Solved Upgrade to SSD on Lenovo G500 laptop

[Britton30]

And I have no idea where the reviewer came up with the "suicide" cable. If it could blow up a computer, everybody's computer would be blown. I use them all the time. That's a crazy statement. They're quite common.

He gave the example that one with a bunch of USB hubs could end up plugging both ends of the USB cable into the PC/hub, causing it to short out the controller. I hadn't heard of this before either, but it seemed to make some kind of sense.

Exactly as I stated, they are careless and sloppy.

 

[essenbe]

:roflmao:

I was trying to be nice, Wolfgang. I'm sure you would find a few more appropriate words to call me.

 

[whs]

Well, the morons never die out. It reminds me the guy who was driving down the road with his motor home. He put it on cruise control and went into the back to prepare a coffee. After he crashed in the next curve he wanted to sue the motorhome manufacturer because there was no proper description of the cruise control.

 

[gregrocker]

You guys makin fun of me? :drool::haha:

Actually when I read that I was thinking of the roommate's old Dell in a dock downstairs where I have to reach behind to access two hubs for the two USB ports, while knocking the router off the back of the dock. It wouldn't be hard to plug both ends of male-male USB cable into it without realizing it. Would it really fry?

 

[essenbe]

Greg, we're not laughing at you and I don't know if it would fry it or not. USB 2.0 only puts out about 5V, I think. If you do plug both ends into the hub, let us know if it fries. And then we'll laugh at you.

 

[whs]

I am sure Greg can find 2 USB ports on his new laptop. But try it before you install the SSD. Then you can save at least that one.

 

[Britton30]

I'm not trying it, but I suspect plugging both ends of a USB cable into live ports would do the same as shorting any 5V lead to ground, POOF!

 

[gregrocker]

SSD runs great but HD in enclosure can't be seen in Explorer or Disk Mgmt, only Safely Remove Hardware. Partition Wizard sees it and can explorer the files but fails to assign drive letters when applied. I reassembled it twice and tried everything I can think of. Emailed seller to see if they will RMA - will prob have to pay for shipping. I am trying to decide if I want another or get something better. Frustrating.

I wonder if just a sleeve and the adapter cable would be better with the circuitry contained in cable. Those sealed cables are probably more resilient than this exposed chip that falls around when drive is being inserted.

Fresh perspectives?

 

[whs]

As I said in post #47: ' Let's hope that it works ". With that cheap stuff you can always except surprises. I would get an enclosure from a reputable company like Rosewill or Thermaltake - but even here not their cheapest product.

 

[essenbe]

Greg, I'm not sure what you mean by a sleeve. If you are talking about one of the plastic carrying cases, Those would be fine, my only reservation would be heat build up during extended use. External cases like WHS is talking about or the one Gary has are, at least in theory, built to deal with heat.

 

[gregrocker]

The good ones are priced not much less than a good external HD, so might as well buy one of those.

What about this one vs. the Inatech? Amazon.com: Sabrent USB 3.0 To 2.5-Inch Sata Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure Case (for 9.5mm, 12.5mm 2.5-Inch SATA-I, SATA-II, SATA-III HDD and SSD) Black (EC-TB4P): Electronics
Weight: 8 ounces Size (LWH): 7.75 inches, 6.25 inches, 2 inches

vs.

Amazon.com: [Optimized For SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Inateck 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 Hard Drive Disk HDD External Enclosure Case with usb 3.0 Cable for 9.5mm 7mm 2.5" SATA HDD and SSD, Tool-free HDD Installation, Compatible With Windows 2000/ XP /Vista/ 7.
Weight 6.4 ounces Product Dimensions 6.1 x 4.1 x 2 inches

I like the smaller size.

 

[whs]

Regardless what you buy, you always take chances with that cheap stuff. But at least Amazon is easy for RMAs.

 

[gregrocker]

The SSD arrived in a silvery anti-static bag. I removed it and replaced the 1tb Seagate HD into the bag. I notice that it is somewhat metallic and according to Wikipedia "slightly conductive. So what keeps it from passing a charge to the exposed circuitry on the hard drive?

To create the anti-static effect, the black or silver bags are slightly conductive, forming a Faraday cage around the item to be protected and preventing any localized charges from being deposited onto the protected devices as the bags are handled. The pink or green bags are made of low-charging material that will not create harmful charges, but that does not protect the item from electric fields.[1] It is important that the bags only be opened at static-free workstations[cit

The reason I ask is that this could account for the hard drive not being read in the enclosure.

Then again there's no current flowing anywhere, and an anti-static bag by definition shouldn't generate a spark, right? Does that cover all the risks. I wish I would have left it on a table.

 

[Britton30]

The anti-static bag is conductive on the outside so stray static or other charge will pass around whatever is inside without damage, like the Faraday cage in the Wiki article. The principle acts in reverse with a microwave oven, keeping the charge and radiation inside the "cage".

I would more suspect the first enclosure was bad.

 

[gregrocker]

New enclosure is great but still no ability to assign drive letters to the old 1tb HD: GPT HD won't assign letters in Ext enclosure - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[gregrocker]

Solved with latest PW Home Edition v.8 which will apply successfully the drive letters to External. I don't use Home Edition (required for drive letter support) enough to notice it was v.7.

Thanks, guys. This enclosure is solid, slide-open easy, compact.

 

[Torah Lishmah]

Regardless what you buy, you always take chances with that cheap stuff. But at least Amazon is easy for RMAs.

I bought a factory refurbished 1TB Seagate Barracuda SATA HDD from them a little over two years ago for about $40.00 [with a coupon code] and it hasn't had a single hiccup. I always buy Seagate drives, and haven't had a bad one yet, and I'm talking about close to a hundred of them [for customers]. It has always puzzled me how others can get 2 or 3 bad drives in a row. I just can't comprehend that. What could they possibly be doing wrong....rough handling?

 

[essenbe]

I think a lot of 'bad hard drives' are caused by UPS. I think they use the boxes for football practice. I have a fence around my house. I once saw the ups guy throw a box of 2 2 TB Seagate drives over the gate. I was surprised they still worked, but it shows the handling the boxes get from the shippers.

 

[Torah Lishmah]

I think a lot of 'bad hard drives' are caused by UPS. I think they use the boxes for football practice. I have a fence around my house. I once saw the ups guy throw a box of 2 2 TB Seagate drives over the gate. I was surprised they still worked, but it shows the handling the boxes get from the shippers.

Good point, your probably right. I would have been livid seeing my HDD's tossed around like that. I might have had to toss the UPS driver around a bit.

 

[Britton30]

From a random Seagate spec sheet, HDDs can withstand 300 Gs of shock, non-operating, no more than 2x a second and still operate fine.
To imagine how much that is, Kyle Petty in a 2003 NASCAR wreck has the largest recorded G-force at that time of about 80Gs. USATODAY.com - Petty's Bristol crash hardest recorded by NASCAR black box
In 2010 Elliot Sadler had the highest ever recorded G-force in a wreck, but they never released the G number. HE hit a solid dirt wall which knocked the engine out of the car.