February 23, 2007

Vista Installation with Daemon Tools

I got my copy of Vista as an ISO File (thanks msdn academic alliance ;) ). So I wanted to give it a try and decided to install it on my notebook. I was too lazy to burn the image to a DVD so I thought I give it a try to install it when mounted in Deamon tools.

After the checks the Installer told me that I cannot update my Windows XP because it is the japanese version and the Vista DVD is an english version. So I had to chose the fresh install. It was a bit friggin when I read that the Installer will reboot several times during install.

It seems that the Installer copied all the necessary files in the beginning so it was no problem to continue the installation after reboot.

In the end it was very successful und quite faster than former installs I ran and I was amazed that it worked with Daemon tools.

February 12, 2007

Changing the HDD in a Panasonic Let’s note R3

Yesterday my HDD finnally gave up. Lately the notebook became slower and slower and the HDD louder and louder. After opening the small lid on the right side, I realized that there is no 1,8″ HDD built in. In fact its a normal 2.5″ but for replacing the HDD the whole notebook had to be disassembled.

The second difficulty was that the HDD is not a normal 5V no it is a 3.3V which you can only get through OEM support. I have no guarantee and anyway it will take too long so after a while I found a guide how to tweak a 5V HDD to become a 3.3V. It was quite easy I replaced the 40GB HDD with a new Hitachi 160GB, broke the 2 pins as described in the guide and the Computer recognized the new drive :)

The only bad thing which I have to figure out now is how to clone the old HDD so that it also takes the hidden partition to the new disc. I tried with Acronis but the software could only see my normal partition. Anyway at the moment it is only important that my computer runs again and for cloning etc I got an external CD drive. So it is not that difficult to install an OS without that hidden partition.

Another good source for the R3-5 I also found on my quest.