Upgrading hard drive (HDD) on Lenovo X200 tablet

So, it has been a couple years since I last posted... but perhaps I can help people avoid the two weeks of frustrating that I have just had.

I recently ran out of HDD space on my Lenovo X200 Tablet. To my amazement, the price for a 750GB 7200RPM notebook drive was only $89 so I jumped at it.

The process went very well... I use Paragon usually to do HDD migrations and have never had an issue. Connected the new drive to the SATA USB connector I have, did a HDD copy from the bootable paragon CD, and BAM! I was booting into Windows 7.

Then... things went weird. I was able to login fine and do most things perfectly, however I could not run updates... the error was telling me that the service was unavailable or stopped. Odd?!

I opened "run" and typed services.msc to open and check the service. I then got a popup I was definitely not used to. The services.msc application was stating it was an "Unknown publisher" and the UAC was complaining. Uhm excuse me?

So I checked a few other things. Control Panel, everything... I opened it and got Unknown Publisher UAC warnings. Not good. So, I talked to a few people (including the nice people at Paragon) and found that they have had some issues with specific USB hubs... ok easy enough.

I still had the old drive, so I popped it back in and ... voila. All is well there. After 4 more hours of transferring I restored the image without the USB connection. Strange, I still have the same issue. Perhaps it was the enterprise McAfee AV settings? Uninstalled, imaged, restored. Same issue. I probably formatted and restored a backup using 3 different programs and with 4 or 5 different applications removed or tweaked. After about 10 fruitless efforts to restore the image, I decided that nothing I was doing effected it.

So fine, I give up. My Windows profile must be corrupt or something. I will re-install Windows 7 and get on with my life.

Once that was done I didn't have the issue and all was well! Hooray... life goes on. Except once I did the ThinkVantage updates, I had the same issue again. I had a nerd-filled conniption at my in-laws staring at the "Unknown Publisher" UAC warning after trying to open the device manager.

I couldn't understand it at first, but then I thought about what must have happened. The updated driver must have installed the night before and when I rebooted it took effect.

Hmmm...! So after some searching I found this on an HP website. Apparently specific HDD controllers from Intel require an updated service pack to properly run partitions greater than 700GB.

Would be nice if LENOVO would have some information about this. Or Microsoft, or Intel... I can't believe how hard this was to find.

After two weeks of Googling this, trying different fixes and working any option I could think of... I am 100% again with a massive new HDD. I have to admit, I even tried Bing to find a fix :)

So, without further ado below is the link that _will_ work for you if you have the same issues I had. I hope this has helped you. If this link dies for some reason, contact me and I will email the file to you.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c02219204&cc=nl&lc=en&dlc=en&product

Economic Policy Failures in Michigan

I have not updated my blog for several weeks. Primarily due to a lack of time, but mainly due to such a pleasant summer. However, today I was made aware of (yet) another tax being levied on the population of Michigan, in which there will be an increase in taxes on the boating majority. As a large supporter of the boating industry, I sent the following letter to the Governor's office. I doubt I will ever hear anything back, but who knows.

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Dear Governor / Gov. Aid,

Please identify a new plan to REDUCE wasteful spending and misallocation of funds by creating a budgetary audit program in which several 3rd party (Private Sector Entity) auditors would compete to provide a comprehensive audit of wasteful spending. The project should be limited to the Top50 accounting firms nationwide, and all reports and findings should be made public. This would remove the public opinion that these increases in taxation are solely caused by a failure of state government to adequately reduce the scope of services it offers the population during times of economic failures.

Failure to implement such measures will result in wasteful spending which will naturally be passed onto the tax paying population.

My wife and I are both debating leaving the state as a result of the direction that the legislature is taking Michigan.

If it was possible I would deem both the state senate and congress as failures, as many of your constituents, including myself, have no confidence in their ability to effectively reduce spending.
Michigan will never be a competitive force in the US, let alone the global economy, if the only recourse for failed economic policy is raising taxes and reducing spending on education, the most important long-term investment for any society.

I thank you for your time if you chose to read this communication.

Nicolas Brunner
Tel: xxx.xxx.xxxx

Hey Hey hockeyto... I mean Sportsville(tm)

How Detroit has turned into a sport's mecca, especially during the most depressing economic time in this city's history, is well beyond my comprehension. I suppose this excludes the Lions, who continue to sell out every game with such horrible records. (Lions fans, please stop buying tickets and demand the resignation of Matt Millen www.firematt.com)

The Pistons are having a great run at the title, much to the displeasure of the NBA league. Lebron James idolotrists beware, our Pistons are much better with their backs against the wall. The Tigers also are making a decent attempt to live up to the expectations set last year, even with half of the team's starting pitchers on the disabled list. The Red Wings, albeit defeated soundly, had a great run at the Stanley Cup.

These small glimmers of hope are crucial to the survival of this once great city. Detroit, and the surrounding suburbs, are facing terrible economic conditions that are forcing its population to start looking elsewhere. This directly applies to the incoming workforce of college graduates. Detroit will face severe shortages of talent within five years if this situation persists, if not earlier.

Remember! Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights - then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward, that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend.

Endicott Peabody

I have watched my friends fight for gainful employment and often fail. This leaves them with little option but to move away to a region with economic growth. This is the city I grew up in, and love. While I do love Detroit, I also long for a city where positives can be seen outside of the sport arenas.

I will hope & pray that the Tigers can bring home the pennant this year, as it is the longest season. In this city, we need every positive we can get.

GO TIGERS!

Canon SD900 - 100 picture lifespan?

I would have been quite frustrated if this had happened while I was on vacation!

I just recently purchased a Canon SD900 Titanium cased 10 megapixel camera, for both resolution and durability. I had taken about 100 (beautiful) pictures when, on power-up, grinding gears alerted me to a problem. Well, time to send it back into Canon.

I've read a few reports of people getting charged for things that should be covered under warranty, so I'm a bit nervous as the camera was very expensive to begin with. The camera has been amazing so far and I've been really impressed with the device, but to have it break within the first few weeks of owning it makes me a bit wary. My old 6MP powershot was a work horse that never had a problem, until it was stolen. Good thing I kept all the packaging and warranty card!

So much for increased durability due to titanium...