Archive - January, 2008

How to change your sata drive from Dynamic to Basic in Windows Vista

January 29, 2008 in Operating Systems & Browsers with Comments Off

Today I got my new Antec MX 1 sata hard drive enclosure delivered from Misco. I had considered the Coolermaser Xcraft 360 but after reading some reviews I opted for the MX 1.

I have to admit it’s a very nice product and well worth the money (about £34).

Antec MX 1 sata hard drive enclosure

Antec MX 1 sata hard drive enclosure

I have two old sata drives which I used to have in my desktop pc (im just use a laptop now) and I bought this enclosure specifically so I could access the data from those files. The first hard drive loaded up fine. The files were accessible right away. Unfortunately, I had no such luck with the 2nd drive.

The drive was not showing in explorer. A quick check in the disk management section (right click computer, go to manage and then go to disk management) showed that the drive was dynamic and it was also offline. I knew what dynamic meant however I had never seen a drive set to offline before.

A bit of snooping about the web and I found out the solution. It turns out that Vista basic does not know how to handle dynamic drives. Vista business and ultimate do but basic doesn’t – why Microsoft didn’t include this feature in the basic version is beyond me. The only option which windows gives you is to convert the drive from dynamic to basic however that means you lose all your data which is obviously not what I wanted.

Thankfully there are two pretty easy solutions, I chose the latter.

  • The first option is to connect your sata drive to a computer which has xp. XP has no problem with dynamic drives so what you need to do is copy all your files to another drive and then convert your drive to basic and copy them all back.
  • Option 2 is much easier and it’s the method I used to convert the drive back to basic without losing the data and without having to copy the files anywhere. To do this you need to download TestDisk. TestDisk is a fantastic script for checking files on hard drives and not only that, it’s free!!!. I came across this solution in an article called ‘How to non-destructively convert dynamic disks to basic disks‘. If you have the same problem as me then I would encourage you to follow the steps in that article. It’s very easy to follow and it will have your drive up and running in no time.

:)

A very long overdue update

January 27, 2008 in Internet Stuff with 6 Comments

First of all, apologies for the lack of posts recently :) I have been a busy boy!!

The wheels have been in motion for a big change in the way I make money from the internet. A few months ago me and one of my best friends were discussing ways you can make money through the internet – advertising, ebay, selling things, you name it. We did a little ebay trading during the festive period and did ok and so began our journey into starting an online shop. Throughout January we have been working hard on it. We have formed a partnership, created our company account at the bank, uploaded the shopping script and we are currently awaiting our first order to arrive from China. We still have a few things to sort out but hopefully we will able to open the shop within the next 4 weeks.

Of course, this new venture is taking up a lot of my time and it’s going to take up more and more as we hope to move into premises within 6 months and increase the number of products we sell. For us to success we need to put everything into this which is why I am selling my biggest website TexasHoldemForums. It took me quite a while to decide whether I should sell it or not but long term I know that I have to as my time is scarce just now and it’s going to get worse as time goes by.

As usual, I have decided to sell the site at sitepoint. Heres the link :)

View Auction

Will my other sites be sold?

I still own some other sites. There are some sites I own which I havent been able to sell for a good price so I am just going to leave them on my server as they continue to make me money every month from selling text links. So once THF goes my main site will be Blogging Tips. I believe the site will continue to grow and thankfully, since I no longer post on the site that much it means that I will be able to keep the site running. I’d like to keep the site another few years and see how it develops. Any work for that site will be minimal, I just need to make sure the authors are doing their job and they’re happy etc and I need to deal with advertising queries. Of course, the site would grow quicker and better with time spent on writing and promoting the site but as I have mentioned, time is the one thing I won’t have.

The future

I’m really excited about getting the online shop started and making it a success. It will be a lot of hard work but I know I will enjoy it and it will be good to not only be able to work with someone else but to be able to switch off when im not working….well thats the plan anyways haha!

I’ll let all you guys know the name of the shopping site once we get it launched :)

kevin

The story of Anand Ramnath Mani

January 7, 2008 in Personal with Comments Off

Me and a friend have been on the lookout for a good domain name recently to start an online shop. The topic of trademarking came up because we found so many domains for sale which were using copyrighted names (this was particuarly bad with gambling related names).

I recalled the story to my friend of the domain name dispute Armani.com had a few years ago. Basically, A man of Finnish heritage called A. R. Mani registered Armani.com in 1995. Armani contacted Mr Mani and around 1997 Mr Mani offered the domain to them for $1,935 USD. Nothing was settled and in 2001 Armani launched a complaint with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center saying that the domain name was a trademark was a violation of their trademark. Long story short, Armani lost the dispute. The domain name now directs to their product line so something between the two parties has obviously been arranged since then however at the time it caused a big shock.

I searched the web and found the WIPO’s full report on the matter. If you have ever worried about someone taking your name then it proves an interesting read. Enjoy :)

WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center for Armani.com