After I left Texas, I came to Bakersfield, Ca.
and have been involved in a few major projects, that are in the final stages.
My very good friend here is a daughter of a Minister who was pastor at her church for 28 years and the church had it's 55 year anniversary in October 2010.
So what does this have to do with me, she asked me to show her how to make a pictorial history of the church, using the computer I built for her a year or so ago, when I was here back in January for a couple of weeks.
Thus when I returned again she asked me to actually do the project as she in her work, church activities and having a series of Medical Exams her time is greatly consumed.
Since this is for the Glory my God and Lord I could only say. "Yes."
What a trial and learning experience this has been. If I had know that I would be here a month plus in the process of completing this I would have never started.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Relearning how to use Windows Move Maker,
on a computer that was not my laptop has been a frustration, trying to burn DVD a greater frustration, Learning how at the age of 56, to find download and use a bunch of different mp3 recorder's, Video Converters, and finally a DVD maker that I felt comfortable with to make the final product.
Have learned that Windows XP Home SP3 does not have a DVD burner and that Windows Movie Maker can only be copied to a CD.
Thank God, everyone else on the Internet already knows that, so I could figure out how to do this project.
All of these being Freeware from the Internet boy-houdee what a challenge.
Did you know that there are 30 plus video formats used all around the world.
That every cell phone maker uses a format of their choosing.
That these formats are not recognized by Windows Movie Maker.
That Windows Media Player DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THEM.
We had videos sent from Africa, that were made on cell phones, videos that were sent by past pastors.
and all were on flash drives.
One flash drive sent had been screened on my friend's, sister's computer; as she uses only her administrator account the end results was that her computer went ape crazy and she had to have it rebuild.
When I put that flash drive in the computer to see the video, the anti virus " Microsoft Security Essentials" LIGHTED up like a flare. This computer is not connected to the Internet. Yes it has Antivirus on it. Nasty, Nasty, Worm. I need not say more on that subject.
Windows move maker is very cantankerous I had to rebuild the video 6 times over a 3 week period as each final draft that I made test copies of would not load correctly after we did a bit of editing and of course there was the:
I WANT TO ADD SOME MORE, so I would have to wait to get additional pictures or video that she wanted to stream.
There are videos that I could not get W.M.M. to accept even after converting to a format that WMM will accept.
_________________________________________________________________________________
This has been the main project.
Here is what I did while waiting to get, video and photos, that date back to 1955.
Ordered a cheap desktop case, some hard drives, some motherboards ,processors, windows operating systems, power supply, (CoolMaster 450 watt), memory 1gig 667 DDR2 ( 12 of them), DVD burners.
Why you ask well I am building my Nieces in the Philippines a Internet Cafe, though I taught them how to repair and rebuild computers when I was there to say good-by to my wife and her funeral.
Even sent them a copy of Monte Russell's fine manual "Self Computer Repair Unleashed" (Get your copy by clicking on it at the right side of the blog).
I wanted to make sure that the components were working and that there would be no bad ones.
I built 5 computers total using a single case. Installed the operating systems by cloning and them used the key code of the different OS I purchased to activate them. Took me awhile but I figured out how to do so.
Did have one bad motherboard got 2 that were open box from Newegg.com and in spite of their brag that they check these board 1 did not work. When I pulled the processor I noted that there were bent pins in the socket that failed to note when I installed the processor. (Newegg; gave me a RMA and a refund.)
I replaced the 1.8Ghz single core processor that I built my friend's computer, with a 3.02Ghz. Dual core Pentium and that computer really rocks with 2 gigs of memory. I shipped all the componets to the Philippines via snail-mail.
_________________________________________________________________________________
The case has evolved,
I have a DVD Burner a DVD-Rom Floppy Drive, Patriot Dual 2.5"-3.5" SATA, drive bay an internal hard drive sata 80 gig, Pentium dual core processor in case 2 gigs memory. and a slot cut in the left removable side panel that allow me to stick the power and drive cables out the side to allow me to externally clone the drives.
An add-on card (PCI) that give me additional SATA / IDEA (PATA) hard drive connections. Which allows me to clone any hard drive to any hard drive I can run the software in the DVD drives and can clone 2 hard drives at the same time, "I think"! Haven't tried so yet. Guess I don't reall need the dual 2.5" drive bays with the external, set-up.
This ended the problem I have had with the burn time using an external USB 2.0 Adaptor. 1.5 hour as appose to 6-10 using the USB adaptors and external cases.
Hope this gives you the reader somthing to think about.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Rebuilt my friend's old Compact Presario 7360 computer,
Nothing wrong with the original computer AMD processor Compact motherboard 8 gig IDE hard drive 1/4 gig memory 98 OS.
Now has a Biostar G41-M7 motherboard, 2,6Ghz Dual Core Celerion Processor PATA hard drive & DVD Burner, combination; floppy drive, card reader ,front usb 2.0 and a 4 bay Patriot 2.5 " hard drive bay that allows for up to 4 TB of storage. 2gigs memory.
It is now a NAS with Remote Desktop and file sharing via the router I got for her....
She, my friend has 50 years of pictures, she wants to scan and store on hard drives. This is a nice usage of the old compact case.
I did have to change out the power supply 95watt OEM to a 300watt micro power supply. new LED's & power switch as the Compact power switch / LED were cabled together and use a 10 pin connector to the motherboard.
Compact was ahead of the game in the building of computers 11 years ago; too bad HP bought them out.
____________________________________________________________________________________
I know that this has been a mouth full but figured that you who reads would like to know what I have been doing.
Now I have only to figure out how to make that DVD burner software work to make a copy that actually plays all the chapters and access the chapters and sub chapters then I can go back to work and start earning a living.
Dang, got 2 more dvd's to make, then I can pack my bags.
Hope you enjoyed this post.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
A Short Note!
I have three blogs that I post articles in.
In reviewing the links to the other blogs I have realised that some of the computer projects that I have been involved with are posted in my other blogs.
Thus if you would be kindly click on the links at the right side of the page to review my other blog post you may make some sence of some of my referances in this blog.
Thank you and may you have good computing.
In reviewing the links to the other blogs I have realised that some of the computer projects that I have been involved with are posted in my other blogs.
Thus if you would be kindly click on the links at the right side of the page to review my other blog post you may make some sence of some of my referances in this blog.
Thank you and may you have good computing.
My God-dauthers Rebuild The Head Banging, Motherboard That Would Not Accept XP!
After 3 days in Oakland after getting of the ship and repairing my daughter-in-laws mom's laptop per my early post I was in Bakersfield, Ca. Where I spent some time helping a friend with some projects.
One of these was to find the freeware needed to record music in MP3 enviorment to use in Windows Move Maker to adapt photos and videos for the 55th. year anniversary of her church.
This was an interesting study for me as I had not used the program in a number of years. It was a refresher course for me. Went online; for my needs, downloaded 5 different freeware MP3 Recorders before I found "1", that fit my needs here is the url: http://www.mp3mymp3.com/ this a very well present bit of software with great web help information. I highly recommend this product.
The 2Nd. freeware product I found was: http://www.finalmediaplayer.com/?src=fmp this program allows us to view any video/ audio that is on the market. I think I counted some 30 different formats used to make video in the digital world to day, only 3-5 are compatible with Microsoft programs. Great product is all I can say about this.
Third product I found: http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/ a real nice tool with 65,000,000 happy users world wide. was able to convert video pictures from several different formats to work in Windows Media Player. (Am back in Bakersfield; still working on the project at this time).
I know, I'm off track as far as the title of the post is concerned but I feel that this is information that you as a reader should have as it is fresh in my mind.
*_______________________________________________________________________
To the rebuild of god-daughter's computer.
To start this tower is around 15 years old has 4 80mm fans 2 front 2 rear. the last motherboard was an ASRock P4i65G (Yes I downloaded the manual ) with a 2.5 GHz P-4 this processor has gone through 3 motherboards and is still going strong. However stability of the motherboard is in question as there is an add on video card. The hard drive was also having some problems. Dual PATA DVD Burners, a floppy disk, and 1.0 front USB.
The motherboard is in truth a real beauty with 2 PATA drive interfaces and 2 SATA 1.5 interfaces. 2; one gig 400 memory chips. An AT (20 pin power supply connector)
Power supply 350watts AT.
This is what I up graded to:
400watt power supply full ATX ( had spare in the house)
MSI G31TM-P21 LGA775 motherboard.
Intel Pentium E5500 Wolfdale 2.8GHz 800MHz Socket 775 Dual-Core 45nm Processor
320gig SATA hard drive.
Ultra Floppy Drive / Multi Card Reader.
Lite-on DVD Burner SATA ( This burner has there version of Light Scribe winch does not need the light scribe Disks which is a cost saving to us.
Sony OEM DVD Burner. (Was not able to get motherboard to recognize the old PATA DvD Burners; I have found this to be true with 3 other rebuilds even after I downloaded the drivers for the older optical drive units.)
Windows 7 Home Prem.S 32bit.
2each, 2gig. 800 DDR2 Memory.
The MB, Processor, and Memory were a bundle from Directron.com.
A little history, I went to improve the original system using my Spotmau Boot/Repair/Optimization Disks, this was about 9 months ago and I somehow screw up the operating system. Unable to figure out what I did I bought a 160 gig PATA WD hard drive and took the computer to the neighbor down the street who is a
Microsoft Certified Tech. Said fix it and explained to him what I had done. To at least save the data.
He worked on the system for 3 days and was unable to restore Windows XP Home Edition so installed Vista Home Prem. on the new PATA drive.
3 weeks later Vista died and as my god daughter was getting a little smart in the 14 year old mouth I decided to not look at her computer again, so let her suffer.
Now there are 2 hard drives in the computer 1 with a damaged OS and one that also has died.
When I returned to the house in El Paso I had the new motherboard, processor, memory, hard drive waiting for me as I had ordered the parts when in Bakersfield. I planed to get the other hardware from the local CompUSA store (One of 3 that did not close in the bankruptcy and were bought out by Tigerdirect.)
Removed all the old components tested the fans cleaned the case of dirt. Installed new power supply, motherboard processor memory hard drive DVD burners.
Decided to reinstall XP home 32 bit. I have the disk and was able to find the key code of the original XP OS using my Spotmau Recovery Disk; cool.
Put install disk in the DVD drive that I slected for first boot. bios boot does system check starts to boot then nothing BSD ???????????
Forced shut down Restart same thing; take out disk reboot every thing boots up???? #%*?*!!!! I say.
Have the W-7 install disk drop it in the DVD drive starts up installs the OS on 45 gig partition. But this is the same disk I used to install the OS on that Hp Pavilion so can't activate so I think. Let me back track the hard drive I am using is the 500 gig Maxtor SATA that I had screw up the OS on and am planing on doing a repair/reinstall.
Pull the plug open case disconnect damaged Maxtor hard drive install pata hard drive. after I pull install disk. System boot into Vista, neat not a failed motherboard am surprised that the motherboard recognized the drive learn that the key code is not complete and that Microsoft did not validate the reason for the failed system.
This is when I decide to install the new 320 gig sata drive. Then the failure to install.
Get the drivers installed for the chip sets the video network card etc from MB disk, this is something to work with. reconnect the maxtor SATA drive set it up as the boot drive. Install disk still want to install XP why waste an operating system that you have a good key code for.
Boot up install disk get to the part about installing other drivers, no blue screen good. do so when few minutes later screen pops up install drivers so I do Windows says it has the same drivers OK, use them, I wait nothing 20 minutes I get message from install disk Windows is unable to complete installation need drivers.............. what the heck installed Xp sp3 from this disk on 4 computers never a problem.
This has me stumped bad hard dive? No don't think so, Used Spotmau disk to reformat the disk and delete all partitions. Did a disk check after deleting all partitions. Viewed report no problems.
Tried reinstall on Maxtor HD 3 more times. Pull power plug. disconnect Maxtor drive set drive that has W-7 up again run xp install disk to install over W-7 get the same thing, shut down.
This is becoming a real butt scratcher my logical brain say that this is not suppose to happen.
Got online to DIY-Computer-Repair.com ... Questions and Answers outlined the above.
You can go to the website and read the communications between myself and Mr. Russell as we try to resolve the issue.
He suggest that it is a driver issue recommends certain drivers to be installed from a floppy disk. As I have installed a new floppy disk memory card reader combo I will have the chance to test the floppy drive.
Go to Intel down load the need drivers on another computer use my external floppy drive to make the driver install floppy.
Repeat the process all over again finally get the right drivers downloaded have a choice of 4 to include a raid configuration. try them all still cannot install the system.
Well this is getting both me and Mr. Russell really perplexed.
On a lark I decide to type on the search bar on my main computer in the house: XP FAILURE TO INSTALL now guess what I came up with.
Some of the new motherboard have a raid configuration in the bios and that unless your bios is set to have the raid in IDE you cannot install any XP operating system. Also you have to install the drivers as I have indicated as per Mr. Russell's instruction.
I checked the bios and yep there is a thing for a raid in the bios and it can only be set for IDE! for this motherboard MSI G31TM-P21 LGA775.
End results though the Maxtor SATA Hard Drive had some bad restart sectors when I installed the drive behind the W-7 drive and installed Acronis Drive Monitor and thought at first that it was a bad hard drive the end results is that the motherboard and the bios were designed for only Vista and now W-7.
YOU CANNOT INSTALL XP ON THIS MOTHERBOARD.
Have W-7 now installed on the computer, order a part that allows you to use an empty 5 inch bay to install a front panel that has 2 each, 2.0 USB ports and install a 3.5 drive in a bay that is part of the panel insert. I
moved the floppy drive up to this bay so that it and the new 2,0 USB ports are together and disconnected the 1.0 usb at the bottom of the case.
The only thing that I have been unable to do is find a front audio panel for computers this is the only other up grade that the computer is in need of.
The case is beat up scratched up been around the world to end up in El Paso when her brother had it when in the army in the sand box but started in the Island of Guam where the computer was first built.
Given back to her dad who gave it to her before he died she has now a good working computer. That should last for another 10 years.
Hope you enjoyed the post and you have learned something you need to know.
One of these was to find the freeware needed to record music in MP3 enviorment to use in Windows Move Maker to adapt photos and videos for the 55th. year anniversary of her church.
This was an interesting study for me as I had not used the program in a number of years. It was a refresher course for me. Went online; for my needs, downloaded 5 different freeware MP3 Recorders before I found "1", that fit my needs here is the url: http://www.mp3mymp3.com/ this a very well present bit of software with great web help information. I highly recommend this product.
The 2Nd. freeware product I found was: http://www.finalmediaplayer.com/?src=fmp this program allows us to view any video/ audio that is on the market. I think I counted some 30 different formats used to make video in the digital world to day, only 3-5 are compatible with Microsoft programs. Great product is all I can say about this.
Third product I found: http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/ a real nice tool with 65,000,000 happy users world wide. was able to convert video pictures from several different formats to work in Windows Media Player. (Am back in Bakersfield; still working on the project at this time).
I know, I'm off track as far as the title of the post is concerned but I feel that this is information that you as a reader should have as it is fresh in my mind.
*_______________________________________________________________________
To the rebuild of god-daughter's computer.
To start this tower is around 15 years old has 4 80mm fans 2 front 2 rear. the last motherboard was an ASRock P4i65G (Yes I downloaded the manual ) with a 2.5 GHz P-4 this processor has gone through 3 motherboards and is still going strong. However stability of the motherboard is in question as there is an add on video card. The hard drive was also having some problems. Dual PATA DVD Burners, a floppy disk, and 1.0 front USB.
The motherboard is in truth a real beauty with 2 PATA drive interfaces and 2 SATA 1.5 interfaces. 2; one gig 400 memory chips. An AT (20 pin power supply connector)
Power supply 350watts AT.
This is what I up graded to:
400watt power supply full ATX ( had spare in the house)
MSI G31TM-P21 LGA775 motherboard.
Intel Pentium E5500 Wolfdale 2.8GHz 800MHz Socket 775 Dual-Core 45nm Processor
320gig SATA hard drive.
Ultra Floppy Drive / Multi Card Reader.
Lite-on DVD Burner SATA ( This burner has there version of Light Scribe winch does not need the light scribe Disks which is a cost saving to us.
Sony OEM DVD Burner. (Was not able to get motherboard to recognize the old PATA DvD Burners; I have found this to be true with 3 other rebuilds even after I downloaded the drivers for the older optical drive units.)
Windows 7 Home Prem.S 32bit.
2each, 2gig. 800 DDR2 Memory.
The MB, Processor, and Memory were a bundle from Directron.com.
A little history, I went to improve the original system using my Spotmau Boot/Repair/Optimization Disks, this was about 9 months ago and I somehow screw up the operating system. Unable to figure out what I did I bought a 160 gig PATA WD hard drive and took the computer to the neighbor down the street who is a
Microsoft Certified Tech. Said fix it and explained to him what I had done. To at least save the data.
He worked on the system for 3 days and was unable to restore Windows XP Home Edition so installed Vista Home Prem. on the new PATA drive.
3 weeks later Vista died and as my god daughter was getting a little smart in the 14 year old mouth I decided to not look at her computer again, so let her suffer.
Now there are 2 hard drives in the computer 1 with a damaged OS and one that also has died.
When I returned to the house in El Paso I had the new motherboard, processor, memory, hard drive waiting for me as I had ordered the parts when in Bakersfield. I planed to get the other hardware from the local CompUSA store (One of 3 that did not close in the bankruptcy and were bought out by Tigerdirect.)
Removed all the old components tested the fans cleaned the case of dirt. Installed new power supply, motherboard processor memory hard drive DVD burners.
Decided to reinstall XP home 32 bit. I have the disk and was able to find the key code of the original XP OS using my Spotmau Recovery Disk; cool.
Put install disk in the DVD drive that I slected for first boot. bios boot does system check starts to boot then nothing BSD ???????????
Forced shut down Restart same thing; take out disk reboot every thing boots up???? #%*?*!!!! I say.
Have the W-7 install disk drop it in the DVD drive starts up installs the OS on 45 gig partition. But this is the same disk I used to install the OS on that Hp Pavilion so can't activate so I think. Let me back track the hard drive I am using is the 500 gig Maxtor SATA that I had screw up the OS on and am planing on doing a repair/reinstall.
Pull the plug open case disconnect damaged Maxtor hard drive install pata hard drive. after I pull install disk. System boot into Vista, neat not a failed motherboard am surprised that the motherboard recognized the drive learn that the key code is not complete and that Microsoft did not validate the reason for the failed system.
This is when I decide to install the new 320 gig sata drive. Then the failure to install.
Get the drivers installed for the chip sets the video network card etc from MB disk, this is something to work with. reconnect the maxtor SATA drive set it up as the boot drive. Install disk still want to install XP why waste an operating system that you have a good key code for.
Boot up install disk get to the part about installing other drivers, no blue screen good. do so when few minutes later screen pops up install drivers so I do Windows says it has the same drivers OK, use them, I wait nothing 20 minutes I get message from install disk Windows is unable to complete installation need drivers.............. what the heck installed Xp sp3 from this disk on 4 computers never a problem.
This has me stumped bad hard dive? No don't think so, Used Spotmau disk to reformat the disk and delete all partitions. Did a disk check after deleting all partitions. Viewed report no problems.
Tried reinstall on Maxtor HD 3 more times. Pull power plug. disconnect Maxtor drive set drive that has W-7 up again run xp install disk to install over W-7 get the same thing, shut down.
This is becoming a real butt scratcher my logical brain say that this is not suppose to happen.
Got online to DIY-Computer-Repair.com ... Questions and Answers outlined the above.
You can go to the website and read the communications between myself and Mr. Russell as we try to resolve the issue.
He suggest that it is a driver issue recommends certain drivers to be installed from a floppy disk. As I have installed a new floppy disk memory card reader combo I will have the chance to test the floppy drive.
Go to Intel down load the need drivers on another computer use my external floppy drive to make the driver install floppy.
Repeat the process all over again finally get the right drivers downloaded have a choice of 4 to include a raid configuration. try them all still cannot install the system.
Well this is getting both me and Mr. Russell really perplexed.
On a lark I decide to type on the search bar on my main computer in the house: XP FAILURE TO INSTALL now guess what I came up with.
Some of the new motherboard have a raid configuration in the bios and that unless your bios is set to have the raid in IDE you cannot install any XP operating system. Also you have to install the drivers as I have indicated as per Mr. Russell's instruction.
I checked the bios and yep there is a thing for a raid in the bios and it can only be set for IDE! for this motherboard MSI G31TM-P21 LGA775.
End results though the Maxtor SATA Hard Drive had some bad restart sectors when I installed the drive behind the W-7 drive and installed Acronis Drive Monitor and thought at first that it was a bad hard drive the end results is that the motherboard and the bios were designed for only Vista and now W-7.
YOU CANNOT INSTALL XP ON THIS MOTHERBOARD.
Have W-7 now installed on the computer, order a part that allows you to use an empty 5 inch bay to install a front panel that has 2 each, 2.0 USB ports and install a 3.5 drive in a bay that is part of the panel insert. I
moved the floppy drive up to this bay so that it and the new 2,0 USB ports are together and disconnected the 1.0 usb at the bottom of the case.
The only thing that I have been unable to do is find a front audio panel for computers this is the only other up grade that the computer is in need of.
The case is beat up scratched up been around the world to end up in El Paso when her brother had it when in the army in the sand box but started in the Island of Guam where the computer was first built.
Given back to her dad who gave it to her before he died she has now a good working computer. That should last for another 10 years.
Hope you enjoyed the post and you have learned something you need to know.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Back In The Saddle Again.
Greetings,
Been some months since my last post have been to sea for awhile, so would like to update my readers with some of the things I have been doing with my computers, since I have returned from sea in the last days of December of 2010.
TO START:
My first computer which is an Acer Aspire 5100 notebook, has now been up graded as far as one can go; what I have done to it.
1. New Memory -original memory 2 each 533 gig, totaling 1 gig; replace with 2 each 2 gig 667 memory.
(Yes, I know I can only use 3,24 gigs., as the XP Pro Media Center is a 32 bit system; but you can
really see a big difference in the load time and opening of the programs and files.)
2. Installed a new Hard Drive well actually 2. the 1St. was a 120gig PATA and later on upgraded to160gig
PATA.
I was able to transfer the entire hard drive from the original using an external enclosure after installing the new drive in the computer. Now when I say the entire hard drive I mean all information on the hard drive including the Recover partition that was provided by Acer. The C-Drive Partition and the D-Data partition as well.
I used a special program on a Boot Disk from Spotmau. A very fine boot disk but can be very dangerous if you use it a little too much. There is a Clone section that allows you to make images of partitions or the whole drive. Which is what I used; draw back is that with USB 2.0 is that the data transfer rate is very slow and took 10 hours to do the job.
Why did I upgrade the hard drive. The original Hard Drive was 80 gigs., and I had so many programs and windows upgrades on the C-Drive that i had less that 7% of free space at one time. This was a 32 gig. partition, you cannot defrag. a partition that has less than 15% free space.
Additionally the drive is 4 years old. and my great (and I urge you to get this) Freeware Acronis Disk Monitor was indicating the life of the hard drive was down to 80%.
The newest hard drive has a C-Drive or operating system partition that is 45gigs. and I have the D-Data partition of the same at 35 gigs and a logical partition of 40 gigs for Misc. Files.
There is an unpartitioned free space block on the 160 gig. hard drive that I am planing to install "Ubuntu"
on so I can learn the Linux operating system.
SECOND PROJECT:
If you remember my earlier post about that HP Pavilion DV2500 Notebook that was driving me nuts. The first thing I did when I got off the ship was to finish rebuilding it. As noted in the earlier article the Vista OS died and would not reboot and I was unable to get into the recovery side of the hard drive.
Also my thinking of the time was that the SATA 2.5 Fujitsu hard drive used a special interface to the motherboard. It was a bit of a struggle but I was able to purchase an exact replacement for a third the cost of getting 1 from HP. I also learned that there was a very cleverly designed adaptor that was removable for the mother board/hard drive interface. Boy do I feel dumb.
End results. New hard drive installed 4 partitions; 160gigs., total. The original hard drive with all the data still intact is now in an external USB enclosure, and I will eventually learn how to extract the data on the Owner's My Documents files, in my spare time on the ships I work on.
Installed Windows-7 Home Prem.; upgraded the memory from 1to 3gigs. Purchase a USB power Laptop cooler while in China for $10.00 and left instruction not to sit the note book flat on any surface or the hard drive will over heat. It is fast in start up with windows 7 as apposed to Vista with 1 gig. Win-7 uses less memory than Vista and this was my first install of the operating system. (Check out the Windows-7 Installation guide at DIY-Computer-Repair.com)
Had to upgrade several of the Drivers for some of the hardware and software to make them work with Windows -7. Was concerned that 7 would not recognize the wifi drivers and not let me update the Drivers but since I was moving up from Vista most of the Drivers were there and there was no problem.
Window-7 has a very fine recovery system in it that allows you to make an Image of the Operating System and store it on a DVD; Yes it does fit on a single DVD which I did make.
Additionally I made a Recovery Console Boot Disk off the same back up program in Windows-7.
Gave both these disks to my son's mother-in-law with a list of instructions of how to keep the computer running.
This was a major project that started out being a simple memory upgrade and the installation of the never installed service packs and windows upgrades that somehow went wrong. Many of us hate or have a great dislike for Windows Vista; this is a very costly example of why. These were out of pocket expenses that I was compelled to undertake to get the computer up and running again.
After all it is my counter part in my son's extended family that owns the computer and the repair and upgrades were near the cost of a new computer.
One of life's challenges.
You may ask where did I learn to do these things; from "Monte Russell" webmaster at DIY-Computer- Repair.com For your copy of his book "Self Computer Repair Unleashed" just click on the image of the book to the right and get your copy. Best information source I have found on computers hands down.
Next post will be about my god-daughter's computer 95% rebuild and some of the challenges that; I had in doing the rebuild.
Been some months since my last post have been to sea for awhile, so would like to update my readers with some of the things I have been doing with my computers, since I have returned from sea in the last days of December of 2010.
TO START:
My first computer which is an Acer Aspire 5100 notebook, has now been up graded as far as one can go; what I have done to it.
1. New Memory -original memory 2 each 533 gig, totaling 1 gig; replace with 2 each 2 gig 667 memory.
(Yes, I know I can only use 3,24 gigs., as the XP Pro Media Center is a 32 bit system; but you can
really see a big difference in the load time and opening of the programs and files.)
2. Installed a new Hard Drive well actually 2. the 1St. was a 120gig PATA and later on upgraded to160gig
PATA.
I was able to transfer the entire hard drive from the original using an external enclosure after installing the new drive in the computer. Now when I say the entire hard drive I mean all information on the hard drive including the Recover partition that was provided by Acer. The C-Drive Partition and the D-Data partition as well.
I used a special program on a Boot Disk from Spotmau. A very fine boot disk but can be very dangerous if you use it a little too much. There is a Clone section that allows you to make images of partitions or the whole drive. Which is what I used; draw back is that with USB 2.0 is that the data transfer rate is very slow and took 10 hours to do the job.
Why did I upgrade the hard drive. The original Hard Drive was 80 gigs., and I had so many programs and windows upgrades on the C-Drive that i had less that 7% of free space at one time. This was a 32 gig. partition, you cannot defrag. a partition that has less than 15% free space.
Additionally the drive is 4 years old. and my great (and I urge you to get this) Freeware Acronis Disk Monitor was indicating the life of the hard drive was down to 80%.
The newest hard drive has a C-Drive or operating system partition that is 45gigs. and I have the D-Data partition of the same at 35 gigs and a logical partition of 40 gigs for Misc. Files.
There is an unpartitioned free space block on the 160 gig. hard drive that I am planing to install "Ubuntu"
on so I can learn the Linux operating system.
SECOND PROJECT:
If you remember my earlier post about that HP Pavilion DV2500 Notebook that was driving me nuts. The first thing I did when I got off the ship was to finish rebuilding it. As noted in the earlier article the Vista OS died and would not reboot and I was unable to get into the recovery side of the hard drive.
Also my thinking of the time was that the SATA 2.5 Fujitsu hard drive used a special interface to the motherboard. It was a bit of a struggle but I was able to purchase an exact replacement for a third the cost of getting 1 from HP. I also learned that there was a very cleverly designed adaptor that was removable for the mother board/hard drive interface. Boy do I feel dumb.
End results. New hard drive installed 4 partitions; 160gigs., total. The original hard drive with all the data still intact is now in an external USB enclosure, and I will eventually learn how to extract the data on the Owner's My Documents files, in my spare time on the ships I work on.
Installed Windows-7 Home Prem.; upgraded the memory from 1to 3gigs. Purchase a USB power Laptop cooler while in China for $10.00 and left instruction not to sit the note book flat on any surface or the hard drive will over heat. It is fast in start up with windows 7 as apposed to Vista with 1 gig. Win-7 uses less memory than Vista and this was my first install of the operating system. (Check out the Windows-7 Installation guide at DIY-Computer-Repair.com)
Had to upgrade several of the Drivers for some of the hardware and software to make them work with Windows -7. Was concerned that 7 would not recognize the wifi drivers and not let me update the Drivers but since I was moving up from Vista most of the Drivers were there and there was no problem.
Window-7 has a very fine recovery system in it that allows you to make an Image of the Operating System and store it on a DVD; Yes it does fit on a single DVD which I did make.
Additionally I made a Recovery Console Boot Disk off the same back up program in Windows-7.
Gave both these disks to my son's mother-in-law with a list of instructions of how to keep the computer running.
This was a major project that started out being a simple memory upgrade and the installation of the never installed service packs and windows upgrades that somehow went wrong. Many of us hate or have a great dislike for Windows Vista; this is a very costly example of why. These were out of pocket expenses that I was compelled to undertake to get the computer up and running again.
After all it is my counter part in my son's extended family that owns the computer and the repair and upgrades were near the cost of a new computer.
One of life's challenges.
You may ask where did I learn to do these things; from "Monte Russell" webmaster at DIY-Computer- Repair.com For your copy of his book "Self Computer Repair Unleashed" just click on the image of the book to the right and get your copy. Best information source I have found on computers hands down.
Next post will be about my god-daughter's computer 95% rebuild and some of the challenges that; I had in doing the rebuild.
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