute "advanced-wireless" for "home" in the address bar, and you'll be all set.

Enjoy!  If I discover anything earth shattering, I'll try to report back.