Fazza

Have you tried plugging it directly in to a SATA port on a motherboard?

The PCB of the HDD itself or the enclosure? If the enclosure then you need to remove the HDD from it and connect the HDD itself to a PC with an OS on it either Windows or a Live Linux CD/DVD etc.

I've had that error in the past and a simple reboot resolved the issue for me. I've checked my notes and we use the exact same command and save it to the root of c: too.

I second this! Linux isnt as fussy about mounting dodgy/faulty HDDs as Windows is so grab a Live linux ISO, boot from it and see if you can read any data from your HDD, if you can - then copy the data to another drive ASAP.

Common thing. On our 3 exchange servers lots of the 'Automatic' services are in a stopped state after a reboot - I guess they wont kick in and start until Exchange uses one of the services. We have a server monitoring system in place that lets us know when some services arent running so we can take proactive action etc. so after a reboot we get a 'sea of red' on our monitoring station so we manually start the 'automatic' services just to keep the monitoring system happy!

How do I link to two together??

We have a journaling account so if anything is needed we can get it from that so deleting mailboxes for users that have left is OK. For someone like the Head, I would export their mailbox to a .pst file and save it in a secure area on the network in case the new head needs/wants it.

We download significantly more than we upload so as long as the download speed was pretty much guaranteed I think we could.

Yes, you need to uninstall WDS and the install the very latest version so it matches SCCM, you will then need to update your boot images so Windows PE updates to the latest one.

Put the commands in a batch file that also launches the program once it has done so.

At the moment we just use 1 of the 1Gb uplinks but we are planning to look in to teaming 2 Gb uplinks to create a 2Gb backbone that links to our 10Gb backbone to the server room during the summer 'break' if and when we get time!

UPDATE: The image was created successfully so the above powershell command didnt affect that being done. Just need to create a Task Sequence for it and test it deploys OK! Hopefully it should work which will keep our Head of Computing happy.

Pie and Mash eaten so here we go! First of all save your script in a folder where you normally save programs for use with SCCM. Then you need to create a Package pointing to the location the script is stored but do not associate the script with the Package. Instead choose the do not create a program option as shown here: Your package should look something like this: Then you add 'Run PowerShell Script' to the Task Sequence like this: Hope that all makes sense.

It's a bit weird - you have to create a program but only put the path in it and not the actual script! I'll pop up some screenshots in a bit as I'm just eating some pie and mash

That's what I meant to say!

Mines scheduled once every half term!

Serif recently announced on Twitter that as of the end of August 2017 they will no longer be selling the Serif Suite so if you want it, get it whilst you can! https://twitter.com/SerifEducation/status/888153148904398850

I'm currently exporting the Image as a backup and then I'll give this a go and see what happens! Alternatively I need to find a couple of alternative (free) emulators to replace the 2 that wont install as I'd rather not have to do the builds on a physical machine.

No, not done that. I will give that a try though. Do you know if I will need to turn that off before I image the VM so I can deploy it as a student 'golden image'?

The Windows 10 VM I have created has been created on a physical Hyper-V Host Dell Server running Server 2016 Enterprise and also I have installed Hyper-V in the Windows 10 VM and those two options don't show up. For Visual Studio 2015 to install I also had to enable Hyper-V so the emulators in that version installed OK in a Windows 8.1 VM.

I'm in the process of finalising my Windows 10 Student Golden Image ready to deploy to our computer suites so I've just had the Head of Computer Science come down and choose all the options he wants us to install in Visual Studio 2017 Pro. I ran the install on my Windows 10 (1703) desktop so he didnt bugger up my golden image and screenshotted them all so I can replicate what he wants. I'm creating the Golden Image on a Hyper-V Virtual Machine and when I run the install two options are missing: Visual Studio Emulator for Android and Windows 10 Mobile Emulator (Anniversary Edition) are simply not there! Any ideas why there missing?

Good question, I've been asking around and we cant think of a reason to disable Cortana or the search that replaces it. The only thing we have configured in the past (For Windows 8.x) is that the search doesnt search the internet so if a student searches for Word for example it will just show them the Word program and not a load of nonsense from the Internet.

We've been putting it on Staff Laptops as and when they come in for a service/repair etc. etc. and I'm currently creating a Windows 10 Golden Image for the Student Computers that can handle it ready to deploy over the Summer Holidays like yourself. We wanted to go to Windows 10 for the Students sooner but the British Computer Society (BCS) didnt support Windows 10 and Office 2016 for their ECDL course until recently so have had to stick with the outdated old software called Windows 8.x and Office 2013. It's ironic that the BCS now support W10 etc. just as we've dropped ECDL from our Academy!

The longer you leave it, the harder the transition will be for your staff. We have a mixture of OS's on our admin staffs PCs and what I've noticed is that those we managed to get on to 8.x have gotten on with Windows 10 with fewer questions than those we have upgraded from 7 as there have been quite a few change since that was released! You'll also find that a fair few will have Windows 10 on their devices at home so may already be used to it!

Unless I'm going mad, the black box you are referring to is the Start Menu. It's black as there are no search results being shown as they only get listed once you search for something.