Installing Windows XP on AHCI or Nvidia raid system without floppy drive

I just had to do this to install XP on my quadcore AMD rig which doesn't have a floppy drive and it was a pain in the but so here's how you do it:
The problem:
None of the Pre-Vista Windows Operating Systems do support the S-ATA Controller features RAID ("Redundant Array of Independent Disks") and AHCI ("Advanced Host Controller Interface"). Unless the suitable nForce Sata/PataRAID or AHCI drivers are separately presented by the user, the OS installation fails, because the OS Setup doesn't find the related RAID/AHCI drives and their partitions.
The traditional method to provide the needed drivers by F6/floppy has some severe disadvantages:

1. A floppy drive is needed, but not available at many actual desktop computers and notebooks.
2. Floppy disks are the worst data storage media regarding the file integrity. Bad floppy disks are the main reason for corrupted driver files.
3. The F6/floppy method doesn't work at all with some "LEGACY mode" nForce RAID systems. Even if the user loads the correct nForce drivers and the RAID is detected by Windows Setup, the OS installation may end with a BSOD and endless reboot loops.

The better alternative is the integration of the needed textmode drivers into a bootable OS CD. Only this way the user can be sure to succeed with the installation of the OS onto an nForce RAID or AHCI system. Nevertheless the developers of the driver integration method had to solve the above specified problem (see point 3). Until 2005 the correct installation of the nForce S-ATA/P-ATA Controllers and drivers needed addtional manual work of the user. They only succeeded after having created special folders and edited some SIF and/or OEM files.

Basically you need to install latest version of Nlite and have a current XP disc or image (make sure it already has SP3 integrated since you really don't want to have to update to that) and latest nforce drivers from Nvidia for you motherboard chipset.
Oh and make sure you select single driver in nlite instead of multiple since that just caused strange error for me. Also make sure to select make iso so you can burn a new XP disc with the nvidia nforce drivers integrated into them.

Are you bored with your web browser?

If so check out these alternatives:
Five jobs other browsers do better

Irfanview and BSOD

I thought I had posted this before but it's really important to avoid a bluescreen so I'll post it again:
If you are using the Irfanview free image viewer under Win7 64 bits make sure you disable desktop composition on this program to prevent a BSOD!
I just got my first true BSOD in Win7 using this program!
Opening alot images always causes BSoD with cdd.dll in IrfanView's thumbnail view under 64 bit Windows it seems. Very strange considering that it says on their website that Win7 is supported!
Win7 bluescreen

Anyways, this seems to be a known problem as posted on their forums and no fix AFAIK other than disabling composition like I said above or using a different image viewing program.
Hopefully this will help others because we all know how annoying a BSOD can be if you are doing something important and end up losing something important!
Seems to happen to both ATI and Nvidia users on 64 bits. Not sure about 32 bit Win7 since I haven't tried it on there yet. Seems to be a 64bit thing for now though. Also happens on Vista x64.
Here is some more info I found on CDD that is causing the BSOD:
There is one GDI accessible grapchis
display, called CDD (or canonical display driver) that acts mostly as
a frame-buffer based driver with capabilities of supporting Dx mixing.
CDD is a special client of DxgKrnl.
UPDATE: tried it on Win7 32 bits and no crash there so seems to be x64 specific bug.
Also tried it on 2nd AMD rig with ATI card and Win7/Win2008 R2 x64 installed and wasn't able to reproduce crash there.
OOPS spoke too soon. Just had it crash on AMD rig too. Just took a bit longer. Same BSOD with cdd.dll in Win7 and Win2008!

Services Hardening in Windows Vista

Plenty of reasons why Vista and thus Win 7 is way better than XP from a security standpoint anyways:
Session 0 issues. Before Windows Vista, says Parambath, all user application ran in Session 0. From Vista onwards, the user runs in Session 1, isolating all system services. This could pose problems if the application depends on interactive services, he points out.

Why VirtualBox Rocks!

InfoWorld review: Desktop virtualization for Windows and Linux heats up

"He is a second Dirac, only this time human."

"He is a second Dirac, only this time human."
Man this quote made my day and made me ROFL!
If you know anything about Dirac it will do the same to you I"m sure LOL!

Yeah an octupus is pretty smart

I'm suprised people are still figuring out that the octupus shows some pretty intelligent behaviour since there has already been quite a number of examples showing this to be true.
Octopus snatches coconut and runs

Video surfaces of alleged Apple tablet

The French website Nowhereelse.fr has obtained what it suggests may be a video of the long-rumored Apple tablet:

You decide?
I think it's the real thing and that's what scares me since it doesn't look like it's running a full version of macosx like a notebook. It's more or less running a castrated watered down version of macosx like the iphone/ipod touch :(
Not worth it in that case since it's just an oversized ipod?

Safari retains speed crown over newcomer Chrome in OS X

While besting Firefox by nearly 50 percent, Google's newly released Chrome browser was 12 percent slower than Apple's Safari in benchmark tests.

Most excellent Snow Leopard review

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: the Ars Technica review

In case any PS3 owner's haven't already heard the Cell is not the future

Cell is no longer HPC material

Looks like OpenCL is the future instead!

Make sure you save stuff as UTF-8 Unicode

Make sure you save stuff as UTF-8 Unicode if you going to convert a Word doc to display it on a webpage otherwise you'll get all kinds of strange characters displaying!
Did not know this. Tells you how long it's been since I've uploaded a doc up to the web LOL!
Character Sets and Encoding for Web Designers
- UCS/UNICODE

Flash Player 10.1 Beta Offloads Video Processing to GPU

Okay that explains why Hulu runs choppy on my mac mini LOL!
Adobe's Flash technology is highly prevalent on the internet both in terms of site content and online advertising. Video is powered by Flash on a number of sites large and small including Hulu where millions go to watch their favorite TV shows.

Update on the Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool

As you've likely read and as was originally reported here, we've been investigating a report that the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, might contain GPLv2 code. The WUDT is a free tool that was offered by the Microsoft Store and which enabled customers to create bootable USB drives or DVD backup media from the electronic software (ESD) edition of Windows 7 that comes in an ISO format.

Mac OS X Kernel Panic FAQ

I've never had one myself on my Mac computer but could come in handy if I do get one:
Spinning beachballs which some people may confuse for kernel panics are rarely related to kernel panics! Resolving kernel panics may take steps which require you have a backup in place first. If you don't have a backup, look over backup FAQ before proceeding!

For more on things which may cause the system to become sluggish enough to have a spinning beachball cursor read this FAQ unless one of these other clear signs of a kernel panic is happening.

nVidia "nView Desktop Manager"

Hack to get virtual desktops working in Windows

Apple Releases Snow Leopard 10.6.2, Fixes 40+ Bugs

Apple today rolled out the 10.6.2 update to OS X Snow Leopard. This update fixes that nasty guest account bug we saw last month and in general tackles a whole host of bugs, stability issues, and other various improvements.

Augmented Reality

If you haven't heard of it yet this should give you a good idea of why it's going to be such a big thing in the near future:
Two of the hottest trends right now are Augmented Reality and iPhone apps.

One for the wasn't it obvious category?

His earlier work shows the weather has a similar impact on us - wet, dreary days sharpened memory, while bright sunny spells make people forgetful.
Having lived in places with both sunny and crappy weather I can say that sunny, nice weather doesn't really motivate you to do much work or thinking, whereas crap weather puts you in a bad mood and you really have no choice but to focus on work!

Microsoft 'neutered' UAC in Windows 7, says researcher

Blocks only 1 out of 8 Trojans from executing, claims Sophos

Why are there no Mac viruses?

There are, as far as we know, no Mac OS X viruses in the wild.

What is conhost.exe and Why Is It Running?

Something new in Win7 and good info to know so you don't think you are infected by a new virus:
You are no doubt reading this article because you are wondering what on earth this conhost.exe process is doing in Task Manager, and why it’s running on your shiny new Windows 7 PC.

Want a Free Mac Mini? It Pays for Itself in 2 Years with Energy Savings

Want a Free Mac Mini? It Pays for Itself in 2 Years with Energy Savings
I already figured as much since buying my macmini 6 months ago since it's the most quiet and cool running PC I ever owned. You can't even tell it on most of the time other than the light on the front.

Microsoft giving away 7 computers with Windows 7

To celebrate the launch of the Windows ® 7 operating system, we want to discover creative ways that a PC running Windows can help an organization to make an ever greater impact in the community. Submit a short video explaining or illustrating how you would use Windows to help a community organization. The 7 people with the best submissions, as chosen by our judges, will each win a new PC running Windows 7. Each winner's chosen eligible community organization will receive a $7,000 grant. For more details on eligible organizations please review the competition rules.


Basically you have to upload a 2min video and hope they pick your entry.

Debugging Blue Screens

Here's how to do it but it's not for the faint of heart:
How to read the small memory dump files that Windows creates for debugging
You are better off emailing it to Microsoft than trying to read it yourself unless you are a programmer LOL.

What is TCP Chimney Offload?

Tech term of the day:
TCP Chimney Offload is a networking technology that allows the work associated with moving data across a network to be offloaded from the host computer's CPU to the network adapter. This helps improve the processing of network data on your computer or server without the need for additional programs or any loss to manageability or security. Programs that are currently bound by network processing overhead will generally scale better when used with TCP Chimney Offload.

Apple bootcamp support for Win7

What everyone was waiting for the official word:
Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp.
I've been running Win7 RTM 32bits on my Mac mini for over a month just fine though.

Just had to reinstall TCP/IP on Vista and forgot how.

This is how:

Reinstall and Reset TCP/IP (Internet Protocol) in Windows Vista, 2003 and XP

ZFS for macosx dead

This sucks!

And who the hell is netapp?
Word on the street in Cupertino is that dropping ZFS wasn’t an engineering decision, but a legal one, and it might have had something to do with Oracle’s acquisition of Sun. I don’t know if it was a problem with the terms of the CDDL license, general distrust/dislike for Oracle, or what — only that the word came down from legal that ZFS was a no-go. Update: Perhaps it was the NetApp patent lawsuit against ZFS.

The flip side is that I’ve heard that Apple’s file systems team is full steam ahead on their own next-generation file system. And, perhaps not coincidentally, they’re hiring.

Why Apple is still making a ton of money

This article gives an excellent explanation.
Apple declares war on the entire PC industry

Macmini server version

Apple just came out with new macs and they now sell a server version of their macmini!

New mac ads coming next week!

Can't wait gotta be good for a laugh or two if past Apple ad's are any indication.
Describes analysts at BusinessWeek, "It will likely make the case that Macs are less susceptible to viruses and are best suited to its popular iPods and and iPhones. And look for it to poke fun at Microsoft for making XP owners go through an arduous process to upgrade to Windows 7 -- one that includes backing up all their files to an external drive, reformatting their PC, and then reinstalling all of their old programs, assuming they still have the CDs."

OpenCL

But to Apple’s credit, as of this moment they currently have the only complete OpenCL platform, offering CPU+GPU development and execution with a full degree of abstraction.
OpenCL is already making it's way to your next operating system!

Very useful video's I just stumbled across

How to do things in Windows vs Linux.

New update for mac owners

About Performance Update 1.0
This update addresses intermittent hard drive related pauses reported by a small number of customers.

Learn how to apply the Performance Update 1.0 to an Intel-based Macintosh computer.

I really hate how Apple is always as cryptic as ever when it comes to updates or fixes to their operating system. Okay by a small number of customers? What's that mean 5, 10, several thousand? Well I haven't noticed it, then again I'm using the default slow 5400rpm drive that came with my macmini so it'd probably be hard to tell.
This is one area where Microsoft actually does a better job than Apple.

FurMark Slowdown by Catalyst Graphics Drivers is INtentional!

AMD has replied that FurMark’s slowdown is really intentional because softwares such as FurMark damage graphics cards and do not represent real world applications.
Long time since I heard of software that could damage your pc!

Mac mini's can now use 8GB ram

With the recent EFI update it now seems possible:
Mac Mini EFI Update 1.2 Enables 8GB

***WARNING: STARFORCE GAMES***

If you are running windows and a game asks you to install a driver and reboot you better read this before you do or you might be greeted by a BSOD next time you try to boot your pc like I did recently!
Starforce renders Windows 7 inoperable!

Big change with macosx Snow Leopard

How Mac OS X reports drive capacity has changed!!!
How Mac OS X reports drive capacity
Symptoms

The storage device drive capacity stated in the product specification may be lower than what is reported by some Apple products.

Essential info for enabling raid after windows install

It took me a while to google this gem of info since I really didn't feel like reinstalling Windows 7 just to enable raid!
I have two pieces of information to share with those of you looking to enable RAID on your Windows PC after having installed Windows without RAID enabled. Now that you have rebooted past a handful of blue screens and Googled to find some help, I am here to tell you that you have come to the right place.
Use at your own risk since officially the Intel website says this is not possible and you need to reinstall windows LOL!
Working fine so far with Windows 7 RTM with latest Intel raid drivers on DP35DP motherboard.

It's scary seeing all the problems with operating systems prior to Windows 7 though.

Troubleshooting Serial ATA / RAID issues

From Intel website
This info especially useful:
Ctrl-I Option to Open RAID Configuration Utility Does Not Appear

screen capture program

Useful tool for tech support or tutorials:
Utility Spotlight Screenrecorder

Bad luck with WD drives

Looks like I might have to RMA my 2TB drive after I just rma'ed my raptor :(
Why is ScanDisk reporting "bad sectors" or "bad clusters" on my drive?

Microsoft Windows Live Offline Installation

Very useful tip especially if you are running Windows 7 since it doesn't come with mail or movie maker,etc like prior versions of windows!
Steps:
1. Go to Windows Live website
2. Click DOWNLOAD
3. Cancel the download
4. Click TRY AGAIN

and you will be given the full installation instead of the web install.

Hard drives greater than 2 TB do not work on existing operating systems

Good info to have now that we got 2TB drive from Western Digital and Seagate now.

macosx force ejecting a disk

I just needed to use this info today since my mini didn't read my mathematica dvd for some reason and since it didn't show up in finder I had no way to eject it and I didn't want to reboot!
Mac OS X - Force Ejecting a CD
Open a Terminal window and type in drutil tray eject. did the trick for me!

How Do I Low-Level Format a SATA or ATA (IDE) Hard Drive?

Some more good info from the Seagate website.
Actually the term "low level" is a bit of a misnomer. The low-level process first used years ago in MFM hard drives bears little resemblance to what we now call a "low-level format" for today's SATA and ATA (IDE) drives. The only safe method of initializing all the data on a Seagate device is the Zero Fill erase option in SeaTools for DOS. This is a simple process of writing all zeros (0's) to the entire hard disc drive.

Troubleshooting tips for harddrives

From Seagate support.
My desktop or laptop hard drive may be defective, how can I test it?
An interesing statistic that 30% of drives they get from customers are not bad at all!

Which High School Students Are Most Likely to Graduate From College?

So basically SAT scores don't mean much but sticking it through and toughing it out does seem to?

Snow Leopard update available

A new update to Apple's latest and greatest OS is now out:
The 10.6.1 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes for:
compatibility with some Sierra Wireless 3G modems
an issue that might cause DVD playback to stop unexpectedly
some printer compatibility drivers not appearing properly in the add printer browser
an issue that might make it difficult to remove an item from the Dock
instances where automatic account setup in Mail might not work
an issue where pressing cmd-opt-t in Mail brings up the special characters menu instead of moving a message
Motion 4 becoming unresponsive
"
So if you are one of the early upgraders and are having problems you probably want this. Even if you aren't having any problems like myself you'll probably still want this.

Intel Speed Test

A link to the Intel speed test.
Can come in handy.

ITIC 2009 Global Server Hardware & Server OS Reliability Survey Results

Which servers and hardware have the least amount of downtime i.e. crashes, etc per year?
Some interesting results for Macosx in there.
Let's just say I'm not suprised Microsoft came in last.

How to get Apple's Darwin working in VirtualBox

Pretty cool ubernerd stuff here I did the other day:

http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=726350
Darwin is Macosx without the GUI for anyone that doesn't know.
Now I have a quick way of compiling C++ programs and other stuff I need to do in macosx without having to turn my macmini on.

Windows boot times

Back in May 2007 I complained about how long it still takes Windows to boot compared to Macs and that Microsoft wasn't doing anything about it.
Well it looks like with Windows 7 you can get boot times almost as good as a Mac if you have a quadcore Core i7 microprocessor with a solid-state-disc drive!
About time!

Snow Leopard

New version of macosx out now
http://www.apple.com/macosx/
Get it while it's hot.

p.s. If you bought a mac after June of this year you can get it for $10 instead of $30 from Apple. Also alot of places like BestBuy where I got my copy are selling it for $5 off the retail price making it a must buy.