Toolbox 2.0.1 menu selections greyed out

[idata]

Toolbox 2.0.1 shows drives and I can click between them. It also works on "exit" and "refresh" buttons but none of the menu buttons work and are greyed out.

Config; Intel SSD 120gb X25-M G2 working fine on port 0. Have one partition at 83GB and leaving rest empty as suggested on Internet. I suspect firmware current but tried Cystaldiskinfo and it doesn't see any drives. Vista Device Manager doesn't have the "Device Instance ID" selection shown on this site but one of the ID labels had this extension 2CV1. I assume the remainder was cut off. Using MS drivers.

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2 mobo. Bios updated. AHCI mode with MS driver, Vista 64bit. Have second AHCI plate drive for storage. No RAID. Superfetch, hibernation and defrag disabled.

Any ideas?

[mmokk]

parsec wrote:

The problem with putting your SSD in another PC to "trim" it is this: TRIM tells the SSD controller which pages and blocks are no longer valid data. The SSD does not have that information, but the OS does. But how would the OS in a PC that was never connected to the SSD know what data on it is no longer valid? All it can do is read the file folders and then send TRIM commands from then on when files were deleted or changed.

this is true for the native trim functionality of those operating systems that support trim. but the toolbox optimizer works a little differently. it doesn't know which blocks are already invalid, but it doesn't matter because it fills all of the free space with dummy files, then deletes those files, rendering all of the blocks invalid. the optimizer then passes the list of blocks to the ssd and the ssd takes it from there.

so if you've got a pc with the toolbox installed, you can connect any g2 to it as a secondary drive and 'trim' it that way with the optimizer.

[idata]

mistermokkori wrote:

parsec wrote:

The problem with putting your SSD in another PC to "trim" it is this: TRIM tells the SSD controller which pages and blocks are no longer valid data. The SSD does not have that information, but the OS does. But how would the OS in a PC that was never connected to the SSD know what data on it is no longer valid? All it can do is read the file folders and then send TRIM commands from then on when files were deleted or changed.

this is true for the native trim functionality of those operating systems that support trim. but the toolbox optimizer works a little differently. it doesn't know which blocks are already invalid, but it doesn't matter because it fills all of the free space with dummy files, then deletes those files, rendering all of the blocks invalid. the optimizer then passes the list of blocks to the ssd and the ssd takes it from there.

so if you've got a pc with the toolbox installed, you can connect any g2 to it as a secondary drive and 'trim' it that way with the optimizer.

I was uncertain (and remain uncertain) how the Toolbox Optimizer truly functions, I'd love to know how you learned or know those details. I understand your explanation, but a detail seems to be missing.

Assuming that the SSD we connect to an Optimizing-able PC has both valid and deleted files on it, how does the SSDs garbage collection function know which are which? Given your explanation, is seems to me the result would be a nicely garbage-collected SSD, with the deleted files preserved, and not returned to available space.

I'm not saying your explanation is wrong, but I don't understand how the operation you described also free's the space of deleted files.

One other thing, you seem to be saying the Toolbox/Optimizer can run with an AMD chipset, given the correct OS settings? Again I'm not saying that is false, I am just trying to understand and learn whether or not that scenario will work.

[mmokk]

parsec wrote:

Assuming that the SSD we connect to an Optimizing-able PC has both valid and deleted files on it, how does the SSDs garbage collection function know which are which? Given your explanation, is seems to me the result would be a nicely garbage-collected SSD, with the deleted files preserved, and not returned to available space.

let's say we have a 'dirty' g2 that was used under windows xp. from the perspective of the operating system, the ssd contains valid data (existing files as well as files in the recycle bin), and free space. this information is stored in the ntfs master file table on the ssd. xp doesn't have native trim functionality, so a number of blocks in the file system free space will contain data that the ssd is not aware are invalid. only when the operating system writes to these blocks (remember, the os thinks they're free) does the ssd realize that the data on them is not valid. had we been using an operating sytem with native trim support, this would not be the case because when we quick format or delete files and empty the recycle bin, the os sends a list of these just-freed blocks to the drive. the ssd then immediately knows that the blocks contain invalid data.

the intel toolbox optimizer fills up the drive's free space with dummy files (you can see these files being created in the root directory of the ssd when you run the optimizer), then deletes them. at this point, then, all of the free space contains invalid data (because they were dummy files, and not your data or program or system files). the optimizer then passes a list of all of these blocks to the ssd. the ssd now knows which blocks are invalid. from the perspective of the operating system, you still have the same amount of free space that you did before you ran the optimizer, since all it did was create files and delete them. the blocks that are free (from the os's viewpoint) coincide exactly with the blocks that contain invalid data (from the ssd's pov). this is what we want.

if you take a 'dirty' g2 and plug it into another pc and run the optimizer on it, it works exactly the same way. the optimizer forces all free space on the drive to become invalid, and then communicates this to the drive. now the drive knows exactly which blocks are dirty and need to be cleaned.

the native trim functionality of windows 7 works only on-the-fly. it cannot retroactively trim, because there is nothing in the ntfs metadata to indicate which blocks 'need trimming'. blocks are either used (valid data), or free, or bad (unreadable).

so if you use a g2 in a windows 7 pc, then modify the data on it using an operating system without trim support, the ssd will have blocks on it that will contain invalid data, but the ssd won't know. this is a situation where you may want to use the toolbox optimizer even when you're using an os that supports native trim.

[idata]

I took your advice and went NATIVE IDE and the toolbox now isn't greyed out. Thank you very much.

Now it was suggested earlier that I use the entire drive. Also I did about 2 or 3 formats and a few erase everything when initially trying to get Vista on it. So I'm thinking it may make sense to remove the partition and then do a secure erase and start over. Does that make sense, is something gained?

I notice in the instructionsthat I have to run secure erase from my other drive. Do I put toolbox on the old HDD drive to run it for the SSD erase?

I spent the day studying about AMD SB750 drivers. AMD now has a TRIM driver for the SB8XX and higher models running on WIN7. Also I found out that they had one for the SB750 but removed it. I did download the file from somebody for future use if necessary. If I remember people had problems with it so they pulled it but a few guys said they have been using it with no trouble. Would running TRIM automatic be better than doing it manually?

Thank agains for everything,

Michael

[mmokk]

deskjockey wrote:

Now it was suggested earlier that I use the entire drive. Also I did about 2 or 3 formats and a few erase everything when initially trying to get Vista on it. So I'm thinking it may make sense to remove the partition and then do a secure erase and start over. Does that make sense, is something gained?

it makes sense to use the entire drive, but you can resize the partition without reinstalling windows. vista and windows 7 disk management can extend and shrink volumes.

I notice in the instructionsthat I have to run secure erase from my other drive. Do I put toolbox on the old HDD drive to run it for the SSD erase?

no need to use secure erase now that you've got the optimizer working, but yes, you'd boot off the other hard drive, install the toolbox, and run secure erase on the ssd.

I spent the day studying about AMD SB750 drivers. AMD now has a TRIM driver for the SB8XX and higher models running on WIN7. Also I found out that they had one for the SB750 but removed it. I did download the file from somebody for future use if necessary. If I remember people had problems with it so they pulled it but a few guys said they have been using it with no trouble. Would running TRIM automatic be better than doing it manually?

windows vista won't have native trim no matter what drivers you install. those amd trim drivers simply allow the windows 7 native trim commands to pass through to the ssd.

you will simply need to run the toolbox optimizer every once in a while. the rule of thumb i would use is if the system becomes noticeably slower during write operations, run the optimizer. how often you end up running it will depend on your personal usage patterns. the toolbox can help you schedule regular optimizing if that's what you prefer.