Monthly Archives: December 2009

Installing Windows 7 in Dell Mini 10v

Posted on by
 

I’ve successfully installed both Windows 7 and Ubuntu Netbook Remix in my brand new Dell Mini 10v. Here I’m explaining about how to make a bootable USB stick to install Windows 7. This is quite simple but before getting this final solution, I’ve tried with many different tools to prepare the USB stick and it was desperately failed. Either they will not have any option to write into USB or the writing may have some kind of drawback which may result into a failed booting.

I’ve received the box pre-installed with Japanese version of Windows 7 Starter Edition. I’ve not opted for an external drive when I purchased. So I had prepared the image file using Magic ISO. Dumping in ISO image format is better as it’s a universally accepted format.

There are two methods to prepare the USB disk.

1. Using USB to DVD tool from Microsoft Store

Microsoft realized your needs and they’ve provided a safe method to prepare the bootable USB from ISO. Prepare the ISO image using magic disc. Download the tool from Microsoft website. Now things are pretty straight forward. Just go through the guided steps to create the bootable USB stick

image

Once you complete preparing the USB, reboot your computer and press F12 (for Dell Laptops only) in the POST screen to choose the boot device. From that opt for USB Storage Device. Go ahead with the simplest Windows Installation we’ve ever seen in Windows history.

2. Using diskpart and xcopy (or simple windows copying)

This step must be done very carefully as it may damage your own HDD if it used wrong. Do this at your own risk.

First you’ve to plugin the USB stick and open the command line tool diskpart from Run Window or from command prompt.

image

You can see a similar window as displayed above. Note that Windows Vista or Windows 7 may ask for administrator privilege to run this application. Do the following steps

  • list disk – this will list the attached physical disks connected to the system
  • select disk # – select the preferred disk. Here you must be very careful. Make sure that you’ve chosen the right disk. Otherwise you may lose your data. replace # the number listed ### column of list disk command
  • clean – clear the configuration information
  • create partition primary – Create the partition for the stick
  • format fs=fat32 quick – note that if you’ve not opted for quick, you will have to wait till the OS finish the true formatting of entire disk.
  • assign – assign a drive letter for the drive to access through explorer
    You’ve prepared a clean USB device. Now mount the ISO image or using magic disc or insert the DVD. Simply copy paste the contents of the folder to the prepared USB device. You can also use xcopy or robocopy if you’re preferring the command line tools.

The next step was to prepare the bootable USB stick from the and created the using my other personal computer to prepare the bootable USB drive. Reboot your computer and press F12 (for Dell Laptops only) in the POST screen to choose the boot device. From that opt for USB Storage Device.

note that the second method has failed many times even the USB started booting. I don’t know if it was the problem with my USB stick. Always try to it with the first method mention.

 

How to know the caps lock status in Dell Mini 10v?

Posted on by
 

There are only two things emits light in Dell Mini 10v, the monitor and the power indicator LED. It’s doesn’t have the beauitful LEDs like other Dell notebooks.

The worst thing, is that we can’t know the status of caps lock. This is particularly makes problems when you type password as you can’t see the original text. You have to try the caps lock in some editable windows and back to the password field.

Even those Dell laptops which has all indicators including caps lock, it used to display ON/OFF status in a quick small message text on the right bottom side. With Dell Mini you can make use of this handy tool to know the current capslocks status.

The disadvantage is that it will be popped up only when we hit the caps lock key. It’s hard to know the current caps lock status without changing the current capslock state.

But it’s still better then a total blank

Download the system tools from Dell Mini 10v Driver Download Page. I’ve given direct link to Dell Caps Lock Application (this URL may changed by Dell in Future or on upgrade)

Once you finish installing this, you can see something has below on hitting the caps lock key.

ON – image

OFF – image

 

How to change Dell Mini 10v Function key mapping to normal mode?

Posted on by
 

I’ve received my Dell Mini 10v and this is the first issue, I’ve faced while started working with it. I am a keyboard lover for most of the cases, if possible I will be using only my keyboard to work with softwares because it’s faster than using mouse and also I’m good at using it. :)

Dell Mini has some problems with it’s function keys. It doesn’t have any dedicated function keys. It’s there in the top row of the keyboard but if you need to press F1-F12, you also need to hold down ‘fn’ key just left to the Windows Key. This quite bad and they’re deviating from the standard. Even in a point I was thinking about writing a keyboard filter driver to change the mapping as Mark Russinovich Wrote Ctrl2Cap driver.

Fortunately when I skimmed through the driver list of Dell Mini 10v on dell.com, I could find an application related to function keys. It hadn’t any good information about what it’s doing but still I wish to have a try to get rid of this problem.

Surprisingly it was the one I was seeking for. Just downloaded it from the Dell Website and installed.

image

Just enable the checkbox to make the function keys functions as in a normal keyboard.

You can download the driver by navigating to Dell.com Drivers page. Here’s I’m giving link to the corresponding driver but I’m not sure how long it will work as dell may frequently update the URL information.

Download Function Keys for Dell Mini 10v