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.