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First you need to find a hard drive. Look online for the best deals. Obviously you want to pick one with more gigabytes of storage space, but pay attention to rpm, too. That tells you how fast the hard drive spins. The faster the hard drive, the better some programs will work, especially if you spend a lot of time writing data to the hard drive.
I also recommend getting a hard-drive enclosure. That way you can clone your current drive, then you just put the cloned drive in the laptop and boot up. That's what I'm going to show you how to do. If you don't use an enclosure and don't want to buy one, you'll have to do a clean install of the operating system on a blank drive, then restore your data from a backup.
I'm going to tell you about the cloning method here. The procedure is pretty much the same for Mac or PC. First you need cloning software.
For Windows, I've got two options. Clonezilla is less prone to errors, but you have to burn it to CD and boot off it, rendering your PC unusable for anything else.
Macrium Reflect can image the drive while you're still using Windows. Just don't go changing significant amounts of data while it's running.
For Macs, Carbon Copy Cloner from Bombich software is super easy to use and clones the drive while OS X is running.
In both cases you're making a bootable copy of your current hard drive onto the new drive.
Next put the new drive in its enclosure and plug it into the laptop. Launch your preferred program, or boot from the CD if you're using Clonezilla. Make sure you're making a bootable copy and start things off! This can take several hours for larger drives. My 300GB drive took 4.5 hours to image. Once you have the drive copied. You'll need to take out your old drive and put in the new one.
The procedure varies for different computers. I'll talk about two examples. We'll start with a Windows machine.
Make sure the computer is off and unplugged. Touch something metal to make sure you don't still carry a charge.
In the old ThinkPad T61 I have, the hard drive is in a slot on the side. You unscrew one screw and the carriage slides out. Almost all hard drives are in some sort of carriage. Unscrew the drive from the carriage, and put the new drive in, screw it back up, and put it in the machine. Then boot up.
It should start just like normal, but with a lot more space on the hard drive.
Now let's switch to a Mac. Again make sure it's unplugged and touch something metal to discharge any static electricity you carry.
On this 15-inch MacBook Pro, the hard drive is underneath. Slide the silver lever to open up the bottom compartment. Unscrew the holding screw and remove the bar. Then pull out the drive and unhook it from the connector. Instead of a carriage, the Macs have four Torx T6 screws, so you'll need a torx screwdriver. Unscrew those and then screw them into the new drive. Now hook the drive back up, and slide it in so the screws sit in the little gaps made for them. Then replace the bar and screw it back in. Close things up and again, it should boot just like normal!
Consult your laptop's manual for exact instructions, but this should give you an idea of how it goes.
Time once again to check in on the most popular, and the trend away from cell phone domination continues this month! Hooray for Netbooks and TVs! Maybe it's the fall shopping season finally starting to turn people's minds away from phones. It's so much nicer to buy a gift that doesn't come with a two-year contract.
And of course there's a prize in this Top 5. So watch it, and answer the question in the comments below. One of the first 10 people to answer correctly wins the racing shirt. Properly laundered, I promise.
Laptops are all the rage these days, but they're easily stolen, even from places you think are safe, like work. Even if you just lose a laptop, you probably don't want anyone to have easy access to all your data just by pressing the power button.
That's why the first step (definitely not the last, but the first step to protecting your laptop) is to put strong password protection on your user accounts. Most people think this is a pain, but it's easy to set up and a small price to pay in inconvenience to keep your data safe.
Windows
Go to Control Panel and choose User Accounts.
Choose the Advanced tab.
Check the box that says Require users to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
Press OK.
If that's not how your Windows machine looks, try this from the User Accounts screen:
Click Change the way users log on or off.
Uncheck the welcome screen option.
This forces a user to enter a username and password when they log in.
Now go back to the Control Panel and open Display Options. Click the Screen Saver tab.
Check the option that makes the screen saver ask for a password.
Then press OK.
Finally go back to the Control Panel and this time choose Power Options.
Select the Advanced tab. And make sure you check the box by Prompt for password when the computer resumes from standby.
Press OK.
Mac
Go to System Preferences and choose Security.
Check Disable automatic log-in.
Check Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver.
Now you need to take other action like logging out of accounts, encrypting data, and so on. But you're on the right track to a safer laptop setup. Just in case.
We're trying something a little different this time around on Top 5. Since our monthly Most Popular countdown is so dominated by phones, we figured we could give a little love to some other product categories. We'll start with laptops and see how you like it. If all goes well, maybe we'll move on to TVs or cameras.
Of course you need to watch the show to get the trivia question, if you want to win the USB drive. Post your answer to the question in the comments below. Be one of the first 10 to get it right and you could win.
Important giveaway note: Make sure your e-mail address is correct in your profile if you want to win. Otherwise we have no way of contacting you. Two potential winners have not been awarded a prize because their e-mail was bunk. If you don't want to have a real e-mail address in your profile, that's fine. Just don't expect to win if we can't find you!
Paul Kocher from Cryptography Research gives us the lowdown on botnets and just what we need to be afraid of.
Watch the show on CNET TV.
Things we crave:
Trade HD DVDs for Blu-rays with Warner's Red2Blu program
Download of the week
Netstumbler and iStumbler
Cheapskate
Netgear N router for $25
Your video call
Mark in Albuquerque, N.M. wants to know why Windows update isn't working fro him in Parallels. A tough one to do without followup questions, but most likely he needs to have Parallels tools installed. If that's not it, a bridged connection instead of a NAT might help. If he's virtualising off a Bootcamp partition, try doing the updates in boot camp. If none of that helps, take a look at this forum thread on Macworld.com.
Your calls
For the caller with the DVD drive that disappeared when he plugged in an external hard drive, we suggested some troubleshooting steps. Look to see if the drive still shows in BIOS. If it doesn't, the drive is likely toast and it's all a coincidence. If it does show up there, then try booting off it, say with a live Linux CD like Ubuntu, just to make sure it works. If that works, try upgrading the drivers in Windows. More ideas can be found here.
For underwater digital cameras, Brian Tong pointed out, you can get waterproof enclosures for any camera. This is good enough for poolside and snorkeling. There are also some heavier duty cameras meant for underwater use. There's a good forum thread about this at CNET forums.
The MSI gaming series laptop is a decent gaming laptop, but if you only want light gaming, a cheaper Netbook and desktop combo might cost you the same or a little cheaper.
CNET Store
Take a look at shop.cnet.com where you can order CNET T-shirts, mugs, and more.
We talk about the Game Developers Conference, laptops, and more with Dan Ackerman.
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Things we crave:
Download of the week
First Look
News Internet Explorer 8
CNET Store
Take a look at shop.cnet.com where you can order CNET T-shirts, mugs, and more.
Your calls:
The Yamaha RX-V663 should work quite nicely with the Mirage MX 5.1.
You can get free Web hosting with MySQL, cPanel and no ads from 000webhost.com. Or if you just want quick and easy site construction, try Wix or Yola.
E-mail us!
Whether it's a regular text note, or a recorded video question, you can send it to cnetlive@cnet.com. Keep your videos to 15 seconds or less, post them to a Web site like YouTube, and then e-mail us the link.
Brewster Kahle of Archive.org dropped by to chat with Brian about the group's effort to preserve Internet history and how they fought the FBI and won.
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First Look
Insider Secrets
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If you, like Fabio, are moving from a WordPress.com blog to a hosted WordPress blog of your own, here are some links for you. Official tutorial from WordPress on transferring between two blogs. The new XML IMport/Export. Migrating from wordpress.com to wordpress.org or self-hosting. WordPress Support » How do I transfer images from wordpress.com to a custom hosted site?
The beautiful LG Viewty.
Isaiah wanted some cheap single board computers. You might try out eWayco.
Hewlett-Packard says you ought to update your BIOS before you install Windows Vista SP1.
Best laptops for students
If you ever get envious of those cool graphic design guys with multiple monitors, ask yourself, "Do I have a laptop?" If you do, you can run a multimonitor setup of your own. Watch our video version of this Insider Secret, then come back for the written details.
I must credit my co-worker Rafe Needleman for this idea. He saw me pecking away with my laptop monitor up one day and said, "Why don't you use that as a second monitor?" After I told him to frack off, I realized it wasn't a bad idea. And it's uber easy. I'll show you both the Mac way and the PC way.
We'll assume you have a setup something like this: a laptop, maybe one in a dock, hooked up to a monitor.
OK. Let's start with Windows.
You boot up, and you're probably in your desktop monitor.
- Right-click on the desktop and choose Properties.
- Choose Settings.
- You'll see a second screen. Drag it to a position similar to where your laptop screen is.
- It should prompt you if you want to enable this monitor. Say Yes.
- Make sure Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor is checked.
- Press apply.
Now here's a little hitch. I can't tell which monitor is which. Press identify, and numbers will come up on each screen. The other issue is my laptop screen became my primary monitor. That's not right.
If this happens to you:
- Select the monitor you want to be primary.
- And check Use this device as the primary monitor.
- Then press Apply.
- Depending on your setup, you may have to move the taskbar up to that monitor. You just hold down the left mouse button while dragging the taskbar to move it.
Voila! Now you have two monitors. You can configure it however you want. I like up and down.
You can also look in your video driver to see if you can save profiles, so you don't have to reset it every time you turn on the computer.
Now in a Mac, it's super easy.
- Go to system preferences
- Choose Displays
- If OS X hasn't already detected your new display, press the Detect Displays button.
- Select Arrangement, and you can reposition the displays to reflect reality.
- You can even reposition the dock wherever you want.
And that's it. With either a Mac or a Windows laptop, you can now enjoy the extra screen real estate you already own.
When I saw the MacBook Air in person this week at Macworld Expo, I was having a hard time figuring out what about it seemed so familiar. Then I remembered. The G4 Cube. "Overpriced and underconfigured" were the words we used to describe it in our review in 2000, and many of the same complaints could be applied directly to the MacBook Air.
G4 Cube: pretty, but dumb
Where the Cube had no PCI slots or additional drive bays, no standard audio input or output jacks, and wouldn't accept full-length graphics cards because of its diminutive size, the Air has no Ethernet port (!), no optical drive, no removable battery, and requires a micro-DVI connector for output to an external monitor. Both offer underwhelming technical specs--the G4's hard drive was legendarily slow, while the Air's 80GB drive is, hilariously, half the capacity of the largest iPod Classic. Even the price tag was the same: $1,799! And I think in the future, I'll be able to update this post with one more important comparison: the Cube, although a stunning piece of industrial design, was a commercial flop, and I think the MacBook Air will be, too.
The more I think about the Air, the less I am able to answer the grammatically torturous question, "Who is this for?" And that's an important question to answer when you're spending money and resources on a new addition to your lineup. Let's look at the Cube again. Most of its features, plus more power and expandability, were available for less money in the G4 minitowers. The top-of-the-line black MacBook offers the same sized screen as the MacBook Air, a more powerful processor, twice the hard-drive capacity, and with 2GB of RAM to match the Air's, still costs $150 less. And your tradeoff is what, 2 pounds and a little bit of baby fat?
No one who looks at the MacBook Air, even those who are smitten with its insane thinness and...well, mostly just that...believe it would function as their primary machine. No, they say, they want it for its portability. But that's a pretty expensive secondary machine, especially when you could have a smartphone or portable media player or Nokia N810 or heck, an iPhone that's very nearly as useful and a whole sight more portable. In fact, you could argue that the convergence of phone and computer is the dominant trend in consumer electronics right now, and the iPhone is one of the primary examples of how good things can get in that field. If you buy that argument, it would seem to suggest that developing an extremely-but-not-ultra-portable MacBook right now is a bit redundant, if not outright baffling.
So that leaves you in Cube-land again: with a very small and well-heeled potential audience willing to spend $1,800 or more (or just over $3,000 if they opt for the 64GB solid-state drive for maximum tech-forwardness) simply to bask in the glow of outstanding design. Oh, and a resurgent fetishist aftermarket capped by a series of glowing mentions in a William Gibson novel. There's nothing wrong with that approach, as long as you know it going in, and Apple certainly got its hat handed to it with the Cube. Let's hope they're not cranking out MacBook Airs by the hundred-thousand, because I just don't think they're going to need them.
In addition to that fiery topic, the boys are going to figure out what is behind all those blazing batteries in laptops. Brian will reveal what tops his Crave list, and Tom is going to talk about a product that is essential for any germophobe--and he's not talking hand sanitizer.
As usual, The guys will be answering a firestorm of phone calls. The lines at 888-900-CNET will be open 20 minutes before show time, so call in soon to be Tom and Brian's first caller.
Tune in this week to get answers to all your burning tech queries at 1 p.m. Pacific/4 p.m. Eastern on CNET TV. Make sure not to miss an edition of CNET Live that may be too hot to handle!
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