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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Laptop HDD kaput

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palcal

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Joined: 12/10/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 2006
Posted: 07:48am 31 Aug 2019
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This is a continuation of my post with no subject.
  Quote  My Laptop HDD went kaput so I bought a new SSD. Grogster did this a little while back.
My problem is I have mounted the drive and I have a windows installation disk but how do I format the drive. The installation starts and loads some files but then throws an error.


I cloned Win8, which I have never used but pulled the drive out of a friends machine that died. Geez does't the GUI on that suck. So I cloned a Win7 HDD. Fitted into my Laptop and it is up and running like new.

Edit.  I wish I knew what I have done, but for the last week or more I have not had a problem doing anything , everything has just run like clockwork.
Edited 2019-08-31 17:55 by palcal
"It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all"
 
Chopperp

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Joined: 03/01/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 1106
Posted: 08:54am 31 Aug 2019
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Glad all is OK. There are times when things just go swimmingly as they say..

Enjoy them while they last.

I have a Think Pad lappy which is awfully slow. May also take the path & put a SSD in it.
ChopperP
 
Poppy

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Joined: 25/07/2019
Location: Germany
Posts: 486
Posted: 09:47am 31 Aug 2019
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Just a little question in between ´cause I had such an issue.

Have you checked the old HDD´s copper contactors?

On my Laptop the HDD once conked out (about 3 years old), I removed it, cleaned all contacts with a glass-fibre-pen and isopropyl alcohol on a cotton swab, packed it back and everything was and still is fine.

The contactors originally appeared fine by sight but actually they just were not.

 
Andre ... such a GURU?
 
Grogster

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Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 9755
Posted: 12:32pm 31 Aug 2019
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Yes, upgrading to an SSD over an HDD can make a massive difference.  Especially on laptops, as the HDD's on most laptops are crippled with a 5400RPM spin speed - to save power.  Upgrading to an SSD on those laptops will be a breath of fresh air.

I did not mind Windoze 8 PROVIDED you disabled that bloody awful Metro GUI with something such as Classic Shell.  With that monstrosity turned off, Win8 was a good OS IMHO.  But I would never let it run with the Metro GUI for more then the first day past installation.
Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!
 
BrianP
Senior Member

Joined: 30/03/2017
Location: Australia
Posts: 292
Posted: 08:06am 01 Sep 2019
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  palcal said  
I wish I knew what I have done, but for the last week or more I have not had a problem doing anything , everything has just run like clockwork.

Paul - now that it's not broke don't try & fix it anymore - & don't boast - Murphy is watching

If you're planning to stick with Win7 just make sure all the patches are in place before MS drops the ball for it early next year. Or, if you were going to jump to Win10 it can still be done for free, providing your Win7 is activated.

For anyone with a laptop that has a spinner an SSD will make it at least 5 times faster, some even more. I've had boot-up times improve by up to 10 times. As Grogster says, the latency of the spinning drives is an issue - this applies to all PCs of all descriptions - an SSD is well worth saving up for (& they're getting cheaper by the day).

I agree with Grogster regarding Win8 - it was the GUI that killed it. It has a very good kernel (I think Win10 has the same) & W8 & W10 do run a bit faster than Win7.

Cheers

B
 
Chopperp

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Joined: 03/01/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 1106
Posted: 01:37pm 01 Sep 2019
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Any advice on a good SSD brand and what sort of prices should one be paying? Be looking around the 300GB mark.
Thanks.
ChopperP
 
robert.rozee
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Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 2464
Posted: 02:30pm 01 Sep 2019
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good performance seems to be in the region of 500mb/s read and 500mb/s write speed, with offerings from HP (S700 250gb), WD (green series, 240gb) and crucial (BX500, 240gb) around nz$55. i can also see a gigabyte brand 480gb SSD for nz$90, along with crucial (BX500, 480gb) at the same price and HP and WD green for just a little more.

personally, at the moment i'd be inclined (in a desktop machine) to go for a 250gb SSD as the boot drive, with a 2tb spinning disk for data storage. in a laptop, 500gb may be a better choice. crucial seems to be a favoured brand, WD is probably just as good. remembering there are no moving parts and the flash chips likely all come from the same foundary anyway.

lexar seems to have performance that slightly lags behind the pack, and some folks really don't like apacer or kingston. several of the manufacturers offer two or more ranges at different price points, but between them the performance differences really are quite small.


just my opinions, of course - others will have their own favourites. always remember, the SSD you buy today will be obsolete well before it wears out!


cheers,
rob   :-)
 
Chopperp

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Joined: 03/01/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 1106
Posted: 11:13pm 01 Sep 2019
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Thanks for that Robert.

BTW: You working late / night shift? Post says 12:30am my time which would be 2:30am in NZ
ChopperP
 
BrianP
Senior Member

Joined: 30/03/2017
Location: Australia
Posts: 292
Posted: 01:11am 02 Sep 2019
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The end read/write speed will be limited in most cases by the SATA connection - the older machines will have a SATA1 connection & a not so fast internal PCI bus. Therefore I wouldn't get to carried away by individual quoted speeds. All of them will be so much faster than a spinning drive anyway.

Regarding brands - you could add Samsung to the mix as well. The occasional machine I come across with one of these really flies. My wholesaler doesn't like them though - apparently they have an abysmal warranty replacement policy.

On the subject of warranty - I've encountered many brands that have suffered a complete failure, including the high end ones. It's not a storage failure, it's failure of the controller circuitry - the drive then doesn't exist - hope you have a backup!

Currently my supplier's preferred unit is the WD green series, so far I've had no problems.

An interesting aside to reliability. Back in the day when SSDs were the new kid on the block we settled on Intel as a (you would think) reliable brand. Within 2 years a lot of them were failing - the controller circuitry either failed completely or was giving go-slow read/write issues. Intel just replaces them, no questions asked no matter what age. So far I've had no issues with the replacements, even though the replacement was an identical product to the failed one. Touching wood...

B
 
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