A Day at Lamington Road!!! (Paradise of computer related stuff)

In Mumbai and nearby when it comes to buying new Personal computer,its accessories,storage units and other stuff the first reaction that comes from everyone is "why don't you check @ Lamington road ". The official name of the road, though rarely used, is Dr. Dadasaheb  Bhadkamkar Marg. It is often called the "IT hub of Mumbai". The nearest railway station is Grant Road on Central Railway.

Since i wanted to buy (Everything except monitor) to be able to called it as my PC so i decided to left home early so that i can reach Hub early. I reached Lamington road around 10.30 am it was Saturday ; and there was much more crowd than what i anticipated.The reason was it was Saturday since most of the shops there remain closed on Sunday ;Saturday and public holiday is the day when Lamington road is crowded. So my first advice to those who are going to buy the whole system or many parts avoid these days so that you can negotiate better with shopkeepers out there.

First Shop that  I entered was McCann Infosys no relation with IT giant Infosys.It is a small but busy shop.Most of the space in there is occupied by cabinets :) n rest gets occupied by people.The glass showcase facing road is filled with MoBo boxes most of them empty though :) as people don't bother  to take those boxes home after assembling the system. Shopkeepers use it effectively actually you should take those boxes home as they come handy when carrying MoBos around,anyways same is the case for most of other shops on Lamington.When it comes to pricing i would say always ask them for Quote that would include Value Added Tax;otherwise they might quote less but give you 'Kaccha' Bill which is of no use. This shop is fairly at start of street  so advice for Newbies is get Quote from them and then move to next  shop to see what Quotation  they have got for you.

Next Shop that I entered was Mac IT Solutions.It was also crowded;a bigger shop  compared to McCann in terms of area.Here 4-5 people are there who Quotes Prices catch the one who is wearing goggles :) actually there are two who always wear them catch any one of them.You can expect better quotation from them and from rest you can expect absurd quotation.(absurd becoz they will quote very less or very high without confirming the rates so you will get happy;but when his superior will come to know about it he will purposelly delay your order and will then say it is out of stock).Quotes are inclusive VAT here.

Next in the queue was Prime abgb.A posh shop located on 1st Floor of Shopping complex opposite Police Station.You will feel good when you enter this shop.They quote few bucks higher then rest but i have heard that their customer service is good.But they will charge you extra for assembling your system which is done for free elsewhere on lamington road.So choice is Yours :)

Meanwhile I also visited few other shop like Computer Gallery,Computer Shoppe took Quotation from them and went ahead.The next halt was at Mahavir.It is located next to police station .A good shop gave me reasonably good quotation.

Each and every shop in lamington is connected to various dealer through Intercom.Dealer will quote price for shopkeepers on call ,shopkeeper will calculate margin on that amount in mind and will tell you final Price as if dealer told him the Very same price.If they see that you are a Serious buyer and not casual one who just ask for quotation then they will use word like "Ekdam Kadak Rate Batana" with Dealer in such case the final amount can look much better for you.:).So act like serious buyer there.

So now Question in your mind will be from which shop should i buy?

The ANSWER  is the one who gives you best Quotation(VAT incl),Genuine Product,Free Assembling etc
I would not include after sales service part here because that has to be claimed at Service centre and with you having original VAT bill why to worry.

Cheers

Using nLite Software

in this Post i will be explaining slipstreaming process using nLite.

Slipstreaming is a process that incorporates all necessary Service Packs , hotfixes and drivers into a customized bootable Windows CD that also contains the complete, original installation files.

This can be achieved using nLite tool.

Here i will be explaining slipstreaming windows xp with SATA drivers

First of all, get the SATA driver from manufactures website.

STEP 1:

copy windows xp cd content on to your hard disk

now in nLite application browse the saved cd content.

STEP 2

Immediately after you have chosen the destination folder, the application will start copying the Windows installation files. When finished, it will display some version information regarding the newly copied Windows Installation Package.

STEP 3

Now, click next twice until you get to a screen where you get options sorted in 4 categories: Integrate, Remove, Setup, Create. We are interested in the integration procedure, therefore select the Drivers button and click next.

STEP 4

From the next menu window, click Insert and select multiple drive folder option from the drop down menu. This option permits you to browse to the location where the downloaded drivers are found.

Select the containing directory and click next. You will get a list with the available drivers (in case there are more than one) or simply one driver. Select it (them) and click next.

Make sure that the drivers are in .inf format if they are in .zip format then first of all extract them.

STEP 5

Now the application will ask for the permission to start the integration procedure. Choose Yes and wait for the drivers to be inserted into the installation package.

STEP 6

STEP 7

With problematic driver being included in the installation package you can install Windows XP on your SATA HDD.

but you will need bootable cd to start installation.bootable disk image can be created as follows

STEP 8

then burn this bootable disk image on CD using your favourite CD burning software.

Slipstream Windows XP with SATA Drivers

Last week one of my friend gave me his Sony Vaio-VGN-NS135e laptop to change its Operating System from Windows Vista to Windows xp.

Initially i thought that it would be a simple installation process but i was wrong.

when i BOOTED from xp cd the installation process started and it started to load drivers .but after minute or so the blue screen error message was displayed saying......

the system was clean so there was no chance it being infected by virus.But the error message saying that check for hard drive corruption clearly indicate that there must some problem with Setup detecting SATA hard disk.

Windows XP setup installation interface does not detect and recognize any of the hard disks mounted on S-ATA (Serial ATA) ports, and thus XP installer cannot find usable physical disks on the computer system and unable to continue to install XP, forcing you to quit by pressing F3.

The first Solution to this problem was using motherboard manufacturers floppy disk with needed SATA driver, which you can then use F6 button during initial setup stage to add drivers.

But my friends laptop was not shipped with any such floppy disk and also i need to purchase a new USB Floppy Drive which was Costly.

The next option was related with BIOS setting.

There is a ACHI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) hardware mechanism which are designed to allow software to communicate with Serial ATA (SATA) devices.Windows XP (and any OS older than Vista ) does not have came pre-packaged with driver to support AHCI/SATA mode.Users can install Windows XP on an AHCI enabled system by changing BIOS setting to disable AHCI (which includes AHCI in its functions) and use native SATA IDE emulation mode (SATA/PATA). In SATA IDE Emulation mode, XP setup could find the SATA drives and proceed to continue to install XP properly.

But in my case the BIOS was not showing any such option of changing the setting,so this option was also closed for me.

The only Last option that was left with me was to Slipstream Windows XP with SATA Drivers.

More of this Slipstreaming process in my next Blog Entry till then BYE.