I have the Gigabyte EX58-UD3R motherboard which has both the Intel and Marvel SATA controllers onboard. I just bought an Intel 80GB X25-M 2.5" SATA Solid-State Drive and wonder which controller would be better to use for my new drive.
Any suggestions? :)
lightningltd,
I've been using my fairly new Kingston VNow 30GB SSD for the past 2 weeks, and have been very careful to prep it using your thorough and well thought out procedures. Last week it was running well, except for the problems I had with Partition Magic - which I have cleaned up with your and WHS's great help.
But now I have a very basic problem with my SSD's performance and would like your thoughts on it, if you wouldn't mind. (BTW, I hope this is the proper place to discuss all these problems:)).
I have been having responsiveness problems with Explorer and also other apps - seems like every time I select a folder to open, or a file to delete, etc., the little "wait" circle starts spinning and keeps going. It happens over and over again. I have cleaned the SSD off at least 3 times today and replaced the clean drive with my saved OS image. That doesn't seem to help...
I also have 2 SSDs - one for XP and one for 7. Today I cleaned off my XP SSD and replaced the OS image on it also. When the image was almost finished loading, it wouldn't complete, saying a file wouldn't copy. That has never happened before with an XP image on a regular HDD... And the OS won't run...
Are these 2 kinds of problems due to SSDs? Maybe especially Kingston SSDs? I really appreciate your advice...
Noel
Last edited by Noels; 16 May 2010 at 18:46. Reason: typos
Hmmm... I haven't seen these exact issues crop up yet, but something similar. After you removed PM, did you do a repair install of 7? Sometimes PM and software like it leavs junk in the system as add-ons to IE and explorer which cause file browsing delays.
lightningltd,
Every time I have clean-erased my Windows 7 SSD and re-imaged it, it won't run because something is "inaccessible" to boot it and I HAVE to do a Repair to get it to run!! Crazy... I used to be OK with that, but last night I cleaned, re-imaged and repaired and now I can't get it to run at all... I'm using Aconis 2010 for the images (one from 5/01 and another from 5/15) and they have always worked before. Now, in AHCI, my computer comes close to BSOD'ing but instead just blues briefly then re-boots and recycles ( I'm using my laptop for this message). I'm about to go back to my Raptor so I can use my computer normally.
Even following all the great procedures you've outlined for all of us, my SSD never seemed to run any faster than my Raptor. I'll try to clean it off and re-image one more time and see what happens. Then the Kingston SSDs are over for me. Maybe I'll try a clean install to the clean SSD to see if that works...
Thanks, Noel
Noel
Noels, are you imaging partitons or did you create a Image of the Entire SSD?
Its much easier to image the entire drive as is, in the event you want to secure erase and re-image in the future its just a one step restore.
Wishmaster,
My SSDs are each only 30GB, so I use one for XP and one for Windows 7. Nothing else but the OS on an SSD! I did just clean and re-image each SSD and I still had to go through the Repair for 7 to get it running. And the repair took about 15 minutes,with a spinning circle. then it had to find my Windows installation, which took another 2-3 minutes. Sometimes the Repair loads amazingly fast, but today it was agonizingly slow... It's as if my SSD doesn't want to be cleaned and re-imaged :) Or maybe run at all...
My XP SSD re-imaging ends at the last second with the following message: "Failed to write data to disk" Then, "Failed to write to sector 58637249 of Disk 1 (my XP disk). It goes on "TEXT_LINEX_ERROR_COMMON_DEFECT_RW_FAILED (ox540001). Then I have to select Ignore to get it to finish...
At least 7 is running - barely - with spinning circles every time I try to open a directory or an app... It's as if the OS is really lazy. Or is it the SSD?
Noel
whs,
Just got my computer running again after going through H___ changing drives, trying my Raptor, going back to the SSDs, trying another backup program, re-cleaning, re-imaging, etc., last night and this morning. I think they are aligned, but not sure. How would I go about doing that, if cleaning and re-imaging doesn't do it by itself?
Would appreciate your help on that score.
At least my computer is running OK, it would seem, now...
BTW, I used a 2 week old image for 7 this time and it works much better than my new one did, FWIW!
Noel
Last edited by Noels; 18 May 2010 at 10:54. Reason: Addition
To check the alignment type msinfo32 into start/search and hit Enter. Then in the left pane open Components, then Storage and go to Disks. There you can see the offset.
If you need to align, you have to go into an elevated Command Prompt and run the following commands:
1 Type diskpart
2 list disk
3 select disk X with X being the number given for your ssd
4 clean - (this destroys all partition/volume data on the disk).
5 create partition primary align 64 (or 128)
6 active
7 exit
But then you have to reinstall everything on the disk.
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