Like a lot of Windows fans I pre-ordered Windows 7 and built a new PC ready to install it on; I chose a motherboard (MSI DKA790GX) that, like many on the market, has a hardware RAID controller on-board allowing you to take advantage of redundancy with RAID 1 and/or benefit from faster disk access with RAID 0.  Read more about RAID.

I had already installed Windows 7 before I remembered I wanted to set-up a RAID 1 array.  I tried to get the RAID array working with Windows already installed but soon realised I would have to set it up prior to installing Windows 7 because Windows kept hanging on boot-up because it was lacking the RAID controller drivers.

The supplied manual doesn’t explain how to get RAID up and running unfortunately.

RAID Controller Set-up

So here’s a quick guide to installing hardware RAID on a motherboard that features a RAID controller.  These steps assume you are performing a clean Windows 7 install rather than an upgrade, and they might differ depending on your system set-up, but the general principles should be the same.

1. Download the RAID drivers for your motherboard from the manufacturer’s website and save them to a memory stick.
2. Back up all your important data!
3. Turn your PC off and unplug it.
4. Install 2 hard disks preferably with identically capacity into your PC.
5. Turn on your PC, press the delete key or F2 key when prompted to get to the BIOS menu.
6. Find the option to select the RAID mode, save your settings and exit BIOS.
7. On reboot you should see a new menu option to enter the RAID controller settings.  Enter the key combination when prompted to get to the RAID controller menu.
8. Create a new RAID array selecting either RAID 0, or RAID 1.
9. Select the disks that will form the array, save the settings and exit.
10. On reboot press the delete key or F2 key when prompted to get to the BIOS menu.
11. Check the boot sequence of your PC and ensure your optical drive is top of the list.
12. Insert your Windows 7 disk into the optical drive and exit the BIOS.
13. On reboot press any key when prompted to boot from the optical drive.
14. Windows 7 should start installing.
15. Select your localisation settings and click next.
16. Click “repair your computer” and click the ”load drivers” button.
17. Insert your memory stick and browse to the correct driver and install.
18. Exit back to the Windows 7 install menu click “Install now” and on the next screen click “Custom (advanced)” to perform a clean install.
19. When you are asked where you want to install Windows 7 you should see that the 2 RAID hard disks are now visible as just 1 drive.
20. Add a partition to the new drive so Windows with be able to recognise it.
21. Continue installing Windows as normal.

Yesterday my aging desktop PC decided not to boot, and instead displayed this helpful error "CMOS Checksum Error".
In order to get it to boot into Windows I had to press Delete to go into the BIOS settings and change the configuration from "Halt on all errors" to "halt on no errors".  Upon saving the BIOS settings and restarting the error disappeared.

Sometimes though a PC with a dead CMOS battery will boot as normal but forget the date and time on each reboot.  This can lead to odd effects.  For instance I tried to logging into my webmail only to be told the SSL licence wasn't valid, not because it had expired but because my computer thought it was 2001!

CMOS Battery at Fault

Once I got into Windows I got a few "Windows has found new hardware" messages and my system clock had reverted to a day in 2001.
As soon as I saw my clock had forgotten the time and the date, all evidence pointed towards the CMOS battery being at fault.  Its funny how a simple little battery that most people don't even realise existed inside their PC can bring a computer to its knees.

Locating & Changing the CMOS Battery

In a desktop PC the CMOS battery is fairly straight forward to find.  They normally look like a large wrist watch battery, with CR2032 lithium batteries being the most common.  A simple search on eBay will find you a cheap replacement.  Just be careful removing and fitting anything on a motherboard, because any static electricity on your body could fry delicate computer chips.

On a laptop or notebook they are more difficult to find and generally more expensive.  On my Dell Inspiron you need to lift out the main battery and pull out a small flap to locate the CMOS battery.

Location of CMOS battery in Dell Inspiron laptop

My Dell just so happens to take a 7.2V 15mAh Ni-MH CMOS battery, which again, performing a quick search on eBay will find you a replacement.

Fitting the new battery in either case is very straight forward.

Read more about Installing a CMOS Battery here.

USB flash drives have increased in capacity in leaps and bounds since I last purchased one. In the few years since I bought a Crucial 128MB Gizmo!, the price of flash memory has been literally free-falling, due partly to economies of scale and the mass adoption of flash-based mp3 players.
The size and sheer variety of these devices is astounding, but what I wasn't expecting when I inserted the drive was for a Launchpad application to start running, pre-loaded with special software!

I had in fact purchased a 4GB SanDisk U3 Smart Drive. U3 is a technology developed by SanDisk which effectively creates a platform for developers to build applications that install directly onto the flash drive rather than the host computer. This means that not only can you take your data with you, but you can take your applications too!

When you insert your U3 Smart Drive into a USB slot on any computer, the U3 Launchpad is loaded, which is effectively like the Window's start menu, but instead contains menus to configure the drive, run installed applications and access your data. Nothing is installed on the host PC, so you can take your applications and data with you and its all secure and synced with your data on your PC back home.

The software that's available includes Skype, Firefox, Opera, various password safes, Thunderbird, OpenOffice... The list goes on. Some applications are free, while others cost a small amount of money, but most have downloadable trials. Here's a full list of U3 software.

Watch the video below for a quick guide to the U3 Smart Drive technology.

It's fast approaching the anniversary of the release of Windows Vista to business users, home users have been buying new PCs with Vista pre-loaded since the end of January 2007.
I haven't upgraded to Vista yet; my DVD upgrade is still in its box. I've installed it a couple of times to have a play around with it, to see which pieces of hardware and software are compatible, but that's it.
There are a couple of reasons why I haven't taken the plunge. Firstly, my PC can run the new Aero UI on Home Premium, but when I add the CPU monitor widget to the desktop to see how well it copes, it tends to max my processor out just opening windows etc. This is probably to be expected with a 4 year old computer. The second reason is the hardware and software support for Vista. You would have thought that manufacturers would have started to factor in support for a new Microsoft operating system, wouldn't you?
The word that springs to mind when talking about Vista compatibility today is "patchy", and today is almost 12 months after the official launch!

Future Proof Your Hardware Purchases

Most people who buy hardware or software for their PC will be expecting it to work with Vista out-of-the-box. They don't want to be updating firmware, or worse still finding out that their new device only supports XP! Why does Microsoft bother having alpha and beta testing periods when the likes of Apple can't even make their flagship iTunes work?

My advise to anyone thinking of buying a new piece of hardware or software is to make sure it supports Vista, even if you're sticking to Windows XP for the foreseeable future. You never know when you might buy a new PC, and do you really want to have to replace your hardware once you've upgraded to Vista?

You may have read the scare stories about wireless networks in the press recently, and you may be wondering what you can do to avoid the potential health effects and still have a home which is fairly wire-free.
You may also have recently been given a free wireless router from your ISP.
Sky broadband, AOL broadband, BT broadband, Pipex, they nearly all bundle a wireless router in with your broadband contract these days, so what do you do?

Upgrade to a Powerline Network

Whether you believe the scare stories or not. I'll show you how you can still keep your wireless router but without the potential side-effects.

The answer? Upgrade to a Powerline network. A lesser known technology that uses your mains electrical wiring to distribute your broadband connection, which will allow you to connect a computer anywhere you have a power socket, and turn off the wireless signals so you don't have to worry about "WiFi smog".

Six Steps to Avoid Using WiFi

1. Purchase at least 2 Powerline wall-plugged adapters (Netgear, Devolo and Dlink all have Powerline products). This is enough to connect one computer to the Internet.
2. Plug 1 adapter into a wall socket near the wireless router, and connect your existing router to the Powerline adapter using an Ethernet patch cable.
3. Plug the other Powerline adapter into a wall socket near the computer you want to connect to the Internet and connect your computer to the second Powerline adapter using an Ethernet patch cable.
4. You should now be online!
5. Now you'll need to log-in to your wireless router console, usually via a web browser (see your router manual for details) and disable the wireless access point on the router. See the screen-shot below for a visual, obviously your router console may look completely different, but usually the instruction manuals are fairly good.
6. You can now surf the web anywhere in your home wire-free and without using WiFi!

Still confused? Check out Devolo's Powerline flash presentation, which explains all about Powerline networking simply and with animation.