by WebKeyDesign | Aug 22, 2016 | Microsoft, Out Of The Box, Windows
In the previous Setup for Dell Latitude E5430 post, we did most of the legwork to create a boot ready flash drive with all the needed add-on software needed to create a clean image of Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. We now shutdown our machine and insert the flash drive into one of the USB ports on the laptop. If you are using the RecoveryTools 4, the Windows installation will be mostly automated. If you are not using Recovery Tools 4, then you will need to install Windows normally. I will cover both methods.
WINDOWS 7 Begins…
The computer will come up to a text only screen asking you to start from the Windows EMS option. Then a Windows screen will appear asking you to choose a language. The next dialog will ask you to choose which version of Windows 7 you want to install. The choice is Windows 7 Professional. At this point if you are using Recovery Tools 4, the process is automated and you will need to wait for Windows to install itself. If you are not using Recovery Tools, then this is a normal Windows 7 installation and you should install Windows normally and skip to the next section.
The machine will reboot and come up in Windows Audit Mode. The Sysprep dialog box will appear on the screen. Always close this box by using the X in the upper right corner of the dialog. You will need to do this every time you restart the machine. Do not click any options in the Sysprep dialog.
(more…)
by WebKeyDesign | Aug 22, 2016 | Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Out Of The Box, Windows
My recent project was the setup for a refurbished Dell Latitude laptop that I purchased online. Latitudes are business oriented laptops that Dell sells and leases to a variety of business customers. Many large enterprise level companies lease their machines and return them to Dell periodically as they upgrade to newer hardware. This means that a few times throughout the year Dell amasses a stock pile of old machines that they then rebuild and sell at significant discount prices. Even better, if you browse discount sites such as DealNews and TechBargains they will detail how to get a discount on top the already low refurbished price. Dell has these discounted sales periodically, at the beginning of the year in January or in the middle of the Summer, such as July. If you are going to buy a refurbished laptop, there are some risks. These laptops are not brand new, they have seen some usage, and so if you want a perfect looking laptop you are not going to find one. Your best bet is a Grade A model, which will be priced a little higher. The other factor is that these machines only come with a very short warranty. Three months or one hundred days type warranty will apply. You can purchase an extended warranty from the Dell Refurbish site at the time of purchase, but note that you will be adding to the total price of the machine. You will want to consider this extended warranty price and what it is worth to you personally. In my case, this was a secondary machine that I am not going to worry too much about, so no extended warranty for me. These are older model machines as well and not the latest and greatest technology. Business laptops are not gaming machines either, so if your main emphasis is gaming, consider looking for an Alienware type models instead of Latitudes. Overall my best advice is to wait for the discount from the DealNews.com and then shop for something that you will like and that will cost you about forty-five percent of a new laptop. Once you get higher than fifty percent, I usually think you might as well save up for a new machine that you really want. Given all this, lets get started on setting up the laptop.
Out Of the Box
Dell took about three to four business days to ship the laptop. The machine is serviced by a third party company named Genco. The machine was packaged well and was very clean. The only accessories were the Dell power adaptor and a printed explanation of the standard warranty for a refurbished machine. Below are the specs for the laptop:
Dell Latitude E5430 Laptop (non-Vpro model)
- 2.7GHz CPU
- 4GB RAM
- 1600×900 HD display
- 320GB Western Digital Hard Drive
There were two types of e5430 models, there is an Intel-Vpro model and then there is the non-Vpro model. This one is the latter. The hard drive inside the laptop was a Western Digital mechanical hard drive and it was dated July 19th, 2013. The laptop like the hard drive is from the the same year as well, in other words I bought a three year old laptop.
The installed operating system is Windows 7 Professional (32-bit). There were no installation disks for Windows included, as the hard drive includes a recovery image.
HARDWARE Upgades
There is nothing wrong with the laptop at this point and it is perfectly usable out of the box. However, I love hardware upgrades and so I couldn’t help myself from adding some things. The best possible upgrade is an SSD hard drive. SSD drives are now much more affordable, and so you can take your pick from a variety of SSD drives out on the market right now. My personal preference is Crucial/Micron and Samsung, but I have purchased other brands such as PNY if they were at a good price. For this project I did purchase the Crucial MX300 750GB – CT750MX300SSD1. I did consider the 525GB model as well, but unfortunately it was out of stock at the time. This SSD drive is a 7mm height drive and a spacer is included so that it fits as a 9.5mm drive. I did utilize the spacer when I switched out the drives.
Next was the memory. In current terms 4GB is not nearly adequate, so I opted for maxing out the memory. Most people might consider upgrading to 8GB memory (2 x 4GB DDR3 modules), since this is a very cheap upgrade to make. The e5430 does in fact support 2 x 8GB modules, for a total of 16GB memory! The easy way to purchase memory for this machine is to visit Crucial and buy direct from them. They will guarantee that the memory will work and are only slightly more expensive than buying from online stores like Newegg.com.
Both the hard drive swap and the memory upgrades are very easy to do. You will need a philips #0 screwdriver and for the lower memory module, I found a plastic spudger handy for pushing down the memory SIMM into place.
Note before doing any hardware upgrades, consider downloading all the required software in the following Software Installation section first if you do not have another Windows machine that you can use to download stated software. Look through Device Manager in Windows and note the type of hardware you have, such as the Network Card, Wi-fi Card, etc. My particular laptop did not have a finger print sensor or Bluetooth. In the Software Installation part we will need to download multiple software, so it is best to use a second machine or read this entire post before doing any software steps.
SOFTWARE Installation
WARNING! I take no responsibility for any use of software or any losses of software or hardware functions. If you do not know how to use DISKPART or any other tool in this post, then perhaps this project is not for you.
Part 1: Win7_Pro_SP1_English_COEM_x64.iso
Now that we have our e5430 laptop upgraded, the big problem is Windows. The image on the original hard drive is Windows 7 Pro 32-bit and not 64-bit. Even if I took the original software image from the drive, it would not recognize my new memory. My goal is to setup this laptop with Windows 7 Pro, the 64-bit version. The machine fully supports 64-bit Windows, so the problem is just the media. The laptop has an OEM license for Windows 7, and so I do not need to purchase Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, I just need to get the installation media.
Here is where nothing is ever easy. Windows 7 ISO images are no longer easily attainable directly on the Internet. There is a long story about this, but I will skip that and simply state that from a Windows machine with IE 11, you can do the following:
First go to Heidoc.net and learn about what you will want to download. In this case a Windows 7 64-bit OEM ISO image. Next download and run his Microsoft Windows Download Tool. This will allow you to download a clean ISO image of Windows 7 64-bit, the exact file name being: Win7_Pro_SP1_English_COEM_x64.iso
Part 2: Flash Drive Setup
Once downloaded, you will need an 8GB or 16GB USB Flash Drive. This will be used as the installation source.
Insert the flash drive and note what drive letter it shows as.
Type CMD in the StartMenu Search and right-click and choose Run as administrator. Use DISKPART to setup the flash drive. Note that for the SELECT DISK command you will need to substitute # for the exact number that the flash drive comes up. Choose wisely, if you are not careful you may destroy your other disks on that computer!
DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK #
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT QUICK FS=FAT32
ASSIGN
EXIT
With the flash drive setup, the next step is to copy the ISO onto the flash drive. There are multiple ways of doing this. For this step I placed the ISO file in its own folder and then used WinRAR to extract the contents. I then copy and paste into the flash drive root directory.
The Latitude e5430 supports UEFI, which is the replacement for the old BIOS system that most computers have used for multiple decades. We want to take advantage of EFI booting later, so we need to have the flash drive boot with EFI. This requires a different boot file to be in a specific location on the flash drive. The ISO does not have this as default for Windows 7.
From a Windows 64-bit machine that you are already using, there should already be the file file you need.
Look for bootmgfw.efi under C:\Windows\Boot\EFI and copy it to the flash drive here:
\EFI\BOOT\
The file then must be renamed from bootmgfw.efi to BOOTX64.EFI in order to work.
You now have a flash drive that you can boot from in EFI mode.
If you need further details on the flash drive steps see Creating Windows UEFI Boot-Stick in Windows.
More helpful links:
Part 3: Windows Setup With Factory Recovery Partition
What I do like about OEM computers is that they come setup with a hidden partition to reimage your machine in case you want to reset Windows back to a zero ground state. However what everyone does not like about this: is that the OEM image is usually filled with crapware that no one wants and it is not a clean setup of Windows. But how about if you could setup your own? In this section we will cover how to do this. If this is too complicated feel free to skip to the next section.
RecoveryTools 4 uses Microsoft tools to setup an OEM image and recovery tools for a new install of Windows. This software is free, but it is complicated process if you are not coherent with software setups.
- Download RecoveryTools 4.05
- Place the self extracting file into a separate folder and doule-click on it.
- Download the the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7
- Place the AIK ISO file in its own folder and then use WinRAR to extract the files to the same directory
- Next install the AIK Tools
With the AIK Tools installed, we follow the directions from RecoveryTools for Windows 7. From the Windows 7 AIK, you will need the following files:
- IMAGEX.EXE (32 and 64 bits version)
- OSCDIMG.EXE (32 bits version)
If you installed AIK, these files will be located here:
- C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\amd64 (for 64-bit)
- C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86 (for 32-bt)
Copy IMAGEX.EXE (32 bits version) to the RecoveryTools 4 folder path:
- \Windows 7\Windows 7 Recovery Tools\ImageX\32bits
Copy IMAGEX.EXE (64 bits version) to the RecoveryTools 4 folder path:
- \Windows 7\Windows 7 Recovery Tools\ImageX\64bits
Copy OSCDIMG.EXE (32 bits version) to the RecoveryTools 4 folder path:
- \Windows 7\Windows 7 Recovery Tools\OscdImg
Next we want to copy the entire RecoveryTools 4 folder to the root of the flash drive we setup earlier. There are two more files we need.
Under RecoveryTools 4\Windows 7\AutoUnattend\GPT\ there is an AutoUnattend.xml file, copy this to the root of the Flash Drive.
Under RecoveryTools 4\Add-On\ there is an Ei.Cfg file. This file must replace the current file that is under the SOURCES folder on the root of the Flash Drive.
Part 4: Add-ons for Flash Drive
In order to save time, it is best to go ahead and create a DELL folder on the flash drive and add some more add-ons that you will need later on. I will cover these under the Updating Windows section. For now here is the list of recommended installers:
Microsoft:
Dell Specific Updates for a Latitude e5430 Laptop:
- Intel Chipset Drivers: Chipset_Driver_CPNKY_WN32_9.3.0.1019_A00
- Intel Management Engine 9: Chipset_Driver_GJVHD_WN_9.5.15.1730_A02
- Intel USB 3: Chipset_Driver_THK45_WN_1.0.8.251_A05
- Intel 4000 Graphics Driver: Video_Driver_DCG08_WN32_10.18.10.4425_A18
- HD Audio: 3330_Audio_Driver_C6HVR_WN_1.0.6491.0_A08
- Ethernet Network Card: Broadcom 57xx Network_Driver_PGHX7_WN32_17.0.2_A00 (maybe different depending on your machine)
- Wireless Network Card: Dell 1530 Network_Driver_5RHDN_WN_6.30.223.215_A02 (maybe different depending on your machine)
- Conexant D330 Modem: CONEXANT_D330-HDA-MDC_JF0K3_A01_SETUP_ZPE, CONEXANT_MULTI-DEVICE_A03_R207060
- Memory Card Reader: Chipset_Driver_D7TG2_WN_3.0.07.44_A04
- Freefall Sensor: Chipset_Driver_V6681_WN_4.10.0046_A06
- Dell Multi-touch Touchpad: Input_Driver_YXX3D_WN32_10.1207.101.109_A03
One more installer will be needed. We are going to install a specific version of Intel Rapid Technology drivers. These are not on the Dell site. The reason for this is that this specific set of drivers work best for this laptop. These are the Intel Rapid Technology E Drivers version 12.9.4.1000. To read more about this topic you can read this Win-Raid.com post. You can download the drivers from Intel or from Win-Raid.com: Intel RSTe Drivers.
Part 5: F2 & BIOS Setup
Take note of what version of Dell BIOS your machine has. If it is not the latest, I recommend you download the latest BIOS (in my case the non-vPro version) and upgrade your BIOS first before continuing.
At this point we have gathered all our software on our flash drive and are ready to almost install Windows 7. We must however make some changes to the e5430’s Setup.
- Restart the laptop and press F2 to enter the BIOS Setup.
- Under General – Boot Sequence: change to UEFI
- Under System Configuration – SATA Operation: change to AHCI
- Apply Changes and Exit
Part 6: Hard Drive Setup
This step is optional and only needed if you want to wipe the hard drive. It is included here, in case you need to redo the setup of Windows. To manually wipe a hard drive and convert it to GPT:
Turn off the PC, and put in the Windows installation DVD or USB key.
Boot the PC to the DVD or USB key in UEFI mode. For more info, see Boot to UEFI Mode or Legacy BIOS mode.
From inside Windows Setup, press Shift+F10 to open a command prompt window.
Open the diskpart tool:
diskpart
Identify the drive to reformat:
list disk
Select the drive, and reformat it:
select disk #
clean
convert gpt
exit
Close the command prompt window.
Continue the Windows Setup installation.
We are now ready to start installing Windows! Continue reading Setup for Dell Latitude E5430 – Part 2.
by WebKeyDesign | Jun 2, 2009 | Out Of The Box
In April 2009, I did what I thought I would never do, namely walk out of an auto dealer’s lot with a brand new vehicle. With the economy being more like a depression, and the automakers desperate to make a deal, I thought this was an excellent opportunity to get what I wanted. In this case, it was a new Chevy Silverado Crew Cab Pickup. The new truck is simply great and I must admit that driving a new vehicle does give you a certain smugness, which took me a month to get over. I will try to post something in the near future about the new truck, but this post is about XM Satellite Radio and why I ended up keeping it. Most new GM vehicles come with a 90 day trial of XM Radio and the Silverado was no different.
The GM Factory Deck
First up is the GM deck. In my case, the GM deck acts as both a regular AM/FM receiver and XM satellite receiver. It also performs a third function, which is to perform some OnStar functionality, such as Turn By Turn directions and display messages for your built-in satellite phone. After a while, you will notice that the deck is pretty simple to operate. The main features are that it has a built-in equalizer for sound adjustment and six menus of favorite stations (you can designate both XM and regular radio stations within the same favorite menu list). The deck does not have an LCD display and so is not stunningly hi-tech in appearance.
XM Stations
Unlike regular radio, XM has no commercials for most of its stations and interruptions are very minimal. The disc jockeys are not annoying either and are for the most part fans of the music they play. My all time favorite channel is The Boneyard, which plays classic rock music including some metal bands like Metallica, Black Sabbath, and Iron Maiden. In the past three months, I’ve listened to some songs I have never heard before. The variety is amazing, but even classic rock stations will run into some repeats from Billy Squire and Judas. Overall though The Boneyard tries not to repeat the same songs.
Moving on, there are other stations like Hair Nation channel 41 which plays hairband rock music from the 80’s, Liquid Metal channel 42 which is home to heavy metal only, and variety stations like Classic Rewind and Rock@Random. Hair Nation plays a little too much White Snake for my tastes, but hey, you gotta love some Cinderella and Motley Crew, right?
For non-rockers, there are other genres too, like Country, Classical Music, Soul, Disco, and Alternative 90’s rock which I still don’t consider to be real rock music. Music wise XM has pretty much everyone covered. The one glaring problem I see with XM is the lack of Latino music. There is Caliente, but that is just one station and so there seems to be a lack of serious Spanish music variety on XM. You would think they would have at least three Spanish stations, but nope they just have one.
Other than music, XM covers Sports, Weather, News, Political Commentary, and Comedy. If you have kids or just want to block certain channels from your receiver, you can do that by going to XM’s website and setting up filters for your account.
Is it Worth Paying For?
Right now the price is pretty reasonable. The cost starts at around $15 a month for a basic lineup. Reception in my GM vehicle is also excellent unless I am in a parking garage or in a drive-thru that happens to block reception. In Iowa, my experience is that XM reception is better than FM radio. Note that on extremely cloudy days you might run into reception issues, but even with Iowa’s mostly cloudy days, this does not seem to be a problem very often.
It is quite hard to go back to regular FM radio. With XM, I don’t feel the need to plug-in my iPod or carry CDs anymore. I can just sit back and turn on XM and rock out whenever I feel like it, and now isn’t that why you have a radio in your car in the first place!
by WebKeyDesign | Jun 9, 2008 | Out Of The Box
With the plummeting cost of hard drives today, hard drive manufacturers have had to come up with new ways to increase revenues, because selling bare internal hard drives to consumers does not carry much profit these days. The most obvious trend in the industry has been to dress up hard drives with external cases of various color and design and make them more appealing to consumers looking to backup their growing media collections and their occasional backup. All though there are a variety of external hard drive enclosures that you can buy separately, many consumers choose to buy an external case and hard drive packaged. In some cases buyers may be unaware that they can buy ordinary internal hard drives and pair them with a case of their choosing. Then there is cost, quality external cases can cost significantly and cheaper cases may be lacking in quality and looks. Hence the obvious choice is an external hard drive from a major manufacturer, and in this case from the hard drive manufacturer itself. This review covers the Western Digital My Book Home Edition drive. Out of the multiple choices out on the market I actually chose this specific model for the following reasons:
My Book Home Edition Features
With at least three external drives already connected to my Powerbook and a Windows Server in the same room, I wanted to keep noise levels as low as possible. Western Digital’s My Book models are for the most part pretty quiet compared to most third party enclosures. They are designed to stand vertical and save space, without using some sort of snap-on attachment stand.
Most important after design is performance. I needed at least a 500GB hard drive that performed as close as possible to a regular internal hard drive. This pretty much means you need to use something better than USB 2. Performance wise you really need to go with Firewire or eSATA. Both of these technologies outperform USB 2 external drives. The My Book Home Edition is available as a triple interface enclosure, featuring Firewire 400 (preferred on Macintosh computers and servers), eSATA (preferred on newer PC machines), and USB 2 in case you have no other option. If your computer has only USB ports, you can save some money and purchase the My Book Essential Edition instead. Otherwise I believe the extra $40 is worth it for faster performance.
Other features to note include smart energy power down when not in use, a capacity gauge that displays how much space is in use, and some backup software for Windows. Other than the energy smart features I did not setup or use these features. The capacity gauge is dependent on software, so if you do not run the software the capacity gauge feature will not work.
Usage Notes
Western Digital does not include an eSATA cable, so if you plan on using this port, make sure you pick up a cable. Firewire and USB cables are included, as well as a nice AC adapter that takes less space than the usual brick AC adapters you usually get with external devices such as these.
The case is black plastic and it appears to be snapped together, meaning that if the internal drive ever dies, replacing the internal drive may be harder to do than just replacing the entire unit out right.
Since the drive will be used with a Macintosh exclusively I needed to reformat the drive to HFS+, but in case you ever want to use the drive with a PC, I recommend using Apple’s Disk Utility to create an image DMG file of the entire contents of the drive before you format it. You can then always have the DMG file in case you want to restore the original contents of the drive. For Windows, I still recommend formatting the drive. Might as well find out early if the drive has any problems than later.
I have not encountered any problems with the My Book Home Edition and it is my second WD My Book drive. I have an original 230GB Essentials Edition that is connected to my Windows Server. Neither drive has had any physical problems and both are relatively quiet, even when in use.
Western Digital My Book Home Edition Hard Drive
- 500GB
- USB 2 + Firewire 400 + eSATA
- Price: $149
by WebKeyDesign | Jan 16, 2006 | Out Of The Box
In today’s online world, writing skills are a must. Chances are that if you are going to blog, write in-depth reviews, or simply make some comments on why you hated the latest movie you rented from NetFlix, your points will carry more weight if you write them correctly and with style. If you happen to run into problems when putting your thoughts into words, consider the following advice.
The Difference Between Writing And Editing
The first thing to understand is that no one writes great works the first time around. I know there is that story of Jack Kerouac writing his famous book, On The Road in only one draft, but the truth is that there were many drafts and revisions. Most writing comes from a few inspirational moments when you open your mind and just let the words come to you, as natural as breathing. Once you have your inspirational notes written down, you put them away and come back to them later. Some writers then add more to their notes and form a first draft or if their work is long enough, they begin an editing process. During the editing phase, you correct words, phrases, even try to correct the points your are trying to make.
Writers often have what is called writer’s block, periods of time that they can not come up with anything to write about. It is especially important at these times to be open and jot down whatever comes to mind. We sometimes let the editing phase take place too soon, and nothing kills inspiration like an editor’s point of view! It may surprise you how well you do write when you are not thinking of proper grammar and punctuation.
Learning To Write From Others
It may surprise you to learn that being original has nothing to do with writing. Most works get their storylines and ideas from previous works. Writing is not about coming up with something new, but about saying it in a new and/or inventive way. This means that writing well, has a lot to do with studying your subject matter and the writers that write about it. If you want to write reviews of video games, then you need to read a lot of game reviews to see what the standard is. Who knows, you might find that these reviews all lack something which you feel can make your reviews stand out.
Another example is my growing fascination with basketball, which I am now trying to write about for my personal site. Much to my surprise I find myself having trouble writing about sports, to which I can only attribute to the fact that I have had very little exposure to sports writing in general. This is something I am trying to remedy by reading as many sports books as I can find at my local library.
So even if you find yourself stuck when writing about particular subject matters, it may not mean you are a terrible writer, but that you need to learn more about writing that subject matter.
Developing Style
Something which I myself find hard to explain is style. To me style is not something you learn from a grammar guide, but something you develop over your life time. Most of the time people refer to it as personal voice. As you read more authors, you will find that some appeal to you more than others, and some you will undoubtedly try to copy their style. This will lead over time to your own style, as you keep copying different styles that eventually you will find your own uniqueness. The process is slow, but the more authors you read, the more your technique will improve with practice. This is true of most art and not just writing. U2’s guitarist The Edge, Eddie Van Halen, and countless other guitarists all learned to play like Eric Clapton, before they developed their own styles. Yet U2’s music sounds nothing like Clapton’s.
