Moving to Educationalresource.org

It has been about a year since I added a post to this blog.  The reason for this is that I have been working on a new and improved method of sharing educational ideas, tools, tech tips, and resources.  I have created a new site at Educationalresource.org.  I will be updating and posting to this site from now on.  Please come and explore the new site an let me know what you think.

Windows 7: Secondary Hard Drive Shows Up in Bios, but does not show up in My Computer

I recently installed a second SATA hard drive on a client's computer.  I have done this a thousand times but for some reason, the computer would detect the hard drive, but not allow it to be displayed in the "Computer" section of Windows 7.  After a little Googling, I came across a YouTube video that helped fix the issue, and it only took seconds.  Please be careful following other advice out their.  Many of the sites I came across mentioned formatting the hard drive.  This would have been fine except that I needed the secondary hard drive to not be formatted because it contained the client's old information.

1.  Go to "computer management."  You can get there by right clicking on "Computer" and then selecting the "Manage" option.

2.  Click on "Disk Management."  You should now see a list of all the hard drives that are connected.  Find the drive that currently isn't displaying.  You might find the error "The disk is offline because it has a signature collision with another disk that is online."  That is the drive you want to fix.  

3. Right click on it and and select the "Online" option.  That should be it. 

Below is the Youtube video that put me in the right place.

Windows: Have you ever felt like your Windows machine took too long to boot up?

Have you ever felt like your Windows machine took too long to boot up?  How about feeling like your memory was already eaten up before you had a chance to open your first program?  The reason for this could be that you have multiple programs trying to get loaded into your system's memory before ever even having a chance to get booted up.  A Windows machine should never, in my opinion, take longer than 90 seconds to boot up and then open up your internet home page.  Get a timer out and time your machines boot up as soon as you push the start button.  When you first get into Windows, click on your browser icon.  Once your homepage is fully loaded stop the timer.  If it took more than 90 seconds that is too long.  Try getting rid of start up processes.  Below is a tutorial on how this is done.

Speeding up my Startup Tutorial

1. Go to your "search" and search for the program "msconfig".  If you are using Windows XP try going to "Start" and then "Run" and type "msconfig" into the run bar.

2.  You should get a new Windows dialogue box.  Click on the "Startup" tab.  In Windows 7 or 8 you will then need to click the "Open Task Manager" link.  In Windows XP you are ready for step 3.

3.  You will now see a bunch of different programs that load their processes into your system's memory during the loading of Windows.  On Windows XP just uncheck the boxes of programs you are for sure not wanting to load during startup.  On Windows 7 and 8 just click on the program and select then click the  "disable" option found at the bottom of the right hand corner.

Once you are all done you will need to restart your machine.  NOTE of CAUTION: I try to stay away from disabling things that are from Windows and anything that mentions hardware like sound and video.  Also know that because the program is not in your memory, it will take slightly longer to open the first time you do, but since I don't use say Adobe Reader every day, I always have it disabled and then when I need it, it will take just a little longer to open.

Now to verify that your boot time has improved, complete another time test.  I hope this help.  There are many reasons a computer boots slowly though, this is just a simple trick to try to improve the speed.

Virus/adware removal: Higher Aurum Ads

Even pros get stupid adware and viruses.  I was trying to download software for my son and woke up this morning with new ads on every page that I googled.  To see if you have the "Higher Aurum Ads" adware, look at one of the ads displaying.  Somewhere, usually at the bottom or the left hand side of an ad, see if it is labeled with "Higher Aurum Ads."  Other indications were that I would get a popup box to the left and a permanent ad at the bottom of every page.  Also, where Google normally has their High Paid ads on a Google search, I found those replaced with the "Higher Aurum Ads."  Below is a tutorial on how to remove it and samples of the ads.

Samples of the Higher Aurum Ads.

 
 






Removal of the Higher Aurum Ads instructions

1.  The nice thing about this adware is that it is very simple to remove.  First go to your "Add and Remove Programs" or "Uninstall a Program" feature of your control panel.  If you have Windows 8, just do a search for Uninstall a Program.  Once you are in your "Add and Remove Programs," locate the "Higher Aurum" file.  It will have other numbers next to it that just indicates the version.

2.  After you have selected the program you want to uninstall, just click the "Uninstall" button at the top.

3.  You will now be taken through the uninstall process.  Just click the "Next," "Uninstall," and "Finish" buttons.