I just had a client who reformatted his drive and reinstalled Windows XP Pro on it. After he did that, when he reattached the 2 other SATA internal hard drives that he has for his data, one showed up fine, and the other showed up as a “Foreign Domestic Drive” and had a yellow question mark next to it in Disk Management (see image of similar situation below).

 
When I RIGHT-clicked on it in Disk Management, it gave the options to either “convert to basic disk” (which you do NOT want to do unless you want to lose all of your data), or to “Import Foreign Disk.” The answer was to Import Foreign Disk. It only took about 10 seconds.

So here’s how to get to Disk Management in Windows XP to do this:

1. Log on as administrator or as a member of the Administrators group (which basically means just log into your computer since a user is set up as an “Administrator” by default)
2. Click Start button in bottom left
3. Click Run (Windows 7 or Vista see below)
4. Type compmgmt.msc (Windows 7 or Vista see below)
5. Click OK (Windows 7 or Vista see below)
6. In the console tree, click Disk Management (Windows 7 or Vista see below)

NOTE 1: If you’re using Windows 7 or Vista, skip steps 3 – 6 above, and after you click the colored start ball in the bottom left of your screen, simply type Disk Management in the search field and hit your key to get to Disk Management.

7. Once in Disk Management, RIGHT-click on the section for the hard drive in question where the yellow exclamation mark is on the the icon for the hard drive (same section where it as “Dynamic Foreign”; see image above)
8. Select “Import Foreign Disk”
9. It will take about 10 seconds to do its thing
10. It will then ask, “Before using these disks, add them to your system configuration. Disk groups: ” Below that text will be a box with a check box already checked next to “Foreign disk group (1 of 1 disk).” Yes, you want to do that. Just click OK.
11. After this, you should be good to go and have all of your data back, so check it.

NOTE 2: During my research, one guy said after he clicked “Import Foreign Disk,” it hanged for about 10 hours, however everyone else said that it worked. And it worked for my client. So maybe that one guy was experiencing a user error or had a more serious problem. But I still feel compelled to say to do this at your own risk.

After you do this, the only thing that will be different is that the bar in Disk Management for that disk that was just imported will be green instead of blue. But other than that, things will be back to normal.

NOTE 3: If you your disk is being classified as “invalid” instead of “foreign,” then you might have it connected via USB, which Windows Vista & 7 do not like. If that’s the case, then find a way to connect it directly via SATA or IDE (depending on what kind of drive it is), and then it should show up as a foreign drive and you can follow the above instructions to import it.

Enjoy!

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Did you get a “bad value” error while uploading a video to YouTube? Want to know what the deal is? It’s simply that there is a symbol in the description of your video that you typed that YouTube doesn’t like.

The one that gave me the error was the “>” symbol. So if you used “>” or “< " in the desription of your video, then that's your problem. Simply delete it and then save your changes. If that was not what you used, then look for other symbols in your description. Just try deleting each one, one by one, saving it after you delete each one so you know which one is causing the issue.

If there are other characters that you used in your description that caused this error and you know what it is, then please post it in the comments below so others can benefit. Thanks!

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If you’re getting the message, “iTunes requires a computer with a G4, G5 or Intel processor”, then that means you’re dealing with an older Mac that has a G3 processor or earlier that is not compatible with the latest version of iTunes.

What’s the fix?

Well, you have to dig around the Internet to find it, but Sarah, a visitor to my blog, emailed me and asked me what to do. So I did some research, and found that if you are running Mac OS X 10.4.1, which is Tiger, then all you need to do is install iTunes 8.4, which you can get here:

Download iTunes 8.4 for Mac
(again, you have to have a G3 processor, and you have to be running 10.4.1 (Tiger) or later)

However, if you are running, let’s say, Mac OS X 10.3.9, which is what she was running, then this is where you need to dig a little deeper on the Internet to find your solution.

Luckily, the boys over at ihackintosh.com did the dirty work for me. They made a blog post that has the direct Apple download links to previous versions of iTunes, from version 7.4 to 8.2 for both Mac and PC. However, you’ll need to research which version is best for your system. Google is your friend in this type of situation.

Check out their list of vintage iTunes download links here.

By the way, the solution I suggested for Sarah was to give iTunes version 7.4 a try. I’ll send her the link to this post, and hopefully she’ll return with positive results that she’ll post in the comments below. I’m sure she’s have some good news.

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Is your iPhone no longer saving your photos? Do you think you lost them forever? I thought the same thing. But it’s not true. It IS saving them, just not in the same location. At least that was the case for me.

Here’s what I did to get my pics and vids back.

Apparently I had installed an app that changed my settings, and it changed my settings so that my iPhone 3GS was no longer saving the photos in the Camera Roll album in my Photos. I tried using the Image Capture app on my Mac to access the lost pictures and videos, but that did not work. That’s because it only looks in the default folder for the pics.

So what did I do to get access to my lost pictures and videos on my iPhone? iPhoto, baby! I just hooked up my iPhone to my Mac, launched iPhoto, clicked on the icon for my iPhone in iPhoto, and voila! There were all of my lost pics and vids! I was very happy about that.

To fix the issue, I just have to find the app that changed the settings and uninstall it. The I’ll use the app SBSettings in Cydia to change the settings back. Your iPhone needs to be jailbroken to do this. Good thing jailbreaking is legal now! I used SBSettings to fix it once, but whatever app is installed that changed it changed it right back after I fixed it. So now I just have to find that crazy app and kill/delete it. I’ll do another post on how I fixed it once I find that pesky app and ban it from my phone!

Enjoy your lost pics and vids!

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I just had this happen to me. I was in the gym, and for some reason, the volume all of sudden went down to zero. I tried different apps, but no matter what I did, when I ramped up the volume, it just went right back to zero.

It was an easy fix…

All I had to do was to perform a soft reset and I was good to go. To perform a soft reset, all you have to do is hold down the home button (the only button on the face of the iPhone) as you start up the iPhone. Once you see the apple logo, you can let go. Gotta love how the iPhone is so easy to fix!

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If you have your own WordPress website/blog that is hosted on your own hosting account, and you can’t add tags, then give this a try…

I had the same problem, and I had to deactivate my plugins one by one (reactivating each one after it didn’t fix the problem) until I found the plugin that was causing the issue. For me, it was the Wordtube plugin. At the time of this blog post, I am running WordPress 2.9.2.

To find out more solutions, go here.

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I was getting the same message with one of my systems. It was not even listing the hard drive or the CD-ROM in the BIOS. It ended up being a very easy fix.

Here was the fix:

I simply replaced the CMOS battery. This system was a desktop, by the way. The CMOS batter is a small round battery found on the motherboard, and has the battery code of CR2032, in case you need to go buy it. Radio Shack has them. But I would make sure the one that is in there is low on power before you go out and buy a new one. You’ll need a battery tester to do this.

Once you have confirmed that it is the battery, and you have a new one in your hand, just pop out the old one on the motherboard, and put in the new one. BEFORE you take it out, make sure you note how it goes in, and make sure you replace it quickly. You still may have to reset the date and time, as well as some of the settings in the BIOS. If you don’t know what they are, then just load the default BIOS settings in the BIOS.

Replacing the CMOS battery is for intermediate to advanced users. However, if you are a beginner and you are ambitious, just Google it if you need visuals.

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Are you getting double emails in Opera when you configure your Gmail account in Opera using the IMAP format? If so, here is the fix:

1. Open Opera
2. Up top, go to MAIL>IMAP Folders
3. Unsubscribe (uncheck) the following folders:
1. [Gmail]/All Mail
2. [Gmail]/Sent Mail

Click OK. You should be good to go, but if not, then hit your “Check/Send” button so that it will reset itself.

Just so you know, when using Gmail’s SMTP servers, a copy of the message automatically goes to the sent folder.

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If your bluetooth service is suddenly not available on your Mac, here is a fix:

01. Click on “Finder” in bottom left of your screen in the Dock
02. Click on your “Home” icon on the left (picture of a house)
03. Double-click on the “Library” folder
04. Double-click on “Preferences” folder
05. Delete file named “com.apple.Bluetooth.plist” (also delete any other item with “com.apple.Bluetooth…”, if any)
06. Shutdown your computer
07. Unplug all USB and Firewire devices
08. Unplug power cord
09. Remove battery (if it’s a Macbook or Macbook Pro)
10. Wait 1-2 min
11. Hold down power button for 10 sec with the battery out (if it’s a Macbook or Macbook Pro)
12. Insert battery (if it’s a Macbook or Macbook Pro)
13. Startup again
14. It should work!

If this does not fix it, then it is most likely a hardware issue, and you will have to bring it in to an Apple Store.

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If you can’t open iTunes when you click on it or if you can’t close it, then it could be a couple of things.

Here they are:

MAC

• You had your iPod plugged into your computer before you opened iTunes. If that’s the case, simply unplug your iPod from your computer, close iTunes (iTunes may close on its own after you unplug your iPod if it is open but not responding) and open it up again. This is what fixed my issue.
• If you do not have your iPod connected, here are the instructions:
1. 1. Restart your computer (if iTunes is still open and you can’t close it), and drag iTunes from your Applications folder to the trash (make sure it is closed first).
2. 2. Go to your Home folder (double-click on your hard drive (it’s named “Macintosh HD” if you did not rename it, and is located in the upper right corner of your screen (if you did not move it)) and click on your home directory on the left side; your home directory is usually named your name (or whatever username for the computer is) with an icon (picture) of a house next to it
3. 3. In your Home folder, double-click on the Library folder, and then drag the iTunes folder into the trash.
4. 4. Then, in the same window, click on Macintosh HD (or whatever you named your hard drive) so you see the contents of that folder on the right side
5. 5. Double-click on the Library folder to open it, and then drag the iTunes folder to the trash (yes, you are dragging two iTunes folders to the trash)
6. 6. Go go www.iTunes.com, download the latest version of iTunes, and install it.
7. 7. Done!

PC

I have not run into this problem on a PC, but if I did, I would just restart the computer (if I could not close iTunes and if disconnecting my iPod did not help), uninstall iTunes via START>CONTROL PANEL>ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS, and then download and reinstall it. You can get it at www.iTunes.com.

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