Buffalo Terastation live! 1tb of glory

The Terastation live does everything you want and more, and is possibly one of the best pieces of hardware I have ever bought.

First I’ll explain how I got to buying a Terastation (Often nicknamed ‘The station of terror’ by myself, and only myself it seems). I built a basic media center in my living room with an old PC I had laying around, which actually had enough juice in it to pump out a decent resolution, and carry 5.1 sound. This was great at first, but then I got a bit more serious, and built a proper media center rig with a 300gb hard drive (don’t laugh, 300gb was a lot back then!). I had all my favourite shows ripped onto the hard drive, a load of DVD’s, and about 43 days worth of music (which had took me a loooong time to rip and tag) – when it hit me.

What if my hard drive got corrupted? over heated? got a virus? got stolen? became self aware?
This is when I first started investigating my options for storing large amounts of data, and having it all backed up with little or no intervention from the user. The terastation does all this.
The terastation works in RAID5 mode, which basically means, it has 4 disks inside, however you are only able to use 3 of them for storage. So the bad news is that you lose 25% of your space… however the good news is that this space is used for redundancy. This means if any of your drives stop working for whatever reason, you can simply remove the old drive (this is a very easy process, just 2 clips accessible from the front of the unit), and you just pop in a new drive of the same size!

I put this how swap theory to the test once, and removed a drive from the terastation, whilst I had a PC playing mp3s that were stored on the terastation itself. I was pretty amazed when the terastation didn’t really break a sweat for playing the music, and all it did was warn me that a drive had failed (this can also be setup to warn you via email). So I replaced the 250gb drive with a 300gb drive, just to see what happened.

Well what happened is I was able to continue using the browser based configuration to setup my new drive, and rebuild the RAID configuration (meaning you are backed up once again). The whole time I was doing this, music just kept on playing, and I even started transferring large files at the same time just to see how far the unit would go… but it never broke a sweat.

I have since upgraded my 4x 250gb disks to 4x1tb disks, and it works just as well. It has gigabit ethernet and 2x USB ports for external drives, I couldn’t live without it, and I would happily buy another if I could afford to!

Call of Duty World at War – Cannot locate the DVD-ROM (workaround + fix!)

Scroll to the bottom to view the solution…

So I got Call of Duty – World at War for chirstmas…

• It looks great
• The first 5 minutes were awesome
• Then it stopped working.
• The reason?

Cannot locate the DVD-ROM Please insert the correct DVD-ROM and restart the application

So basically, whenever I tried to launch the game I got the error message above. I tried a few things like starting the game from the disk, and a shortcut on the desktop (which I had to create myself) and even tried turning UAC on again, running as administrator, running in compatibility mode, reinstalling and just about anything else I could think of. I should note, that the game did work when I first installed it, and it was only after I finished building my computer (installing updates, applications, and customising) that it stopped working.

So the next step? the internet…surely the internet wouldn’t let me down.

Call of Duty 5 artwork

After looking around the internet for answers, all I found was lots and lots of people with the same problem. I went to the Activision website and looked through their support forums, and the solution from Activision?

• Go to the directory where you installed the game. Find the file CODWaW.exe. This is the executable. Right-click on this file and select properties. Now go to the compatibility tab and make sure that no compatibility options are turned on. If the compatibility option is checked then uncheck it. Once you have done this click OK and then double-click on the executable to launch the game.
• Hold down the left shift key when inserting the game disc.
• All background applications must be shutdown prior to running the game.
• Virtual drives can cause insert CD/DVD errors. If you have virtual drives installed on your system you will need to remove them and then reinstall the game with the original disc. Please refer to the documentation for your virtual drive software for instructions on how to remove these drives.
• Update the firmware for your CD/DVD drive to the latest version. Firmware updates are often released to fix compatibility issues with certain disc types. You will need to contact your drive manufacturer for the correct firmware update.
• Update the chipset drivers for your motherboard. If you have an Nvidia Nforce based motherboard go here to get the latest Nforce drivers. If you have a motherboard with an Intel chipset go here to get the latest motherboard INF driver. If you have VIA based motherboard go here and get the latest Chipset or Platform driver for your motherboard. If you are not sure what motherboard chipset you have or what driver you should download please contact your motherboard or computer manufacturer for help.

And guess what – none of it worked, and I wasn’t the only person whos problems failed to be solved by Activision.

It was then I decided to try using a different DVD drive (an external USB drive which I had all but forgotten about) and low and behold…the problem was solved! (Update: better solution further down the page!)

I am amazed that Activision haven’t found out what the problem is yet, and I have seen a lot of different responses from the company themselves (one even suggested reinstalling the operating system) which makes it look like they have no ideas at all. I’m sure not everyone has a spare DVD drive laying around, but hopefully this post will help anyone who does. It should also be noted that the spare drive was also a Samsung writemaster drive (although it was a different model to my default one)

Incase you are wondering – I am running 64 bit Vista, and have a Samsung DVD drive. I found the Samsung website very helpful and easy to navigate, and installed new firmware for my device using the ‘Live Update program’ from their website, where all you have to do is download the program, install it, double click the icon, and press download (oh and make sure you remove any media from your drive!) you can find the live update software from Samsung here: http://www.samsungodd.com/Eng/

Update (AKA SOLUTION!):

After doing some scouting around, I have read that a certain website *cough cough* actually contains a replacement exe file which makes the game run without the CD inserted. I have tested it, and sure enough it seems to work! Apparently this file is from a pirated version of the game, so I don’t know how legal it is, but if you have purchased the game, you should be ok I think.

1. Download this file: located here
2. Unzip it (right click and extract files)
3. Copy the file
4. Paste it over your original .exe file (usually in program files\activision\codwaw\codwaw.exe

enjoy

If you found this post useful, feel free to buy me a beer!

Harman Kardon Drive + Play 1

I often thought about getting an ipod to keep me company on those lonely walks, long drives, and early morning showers, but the price tag and the thought of an FM transmitter in the car just would not beat CD’s and my phone (N95) with a 4gb memory card…

Most of my music listening happens in the car nowadays (which is a shame, because I have a lovely home theatre system at home [duhh] that I’d like to spend more time with). I used to cart around multiple CD’s, as well as a couple of CD carriers in the car. All in all I think I had about 50-80 CD’s in the car at any one time.

Neat huh?

I tried a small carrier for convenience, and a huge carrier for multiple choice, but neither worked well for me. I ended up never changing the CD’s inside the small case, and getting bored of flicking through the CD’s in the big case.

So I stumbled on the Harman Kardon Drive + Play at www.hotdealsuk.com for a grand old price tag of £30…I was interested. The ability to have all my music (which at the time of writing, was about 86GB) with me all the time, and get full stereo kick ass sound?

I investigated.

It appeared that the company had recently released a new version (version 2, obviously) of their Drive and Play unit, which included a colour screen, and the ability to display album art. These things did not interest me that much, and the £200 price tag certainly didn’t entice me. The old version looked good, it had a black and white backlit screen, and a simple control dial (the bottom thing is the ‘brain’ which can be hidden anywhere in the car).

Drive and Play 1

My biggest concern with this thing was the fitting of it. I rang around a few garages and they all quoted between £90 and £130 for fitting it. This was a scary prospect, what started out as a neat little £30 investment, was turning into a £120 pain in the ass.  I decided to order the Drive and Play unit and see how it worked before I splashed out to get it fitted (after all, it could be used wireless, and powered with a cigarette lighter)

So some time passed, and the finally my unit arrived… I was excited… I had no ipod, but luckily for me, my girlfriend did. I unpacked it all, and hooked everything up…I spent a lot of time looking at this diagram, figuring out how and what to do with the multitude of wires, knobs and dials I had opened (it looked so simple in the image above).

Installation diagram

Once I had it all hooked up, I turned it on plugged it in and away we went… it sounded ok, no better than an itrip though, so I started looking for other ways to connect my Drive+Play.

It turns out the UK model of the Drive and Play comes with a built in wireless FM modulator, which means that it basically works the same way as the itrips available on the market. This was not an ideal solution for me, because I knew the quality of those little beasts was not that great, especially in built up areas. So the US model comes with a wired FM modulator, which does the same job, but connects directly to your car stereo via the aerial input (it sits between the aerial lead and the stereo). I contacted Harmon Kardon, and they told me where I could get this from, so I ordered it for £10 inc postage.

FM modulator

The other option I had was to hard wire the ‘brain’ of the Drive and Play into the stereo via a 3.5mm -> RCA jack lead. This is great if your car has an AUX input (3.5mm -> 3.5mm jack lead) or standard RCA inputs (the red and white stereo input). Sadly my car had neither of these, and the unit would cost about £40 to buy (For my 2005 Ford Focus I needed the CTVFOX001 unit) so this is why I opted to try the wired FM modulator.

After some significant faffing around, my FM modulator lead arrived, I unpacked it, and ran to the car to fit it, only to find that Fords and Renaults seem to have a different aerial lead to the harmon kardon version. Dammit. Anyway, a quick bit of scouting around on ebay, and I found the 2 adapters I needed to have a fully working model. Awesome.

I used the FM modulator for a few weeks, and decided in the end that the unit really did not add much over the wireless modulator, which was a bit gutting considering I had spent a tenner on something that didn’t really seem to do anything.

I bucked up, and decided to go crazy and buy the Aux input adapter from connects2.com who were a very helpful company, and had excellent e-mail support. The adapter basically takes place of the CD changer input on my stereo, and yo ucan select the input by just pressing the CD button to flick between the actual CD in the stereo, and the AUX input.

Ford AUX input

As soon as my adapter arrived, I plugged it in, and straight away I had an amazing sound from my ipod. I think my first choice of music was Biffy clyro’s ‘living is a problem because everything dies’ which sounded excellent.

Next I had a bash at fitting it in my car – and not being very good with cars, I was nervous. At first I mounted the screen on top of my dash, which looked great, but did also shout ‘steal me’, being so visable. So I had a play around with several different positions, and finally realised that with some help from some sticky back velcro, I could mount the screen in my car, and be able to hide it on the ledge under my steering wheel when it wasn’t in use. Check the gallery to see some more pics of the unit mounted in my car (Ford Focus)

Drive + Play mounted in car

Installation diagram

Drive + Play mounted in car

Drive + Play mounted in car

The next step was to hide the wires – which wasn’t actually as bad as it sounded. I ran a wire from the cigarette lighter in the back along the floor and just under the footwell, I hid my ‘brain’ – which was accessable by just lifting the plastic on the right of the footwell and sliding the device inside the gap (which fitted perfectly). This enabled me to run all the wires behind that magic bit of plasitc, and into the glovebox neatly – so that I had my ipod connector and the 3.5mm jack (more on that later) ready for use.

I got round to buying an ipod (I went for the ipod classic 160gb model, so that all my songs fit on it, I hate the thought of having to choose which music I want to listen to), and it works great with the Drive+Play. The only problems I have, are that the Drive+Play was out before ipods started having a podcast or audiobook section to them, which means that you cannot select either of these functions through the drive+play menu. There is however a workaround – because the unit has a 3.5mm headphone input (aux in) on it, this means that you can also hook up your ipod to it with the 3.5mm cable, and just press play on the ipod to listen through your stereo – ok so it’s not ideal, but hey, it’s something.

Update: I missed something really obvious here… you can just create a playlist in itunes (or any itunes replacement) full of your podcasts and/or audiobooks, and control them from your Drive + Play

Verdict: awesome gadget that I can’t wait to see more development on. It lacks some features like podcasts and audiobooks, but I am luckily not a big listener to either of those things. The other thing to note is that my 160gb ipod sometimes takes a little while to spit up all the artists/songs – but once they are loaded, it flys through them at a rate which you can actually set in the menu (a bit like how many lines your mouse wheel scrolls). The other bonus is that anyone driving near you can tune in on the wireless if you choose to keep on transmitting those signals (you can turn it off through the settings)

Check todays prices for the Drive and play here: Drive and Play prices

I also found a seller on ebay offering some pretty good prices on spares for the drive and play, should you ever break or lose something you need: visit them on ebay

C-Media sound cards (CMI8768 and CMI8768+)

So, like me, you thought you found a good deal on a 5.1 sound card with SPDIF and DDL (Dolby Digital Live) – well think again!

Ok, so I got the C-Media CMI8768 sound card for about £12, and then afterwards realised that it didn’t do Dolby Digital Live, which was a huge thing for me, as I wanted to connect my PC to my AV receiver via SPDIF in order to enjoy harmonious 6.1 surround sound whilst playing games.

It’s worth noting that games of today tend not to output through SPDIF, and stick to the good old fashioned analog outputs only. This means, that even if you have SPDIF connected to your stereo with a million speakers, you will only get a stereo mixdown from your games. The way around this is to get a sound card with DDL, which basically converts analog to digital on the fly, meaning that you can achieve surround sound whilst playing games, by using SPDIF.

Of course I found all this out after I bought the damn card… but hey.

SPDIF (digital, optical)

So anyway, after a lot of problems with drivers, I realised that hey, I have the wrong card anyway, my mistake. So I took the plunge and bought the other card, the big brother, the C-Media CMI8768+ (that + basically means, does everything the same as the old version, but includes DDL)

Now the fun begins.

After hours of tweaking the outputs to get SPDIF working ok (which in all fairness, I did get working eventually) I realised that even to hear a nice 6.1 surround sound in media center, I had to go into Media Center, click settings, click DVD, and then Audio, and then open a screen in windows that enabled me to choose SPDIF.

This was not on.

Luckily the sound card performs better with other programs, but really badly with MCE and VLC, the two programs I use most. When selecting SPDIF out in VLC, all I got was fuzz from the speakers, like a radio with no aerial.

After spending far too much time trying to resolve my problem, and downloading multiple drivers (people have taken to making their own now) and checking forums… it appeared that Cmedia didn’t actually use their message board, or release new drivers, in fact it seemed that although they marketed the card pretty well, they didn’t actually support it at all! (for horrifiying evidence of this, check here: Cmedia support forum)

So, I was now about £30 out of pocket, and connected my amp up with the normal 3.5mm -> RCA jack, when it hit me. I had more outputs!  of course… analog outputs… this would enable me to use DDL and give me 6.1 sound all at once! so I headed over to dealextreme.com and bought a few 3.5mm -> RCA jack leads (cost about 80p each inc postage) and hooked them up to my stereo like so (I didn’t use the digital our, mic in, or analog line in, and my card looks different to this one below):

Analog audio connections

My amp (Denon 1507, click the image for full size):

Denon 1507 inputs

See those 8 little inputs in the bottom left corner? thats the EXT input (sometimes called 7.1 or 8.1 input) where you can match up the RCA leads from the sound card, to these sockets.

So now I had it… my sound card worked (when it wasn’t actually seated properly into the motherboard…when it was, it wasn’t recognised) – and without the use of SPDIF, freeing up that input on my amp for my 360, or whatever else. I did have a few problems with the card outputting channels in a different order to what was described, but that was quickly solved by just swapping round the outputs into the amp. I do have a bit of a hiss on my front right speaker, but I can’t say that the card is definitley to blame for that, as it is probably a lose lead somewhere.

My advice: If anyone has an old sound card laying around, and a nice AV receiver – try the old sound card and a few RCA leads first, and see what kind of quality you get. Using the analog outputs means you can have DDL, which means you can play games in surround sound (even most newer games do not output to SPDIF with full surround sound yet). This is a cheaper option, and one that worked very well for me.

PS. if you have vista and want a Cmedia sound card – please just avoid them like the plague. 

The plague. nuff said