Maybe that's why they've stopped making laptops! When googling about upgrading Sony hard drives you get lots of people asking the same question and not being able to use recovery discs on new hard drives.
I bought this one used and it was a good buy! Very nice to use and ergonomic to type on - but it seems you are supposed to bin and get a new one if the hard drive goes.
Hope our son doesn't notice I've 'borrowed' his ssd.
Right, the enclosure is in lieu of the cable. This is the kind I use. Mine is USB3 though.
Thermaltake BlacX N0028USU External Hard Drive SATA Enclosure Docking Station 2.5" & 3.5" USB 2.0 - Newegg.com
There are reports of certain Linux distros not being compatible with some SSDs, (IIRC Thrashzone had some issues with a trashed SSD), if Sony incorporates one of those it could explain things
If a Linux distro does not make proper use of the Trim command, it could lead to at least performance issues. Likewise the SSD needs a certain amount of free unused space to maintain performance - ususally 25% are recommended. Here is an article that explains the technical details.
Garbage Collection and TRIM in SSDs Explained - An SSD Primer | The SSD Review
Thank you Barman and whs. I think there is something in Sony's bios that limits hard drives - at least for recovery discs and system images, as if you try and install on a new disc from the recovery discs, or restore a system image it goes the whole way and then comes up with a message saying there's a problem with the hard disc. Which is when I tried cloning. And then a clean install. Anyway the clean install went fine apart from the overheating. So will try the ssd in it and hope it doesn't trash it. If it does I'll get a cheaper one to put back in son's (virtually unused) laptop.
I ran sfc /scannow and check disk on my old drive (back in the laptop) today and scannow found some windows errors which it fixed. Check disk is still running but found some bad sectors and fixed them. So it does look like drive might be on its way out. And probably explains why I found errors on my clone last week - must have copied them over dur!
So I'm thinking it will have to be a clean install and not a clone to a new drive now - because not much point cloning a drive that is prone to errors is there? What do you think?
Son's laptop is all backed up ready to remove the 250GB ssd (which he is only using 35GB of) but don't fancy removing it as I've just remembered what a pig it is to get the drive out of that machine - it means taking the keyboard out and the keyboard has never been quite right since I did it last time. So I'll sleep on that one. I've also emailed Sony with my serial number and model number and asked them to recommend a replacement hard drive that will be compatible with their bios. They'll probably just say I need to use an identical drive like they did last time. Anyway if the old one fails I've got everything backed up.
If the 250GB drive was ok as a test (ie I can get Windows installed and running and it doesn't overheat again), it's actually smaller than my current one which is 320GB and I was looking for more storage really, so couldn't just leave it in, I'd have to get the 500GB one and put the 250GB back in son's laptop where it is a bit wasted really. His needed an SSD is it's so slow otherwise (just an Atom processor).
I would still try the NEW HD to see what the temps are compared to the OLD HD.
You don't have to run it long with the NEW HD, just boot it, run the temp monitor program, and then shutdown.
I'm cautious/curious about such things
I am curious about it too. I shall have to have a good moment to tackle taking that keyboard out though.
Oh you mean the hard drive I bought, not the SSD? I'd almost given up on doing that as it got so hot and kept shutting down every 10 minutes - wouldn't want to fry anything. I'll see how it is with the SSD in it though.
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