Free Laptop Help

Archive for August, 2008

Q.

The TSA / Transportation Security Administration screens laptops to see if the electronics have been tampered with and look for irregularities. So, what exactly is a “checkpoint friendly” laptop bag?

A.

A checkpoint friendly bag will allow officers a clear, unobstructed view of the laptop and allow passengers to keep it in the bag during screening. There needs to be an unobstructed view of the laptop as the it moves through the X-ray machine. These new rules are set to go into effect Aug. 16, 2008.

A checkpoint friendly bag will have a designated laptop-only section. The laptop only section unfolds to lie flat on the X-ray machine belt and contains no metal snaps, zippers or buckles and no pockets. The bag should be 30 inches or less in length when unfolded.

Bags are already being sold by Targus, Mobile Edge and others.

The new Targus Zip-Thru case ($99).
Mobile Edge Scanfast laptop bags.

References:
TSA’s blog post: The evolution of the Bag: Going “Checkpoint Friendly”.

Question:
While I know nothing is free in life, I have a question: My issue is this. I have a Thinkpad, T60. The Hard drive has been repartitioned/formatted and I am trying to load XP Pro SP2, however I keep getting “Windows is unable to a find hard drive.” I have pressed F6 to try and load sata drivers, but then it tells me I must have a floppy drive, and guess what, no floppy on this model. I figure the issue is SATA hard drive. The woman I am trying to fix this for has no factory software, or O/S disk and the Restore – Recovery part of hard drive has been wiped out. Is there a work around to get this repair back on track? I live in Raleigh, any help would be greatly appreciated. David

Answer:
Hey there,

It is just a simple setting in the BIOS.

There is a SATA compatibility mode / AHCI setting in there- change it and go ahead and install XP.

After you get XP installed download this utility that will install all of the drivers automatically:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=TVSU-UPDATE

=)

How is that for free?