How To Backup Recovery Discs to ISOs without DVDs on Windows 7 using a Virtual Burner

Hey all!

Well alot has been going on, and I don't feel very bloggy about my inner thoughts right now...

So instead I'll do a tutorial on something everyone encounters when buying their new laptop!

Like me!

I've bought an Acer Timeline X 4830TG with awesome specs, in fact this is the first blog post of many that I'm doing on the laptop!

Skipping long Intros that will bore what you are really here for:


How To Backup Recovery Discs to ISOs without DVDs on Windows 7.


What you will need:

1. New Laptop (duh) (PS: any brand works)
2. At least 14 GB free space
3. Phantom Drive Virtual Burner (link) (note: make sure to grab 64-bit version if you have 64-bit system)
4. Preinstalled recovery program that bugs you to waste 4 DVDs
5. Time

Short Explanation:

So I was really happy finally having time to get in touch with my computer, and after turning on I got this small little notification asking me to make a Recovery Disc. Since mine is an Acer, I was asked by the Acer eRecovery to create one for backup! The program asked me to provide like 4 DVDs for a system image and 1 more for drivers and apps! OMG! Wasting my DVDs. Gone where the good old days when you were given a Windows 7 DVD and left to reinstall as vanilla (meaning original, clean)

After a little hunting and empirical thinking, there must be a way around it. 

(this wouldn't be an online blogpost without a troll meme pic :P hehhe )

So here we go~~

STEPS:

* Pardon the watermark, it is a necessary evil. 

1. Download and install Phantom Drive. (as link above) Bear in mind this is an awesome trialware, and you have full functionality of 30 days, more than enough, buy it to support it! This is the only virtual burner I found that works as advertised, without suffering limited functionality during a trial. A driver will be installed (hence the need for a 64-bit if you run 64-bit, which you probably do... hit START+BREAK to check)

2. Double click the Phantom Starter icon, you will be presented with something like below. Click on Phantom Creator.

3. Then you'll be greeted with the below window, under "Create a" choose DVD+R or even DVD-R, it really doesn't matter, you will burn this image to a physical (real) DVD during emergency. See 4.7 GB? 

4. Then tick "Create and ISO image"

5. Take note where you want to save the file as below. (make sure there is ample/enough space) The program creates a .phi file during burning. Also tick insert the new phantom image after creation just for simplicity.

6. Click on the Create button (sorry in the screenshot the watermark covered it). Something like this will flash past (real fast, had to redo a few times to get a shot)

7. This is how it would look like if you navigated to the saved location, don't worry about the 0KB files, leave them alone :)

8. Now go ahead and start your recovery program. Acer Asus Dell HP anything!
When you are at the choose drive, click on a dropdown menu and Choose the Phantom Drive Burner. Whoops, no screenie for that.

9. Click Start or Burn or equivalent.. Here's the screenshot for my third recovery Disc. Notice that it is much faster as the writing speed to a Harddisk is better than optical DVD burner. No errors too!

10. Leave it to verify.... Patience, young Padawan.

11. Within 4 minutes, tada!

12. Before you click ok... REPEAT steps 2 and 6 (namely going to phantom creator and clicking create since the other options remain)

13. Just to be sure, make sure you do steps 2 and 6 again AND THEN ONLY clicking ok.

14. Repeat until you are done with burning what you need, in my case until Recovery4.

15. see below, Success! :D
(press ok and make the program happy by allowing it to finish)

16. Now, navigate to where you initially told Phantom Drive to save the images. Do not worry about it showing as Phantom Drive image, they are ISOs (don't trust me? right click, properties) ... see, told you so!

(example below, default place was at : C:\Users\Public\Phantom Drive Images )

17. Copy the files (the ones that are like big ass sized, total around 12 GB) to a secure area like your external harddisk or some other computer. Steps are the same for the Drivers.

Points to note: make sure you copy the ISO files to another hard drive or even anywhere so long as its not your hard drive, because the sole purpose of restoring your drive image through DVDs is in the event your laptop's Hard drive conked on you. No use storing pieces of cloth for emergency in the middle of a place prone to fire right? (metaphor explanation fail haha)

18. Burn the DVDs when you really need them, don't worry they are bootable. :D

Cheers and Good Luck!
(simple right? or else just use Acronis True Image to image the whole hard drive and skip the dvds all together. :P )

Do comment and share, but please don't steal. This took me time you know? :3 There are alternatives to extract the backup image, but those are much more complicated.  Any other methods do let me know!

C&C 3: The Forgotten Unable to Start Fix / Solution / How to

Just got my new laptop! :D

More on that later, again.
This is going to be a tutorial. :D

Just learnt this after trying to get the mod to work. :D

Link: http://theforgotten.cnclabs.com/

It's a mod that requires C&C 3 Tiberium Wars.

Specifically, version 1.09
But this is a problem you may encounter if you have Kane's Wrath installed or got it from some other release, pirated or not (e.g Skullptura rip of Kane's Wrath)

This causes the mod's installer to link to the wrong directory (folder)

Hence, issues such as "not a valid Win32 application" or it simply doesn't work, or wrong version, please update. etc etc.

Here's the fix:

1. So during install, you might be notified thatyou do not have v1.09 of Tiberium Wars, even if you do, as it did in my case. Hit Ignore and continue.
2. It's going to install without asking you where to put itself, gets real comfy in your system right there.
3. After that, you will be asked to put a shortcut on the desktop or not.
4. Do that. Finish.
5. Now, try running it by double clicking the shortcut, it's gonna fail.
6. Fear not, RIGHT click on the shortcut, choose Properties

7. This is going to show up!

8. (see above) Look under the Target area, it's pointing at the wrong directory right?


as written here:

"F:\Command & Conquer 3 Kane's Wrath\#readme#\CNC3.exe" -modconfig "C:\Users\Home\Documents\Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars\Mods\Mutant\config.txt"

9. So whatcha need to do is simply change that part in the beginning to where the actual Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars file is. (in quotes, you know the 2 levitated open coma close coma thingajiggy, this is important!!!!)

In such as a way:




"(where you installed the Tiberium Wars)\CNC3.exe" -modconfig "C:\Users\Home\Documents\Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars\Mods\Mutant\config.txt"

Usually:



"C:\Program Files (x86)\Command & Conquer 3\CNC3.exe" -modconfig "C:\Users\Home\Documents\Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars\Mods\Mutant\config.txt"


But in my case, I installed it to a separate harddrive:

 "F:\Command & Conquer 3\CNC3.exe" -modconfig "C:\Users\Home\Documents\Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars\Mods\Mutant\config.txt"

remember the quotes and also leave everything from -modconfig alone.

10. You should see it something like this now, see it's different, so we're pointing it to the correct files.

11. Click OK.






12. There is no 12, you're done, just double click, and you are good to go!
(Tiberium Wars splash screen should load, and you'll be greeted by a new looking menu)


PS: Bro prefers the original. :P still awesome though.


Happy Gaming! :D


Do comment and tell me if it worked for you, also if you want to share this, please link it to this post and not rip from my site.
Hope I helped.
Peace. :D

:D Quickie, Prom, Trip, Life

Well, this is going to be a quick one.

Having fun here. Life is good for now.

Prepared for Prom, which wasn't as I imagined, but awesome nonetheless, IMHO, the price was worth it. Though, the waiters were a bit unprofessional for taking away my food TWICE although I barely touched it. Grand Millenium KL, you need to fix that. (NOTE to self: do a post on Prom)

Still, It was great, a fitting ending to this chapter of my school life.

Then the next day I went to apply at INTI Nilai. After so long, I finally registered, the staff were really helpful and polite, however, parents suddenly had  a change of heart since Nilai was too far and Malaysia's bus and public transport is pretty much useless, I mean, umm, isn't really that well, reliable.

So after much thought, I'm moving to INTI Subang, and well, the staff there are really helpful too. And instead of going to stay in the hostel, I'm going to stay at home. (It's kinda non-logical if you say, have a house in KL, and still go rent a hostel or room in KL) :D

(I have a feeling I'm gonna love INTI) (hopefully defo more than WMSKL)

After that, trip to Genting with my awesome K-Gang Friends. :D V,Max,Calvin,David Ooi, Meng, well, we really did rock. Sides, we can cook. :D I think it was an epic success, pics up on FB soon, and we didn't have to use the Maggie HotCup I brought up! :D

Nonetheless, we did cook Cordon Bleu, Mash Potatoes (with Fresh Potatoes btw) and then Mushroom Soup, also Salad took like 2.5 hours due to the very small appliance and also the fact we only had one pot and one pan hahaha, the next day we cooked Udon Instant Korean Noodles, and last day we did cook American Breakfast :D scrambled eggs with onion, bacon, french toast, red beans, sausages, nuggets. :D Yeah. 6 men eat alot. :D I wanna do it sometime again! :D

We did use like 3/4 of the oil we brought, and from 30 eggs, NutriPlus Omega 3 btw :P, we had 11 left, so yeah, its overly nutritious? We did alot of sports though, great fun. Thanks guys!

After that I had McDs today, and just now Fried Chicken, Mash Potatoes again. Tomorrow I'm having Steamboat with abit of Grilling at home just before I move.

So yeah, unhealthy? or Overly healthy? :D

So much to do, so little time. This is just a quickie, for which later hopefully I can do a better write up of this part of my life. The trip, prom, was a very nice way to [as said by Calvin] have a perfect ending to a not-so-perfect 5 years of secondary school life.

Lastly, I guess, I we, can't always get what we want, or how we want it, because something or someone is always in the way and screws things up (putting it nicely) life ain't that easy, but I guess, although we are told to never settle for less, but we must as humans, adapt, and be thankful at times with what we have and what we did get. (fellow friends, see the ironic oxymoron there? one part, we must never settle for less and strive for more and better, but on the other we have perceptions telling us to be thankful with what we have and appreciate, a paradox I must say). But hey, your life is only tainted and screwed or effed up by one small little discrete or pissing off detail that bugs you, ONLY, if you let it get to you. So look at life, and bend to it, adapt, or scream shout and cry, but well, there is only so much you can do, and well, life goes on, so take it in your stride, but at the same time do your best, and don't just surrender in defeat :P

Random much.
Toodle-doos!

See ya soon, hopefully. :D

(listening to party songs now, thanks prom lol)

Sony Ericsson Spiro (Update/Fix/Review)

HELLO!

Yay, SPM is finally over!

Pardon the slowness of updating my blog, it isn't prioirty.

Around this of the year, back to december. lol, once again, I have high plans for this blog, but you know me....

So, to start of, lets do a tutorial on something...
___________________________________________________________________________________



How to Update Sony Ericsson Spiro (W100i)

Yes, I got this phone.

White one!

Really cheap, as descrive previously in my postiee.

So, it started to act up within a week , as shown by the main blogs, in fact still does.
(eg, OUT OF MEMORY, random restarts,hangs)

So after I bought it, I realised you don't get a microUSB cable with the phone, buy it outside for RM12, its realatively cheap, sides, the hp can't do sync with the computer, no backup of messages and contacts, and copies songs videos thru the cable at a VERY SLOW SPEED. so... better off taking your MicroSD card out and slotting it. Any third party USB cable would work (principle, if the hole fits, it works)

Next, go get this software:

http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/support/mobilephones/downloads/subject/updateservice/1.774197?cc=gb&lc=en

yeah, around 39MB download...

Double click to install, next next, accept agreement without reading (lol, you should tho I do not, who does anyway, we are all bounded by laws) done, then,

Run the software, choose your phone.

Follow on-screen instructions.

NOTE: IT IS A VERY GOOD IDEA TO BACKUP YOUR PHONE, everythign on the phone will be wiped out. Exceptions to the memory card though. (speaking of which, kudos to Sony Ericsson for switching to MicroSD cards on this phone, instead of dumb proprietary M2 cards)

There will come to a point that tells you to plug your phone in using the MicroUSB cable and pressing the C key (delete key) on the Spiro... do just that.

I got into an obstacle here, the phone did not want to make love (opps, i mean connection) with the computer, so no fear, when you fail, try try and try again, just redo as it says. Be patient tho, if after 30 secounds still nada, retry....

Finally you should get something like this:

Yeah, it will download your phones latest firmware.

Then it will simply update your phone.

And you are DONE!

_____________________________________________________________________________
Nonetheless, this update still GIVES you problems, like OUT OF MEMORY error. Still, the Update does iron out a few problems...

Yishes, its just this phone...

Its not as if my microSD card is full or even phone memory...

Someways I've found to remedy this problem, temporary fix...

(MENU>SETTINGS>push right twice>under Display)

1. Set the wallpaper to none

2. Set the theme to Flow.thm (Samba seems problematic, and other themes do not really work with the Spiro)

3. Screensaver Set it to none.

4. Also, deleting older SMSes seem to help, yes, sentimental they might be, but what are we to do..

_________________________________________________________________________________

You cannot really play Java Games on this phone. and when the phone is too stressed or you ask too much of it (which isn't much) it will breakdown by restarting itself lol.

Hope this helps the pained users like me.

If anyone has a better fix cbox me!

Till then, hopefully many more posts to come, tata!

PS: those who are thinking of this phone, do not buy it, get Sony ericsson cedar instead. or stay away form sony ericsson! (ya hear that, maybe you wanna fix my phone now?)