Lenovo 3000 H210, Part 2 - Replace CMOS Battery, Upgrade To SSD, Install & Activate Windows 7 64-Bit

Originally recorded November 21, 2024.
All right, it's time to whip this machine back into shape. First step is to replace the CMOS battery. of course I didn't have any "good" batteries laying around, just some super-cheap ones China sent with some product. Didn't taste too fresh so I broke out of the multimeter to find it only had 2.5 volts. That's not too fresh, considering a CMOS battery has 3.3 volts when new. But, it's good enough. And that's actually true, as you'll see later. Most machines don't need the full 3.3 volts to operate, and can run and keep the settings on far less voltage. That's a good thing because I got a bunch more of those batteries.
Next, in order to preserve what's on the original hard drive, just in case there's anything ‪@tallboyyyy‬ might still want or need on there, it would be wise to swap in a "testbed" hard drive as we call them in the business. All that is, is a hard drive that works. Doesn't have to be large, doesn't have to be fast, just work. Well, let's hasten the process and put in an SSD. I have one handy, it's empty, so why not?
Lastly we go and actually install Windows 7 Home Premium, but this time, a 64-bit variant. Of course it will run on this processor as it supports 64-bit instructions. But will it activate? Before disbanding the original drive completely, I ran an old tool that we used at Tiny Middle that can try to "extract" the product key from an existing installed copy of Windows. For a time, we were to run this stupid tool that displayed all sorts of other info it could gather, and print it out and give it to the customer, and tell them to keep it with their records. If 5 customers in the history of the place ever did that, it was a lot. It also was to be super convenient for us if the machine ever comes back for service, if the customer provides that packet of information. Nobody ever did. Would have been convenient if we needed to reinstall Windows in the future, but all this tool was, was another time waster that we had to run as part of the service. That's always great when the customer brings the machine in today and needs it fixed yesterday. This time, it came in handy, and extracted said product key for me.
So, with Windows installed, and fortunately no drivers were needed to try and hunt down as they were all built-in to the OS, it was high time to see if Windows will activate. Microsoft has removed Internet activation of Windows 7, but still provides telephone support for it. I entered the extracted product key in under the 64-bit environment, and it was accepted as valid, and did provide an installation ID. I fed that info to Microsoft and indeed, they gave me the resultant confirmation ID. It's activated! Fun fact: I have not had a legal, licensed copy of Windows installed since the XP days. Windows was activated though, through other means. This is actually a small victory, yet large victory at the same time.
(Also worth mentioning: Lenovo still have a bit of the ol' IBM in them, as this machine was slightly overbuilt. And by that, I simply mean, it has finger guards on the INSIDE of the machine over the 2 fans. Wow, that's definitely something IBM would do. IBM always overbuilt their stuff. They also included additional mounting screws for an additional hard drive and additional optical drive. That's class!)
Related video:
Lenovo 3000 H210 - Functional But Needs Reload With 64-Bit OS
• Lenovo 3000 H210 - Fun...

[@ItzYaBoyJesse]

Might as well call it Novo, har har!

[@jaykay18]

From the 1960s through almost the end of the 1980s, there was a car made called the Chevy Nova. People always joked about that car, probably more true than not. They said that "No va" in Spanish translates to "No go".

[@ItzYaBoyJesse]

@jaykay18 right right