12/18/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today was my last day with cfsbc so I couldn't really take a big order or anything, instead Robert had me collect around 35 Toshiba A6s and unlock the BIOS password on them. If you flip over the laptop and remove the RAM cover, you will see a piece of black plastic covering the board. Once you have peeled it back you will see by the pins some writing that says "CMOS CLR1" I use paper clip and touch the two capacitors with both ends to short circuit the password. Once you boot up you will be prompt saying that the password has been reset and you will now be able to access the BIOS.

After lunch I had all the laptops passwords reset so since I had nothing else to do I started to swap the hard drives and put 2GB of RAM into them and was going to start a XP install before I left but I ran out of time, I had to give my order to William to finish for me since I'm done today.
Overall cfsbc was the perfect place for me to go in my opinion because I feel like I'm walking away with a lot more knowledge and confidence then ever before.


I'm really fortunate to for Robert and Marry Em to accept me and give me this chance to develop more skills, and making me a better technician. Thank you :)

12/17/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today I spent most of my time installing software. First I installed Office onto the 10 laptops I had running but found out after that I installed the wrong version. So after I uninstalled them on all the laptops I got the right version in its place. After I had that all done I brought them into the cleaning station and removed all the tags off them and gave them a good cleaning. Once they were packaged up there wasn't much time to start a new order, so I helped in the back sorting old printers and cleaning up the warehouse.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/16/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I got in I got a order for 7 free level laptops and a different order for 1 free level laptop. I'm using 7 HP laptops and 1 Toshiba, all of them needed a dban and they take 3 hours so I had a lot of down time today. I had a issue with a couple of them were the BIOS was locked and I couldn't get into it no matter what trick I tried. Peter, a fellow volunteer that has a lot of experience with HP showed me a neat trick reset the password. He opened up the cover for the RAM on the bottom of the laptop and lifted up the thin piece of plastic covering the board. He then showed me were it says CMOS CLR and told me to put a piece of metal and touch the two jumpers, it will short circuit and clear the passwords, and that worked perfectly.


After lunch I had XP installing and they finished just before the day ended so I'll have to finish up the orders tomorrow morning.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/13/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I got in, Adam and I finished off the keyboards for the big order we had and got everything all wrapped up and ready. After that I was invited to the Christmas lunch that they were having so I didn't do much IT work today. I extremely appreciate them inviting me too, that was really nice of them :)

After checking my log I will be done my practicum on Wednesday so I'm going to try to get a big order done before my time here is done.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/12/2013 - Practicum Blog

When I got in today the computers where already running and ready for me to install Win7, unfortunately the customer changed the order and is asking for no OS. So that means Adam and I have to get the computers back and run DBAN to clear the drive on all of the computers we did the previous day, which was 67 of them. As you can tell my entire day consisted of disk killing, we did manage to get all 67 completed and cleaned before the day ended so tomorrow we just have to get all the keyboards/mice/cords ect ready so we can package everything up.

We were using a disk to run the DBAN on the computers and we came across 2 computers that were not wanting to boot from the CD-ROM. First thing I did was check the boot order and made the CD-ROM first but that didn't work, I then disabled the hard drive and the network from the boot order completely but that didn't fix the problem either. Instead of going to deep into it I tried swapping out the CD Drive to see if thats whats causing it, and what do you know, I was able to boot from the CD right after i swapped them. The second computer had the same issue so I managed to get 2 more computers to fill the order :)


Depending how long it takes to get all the cords/monitors/keyboards/mice ect all together I should get a new order tomorrow.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/10/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I got in my supervisor printed out a order of 100 desktops for me and Adam to do. We don't have 100 of the super slim desktops that we're giving them but we have to use them up then find a different kind to finish. They need 2 GB of RAM and we need to swap the hard drives then do a burn in following the OS installation. I got around 10 of them 100% done but I spent the entire day opening them and adding hardware since I had to wait for the OS to finish. So on thursday I'll be installing a lot of hardware lol

I came across 2 issues today while I was trying to install Win7. One being on boot up I got a black screen with a " BOOTMGR cannot be found" and I used THIS website to help me figure it out. First I thought the files must be corrupt but the other 3 next to it worked, so I tried a couple more times and same thing. before we left Mat and I we're doing a test to see if the hard drive is failing but the day ended before it could finish so I'll have to find out Thursday since we have First-Aid tomorrow. The second Issue I had was pretty simple, I put the stick in DIMM 2 instead of 1. A decent tip I've found is the black plastic around the RAM slots normally means DIMM 1, I was putting RAM in the bottom white slot and thats how I found out.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/09/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I got in I did some final updates to my order and gave them a good cleaning, then spent a good hour or so getting them into boxes, stuffing them with foam and shrink wrapping it to be sent off.

After lunch I was going to ask for a new order but Robert asked if I could get a head start on a big order they got which calls for 400 something desktops. The computers we're going to refurbish for them are neat little things, they are desktops but they take all laptop parts even down to the charger being the power supply. Here's a picture I took of them

for this order we just need to give them 2GB of RAM and do a burn in and I believe that's it. So its simple but time consuming since there are so many we have to do. I'm not sure if I'll start doing my own orders or continue on with this task tomorrow or not but I'll let you know in tomorrows blog

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/05/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I arrived I finished off my order form yesterday and started off with a new one. This one calls for 2 super upgraded laptops with Win7 and Office with a laser printer. I put all the hardware in pretty quick and started the Burn-In and installed Win7 when it was done. While the OS was installing I grabbed another order which calls for 3 free level laptops and 1 upgrade laptop. I had problems booting up the 3 dell laptops because there was a Admin password on the BIOS so I couldn't enable the NIC and boot into the network. I looked online for ways to disable the password and came across this website where you have to enter in the service tag and it will generate the Admin password, and it worked perfectly! I can't find the site I used because I was using the computer at the shop but I'll defiantly get the site to share with you guys tomorrow

After I got the 3 dells doing a OS installation I started working on the order I'll do tomorrow which calls for 39 17" monitors. Its pretty easy, I just gotta inspect to make sure they work and give them a quick cleaning. If anyone is still looking for a second practicum I highly recommend working at cfsbc.ca if you don't mind commuting out to Burnaby each day that is. You'll be doing hands on work 24/7 and getting a bunch of experience too.

So yeah that was my day, I'll let you all know how things go in tomorrow blog~

12/04/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today I got six new laptops to replace the ones I was using the day before because they were the wrong ones and some were broken. I started off by replacing the first laptops hard drive to come to see that its a IDE hard drive and we don't have a active way of mass whipping IDE drives, only sata.
I put the hard drive back in and booted into the network and used Active@Kill to kill the hard drives in the machine since we can't swap the drive yet.

After I got 5 of the laptops running the disk kill, Greg showed up, we had a small meeting then I showed him my work station and the warehouse to give him an idea of what I do each day. Hoping he didn't have too hard of a time finding the building lol


Once lunch was over I had 2 old IBM laptops with supervisor passwords on boot. First thing I did was I took the keyboard out and palm rest panel to get at the motherboard and removed the CMOS battery and booted it to see if that would work, It didn't. I then tried to short circuit the jumpers but that didn't work either. I had to move on and get 2 different laptops because I couldn't spend too much time on them. I'm currently looking up a solid way of disabling it and I'll let you all know in tomorrows blog.


Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/03/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I got in I got all the monitors done with the help of everyone there which was a big help because I was done before 9:30! I was then able to start my new order which should be done tomorrow. I just need 1 Laptop with a new hard drive,RAM with Win7 and 6 other laptops with XP. I got it done around 2pm but my supervisor and I picked out the wrong computer so I had to put them aside and get the other laptops. I'll hopefully get them all done around lunch tomorrow and I'll get to start a new order.

One tip that Dave showed me was if you press Ctrl Sift P you'll browse with InPrivate, In a Private Browsing window, it won't keep any browser history, search history, download history, web form history, cookies, or temporary internet files. if you use your computer you don't really need to use this but if you are using their computers its good to use.

So that was my day, I'll let you all know how my order goes tomorrow,

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/02/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today I started off with my order from last week and I managed to get all 60 desktops completed today so the only thing left I have to do is, inspect/clean 49 monitors and to package up 60 keyboards/mouse's and 60 avi/vga adapters. I should be done this order tomorrow depending how long it takes to get through all the monitors. One good tip/trick I learned last week was to press Ctrl Alt Del when booting up if you need to restart instead of waiting for it to finished or holding down the power button and ect, it just makes things a lot simpler lol

I'm really hoping to get into networking sometime this week or next week because I think this will be the more useful skill to learn. So that was pretty much my day and I look forward to what tomorrow holds!

Thanks for taking the time to read this~