X25-E not detected in compatible laptop

[idata]

I just got the new SSD disk (Intel X25-E) and I inserted into my Lenovo Thinkpad SL 300 laptop. However, it is not detected during boot, BIOS or any post-installation of operating systems. When I switch back to the standard disk that followed the laptop, this disk gets detected immediately. I've made assure that the SSD disk works (on a different computer with really old motherboard)

- I have the newest BIOS firmware 1.24, released 18 of June.

- I have tried changing the mode from AHCI to compatible mode in BIOS.

Anyone have any ideas how to deal with the issue? Or does the firmware change anything

[idata]

Hi DSSDGuy,

thanks for your ideas. May I ask if these two have been tested with the Sl 300 model? I have not had time to test this, but I think it's really sad that I only have the option between removing the CD rom or making the laptop cumbersome to carry around (its supposed to be light weighted)

1. Regarding solution one, I don't see the real solution here. Because what I really want is to use the Intels SSD as a primary hard-drive, and only hard-drive. This means I should not need to remove the CD-rom to insert an ultrabay but use the original drive bay. Additionaly, I don't think that the T61 model is comparable to SL 300 for two reasons. First, the T61 has been on the market on quite some time and people have eventually managed to create workarounds. Number two, the T61 detects the SSD in BIOS while the sl300 does not.
2. Soluton two probaby work, but using a primary hard-drive as an external is not really an option. The Sl300 is medium-to-lightweigthed so people will be reluctant to use this solution as well.

[Macdonald_V_Int]

Hi Rapide

After you complete the clone (or Ghost) of the HDD in either solution, the system no longer needs the HDD. So for solution 1, remove the ultrabay adapter with your HDD and reinstall your CD/DVD-ROM drive and the system should boot from your SSD. For solution 2, once the clone (or Ghost) has completed, remove the USB adapter with your HDD and your system should now be able to boot from your SSD.

[idata]

Hi again,

Although the solution you are proposing is a little cumbersome, I would be very glad if it turns out it works for my model as well. But I also get some questions regarding this:

1. If this is a Lenovo compatability problem, how come that there are third party tools that discovers the SSD? Because if this is related to hardware and the bays ability to communicate with it - so to speak, then neither clone, Ghost or similar tools would function. I have already tried with fdisk with no success, how certain are you that this will work with the Lenovo system now?

2. The copy solution you are proposing has the implication that the OS need to be first installed on a regular HDD and then bit-copied over to the Flash. This, I would imagine, creates several problems for any OS because driver support and its configuration is not opimalized for the advantages of SSD. So, would you say that there are no performance loss with this approach? Or are this approaches not fully tested for?

3. In previous posts you said that there are only 2 workarounds "for now", does this mean that there are other real solutions in the works? If so, when can we expect to see them ?

4. Does any firmware on either the -M or -X versions of the SSD affect the compatability on a vendor?

Thanks again

[Macdonald_V_Int]

Rapide,

For your question:

--> 1. If this is a Lenovo compatability problem, how come that there are third party tools that discovers the SSD?

The issue is not one of compatibility or finding the SSD, but one of booting. Because Lenovo systems use a 4 sector boot and Symantic's Ghost only expects the industry default of a single sector boot record, a drive duplicated by standard Ghost will not boot in a Lenovo system. Using the steps outlined above, you should be able to create a bootable image of your Lenovo's HDD and have it boot correclty as the sole drive in the system.

You said:

" if this is related to hardware and the bays ability to communicate with it - so to speak, then neither clone, Ghost or similar tools would function. I have already tried with fdisk with no success, how certain are you that this will work with the Lenovo system now?

Answer: I tried what you did and it failed, I tried the steps I outlined to you above and it works.

For your question 2, you said:

"The copy solution you are proposing has the implication that the OS need to be first installed on a regular HDD and then bit-copied over to the Flash. This, I would imagine, creates several problems for any OS because driver support and its configuration is not opimalized for the advantages of SSD. So, would you say that there are no performance loss with this approach? Or are this approaches not fully tested for?

Answer:

- The copy solution I propose assumes you are replacing your HDD with the SSD and requires that you follow the steps I outlined.

- For any Windows based OS, this will work fine as the Intel SSD does not need any "special" configurations or "special" optimizations as it is designed to work as a direct HDD replacement.

- WRT performance loss, this approach will not cause any undue or unsual performance loss of your SSD. That said, there are things you can do with Windows XP or Vista to make an SSD perform better in a system, turning off drive indexing, turning off automatic defrag are a couple of examples of things you no longer need to do with an SSD based system.

- WRT whether this approach has been tested, yes it has on Lenovo systems we have in our labs and has worked without issue.

You Said:

3. In previous posts you said that there are only 2 workarounds "for now", does this mean that there are other real solutions in the works? If so, when can we expect to see them ?

Answer:

- These are the workarounds we know of and have tested. There may be others I don't know about or have tested, and there may be others that develop over time. The workarounds I list are required for any type of drive -- HDD or SSD -- that you replace with your main, original Lenovo drive that came with your system. It is not an SSD only issue or problem. See the Lenovo post at http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-57590 http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-57590

You Said:

4. Does any firmware on either the -M or -X versions of the SSD affect the compatability on a vendor?

Answer: Good question. We don't intend to create a FW that affects the compatibility of a particular computer system, but the chance that something comes up is why we spend so much time checking firmware revisions by running tests for long periods of time on many platforms to identify any issues and fix them before we ship a firmware update. But as you can see and may have experienced, firmware updates will continue to happen, not only for SSDs, but many types of electronic products like a computer's BIOS or a Video BIOS,

I hope I have been able to answer your questions to your satisfaction. Let us know if you get your Lenovo system + SSD functional

Regards,

Don

Intel NAND Solutions Group