Disposable Windows Computers...

The hard drive in my Dad's Dell 15-3521 just died. He brought it over with all the original packing and documentation. Good thing I have a brand new spare drive that I can install for him. Too bad there is no Windows 8 recovery media that was provide by Dell. PFT! Microsoft does not offer a download for the same version either. OH, and there is no COA on the bottom of the laptop either.

I GUESS WE ARE JUST SUPPOSED TO THROW IT IN THE TRASH OR PAY FOR A NEW VERSION OF THE WINDOWS THAT HE ALREADY OWNS OR PURCHASE RECOVERY MEDIA FROM DELL! C'mon. 

I HATE WINDOWS!

Update-
BIG THANKS to the hacking community. I found the restore image online and was able to download and restore the operating system.

HP Mini 311 Hackintosh Guide 10.6.8

I just finished installing OS X 10.6.8 on my Mini 311-1037NR . Below are some of my observations-

1. Using the tutorial found here, I have a usable system.
2. Having to use Snow Leopard again kinda sucks. I’m using Lion on my Macbook Pro.
3. Purchases in the App Store are no longer compatible with 10.6. iWork and iLife require a 64-bit processor or 10.7 (Lion). 
4. Trim is not supported in Snow Leopard so using my SSD is probably not a good idea.
5. Still some issues with sleep and there is no audio over HDMI. Both are known issues. Don’t expect a fix ever because development has stopped for this laptop.

Links-
*Please note that after a bit of research I found these links/files to be the only ones still relevant at the time of this writing October 8, 2013.

BootCD.iso aka BootCD-altPS2.iso
Mini311_Retail_Pack_20110630v3.zip contains Tutorial
Kext Utility

If you don't currently have a Mac you can still make a bootable Snow Leapord USB Stick using Windows and Transmac! *Make sure your prepare your usb stick with diskpart. The instructions are halfway down this page.


Update 10/14/13-
The Hackintosh Mini 311 is still running great. Only issues to report are with iWork not reading MS Office documents and reduced battery life. The reduced battery life stinks. I went from a max of 5 hours with Windows 7 to just 2.5 hours with Snow Leopard. There is also an issue with crunchy audio over Bluetooth but it's not a deal killer since I typically use my iPhone for that.

Ubuntu Temperature Monitoring with Psensor

I found the perfect tool for monitoring my headless network appliance aka my little Ubuntu Server. Psensor was a cinch to install using directions from here. It shows the mainboard, cpu, hdd temp and current processor load for my setup. I set custom alarms for each and now will at least be notified before the computer catches fire in the top of my hallway closet.