VOGONS


First post, by Anilocin

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I'm thinking of upgrading the old 2.5" 80gb 5.4k rpm Hitachi drive in my old P4 Medion laptop - Not because there would be a tremendous boost, but more for experimenting, maxing out the hardware.

There are many adapters available on Amazon, Ebay, etc. - But which ones are reliable and quick?
Drive would be run as Master.

I have some requirements:
1. Support for ATA-100 (optional, but would be much better than ATA-33)
2. Support for DMA Mode under Win9x, 2000 and XP
3. Should work with drive activity LED fine, I have heard of adapters that do not fair well with drive activity LEDs and will either stay on or not light on at all.

So, does anybody have any experience with MSATA to IDE adapters?

Medion MD 9783 2Ghz P4 Notebook w/ Win98SE/2K/XP Multiboot

694X 733Mhz P3 Build w/ Win98SE/XP Dualboot

Reply 1 of 23, by RetroGamer4Ever

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https://www.transcend-info.com/embedded/product/ssd/psd330

That's what you use. Not an mSATA to IDE adapter. It is designed to do EXACTLY what you need it to, with full performance. The 128GB version isn't even $200 dollars.

Reply 2 of 23, by Anilocin

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RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-02-02, 14:27:

https://www.transcend-info.com/embedded/product/ssd/psd330

That's what you use. Not an mSATA to IDE adapter. It is designed to do EXACTLY what you need it to, with full performance. The 128GB version isn't even $200 dollars.

I've checked IDE/PATA SSDs before, and they are ridiculously overpriced. This SSD is no exception.

Considering that Transcend offers 128 GB MSATA SSDs for less than $35, I will be looking into decent MSATA-44pin IDE adapters.

Medion MD 9783 2Ghz P4 Notebook w/ Win98SE/2K/XP Multiboot

694X 733Mhz P3 Build w/ Win98SE/XP Dualboot

Reply 3 of 23, by mockingbird

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Well you really only have two choices in this regard: Marvell and JMicron.

I'm experimenting with Marvell on an ICH2 currently. Enabling UDMA in Windows 98 chokes the system (mouse cursor becomes choppy), but maybe I need an mSATA card with a later controller. I'll try a Sandforce and report back.

If the Sandforce is no good, I'll try an mSATA card with a Marvell controller... Marvell with Marvell might help things.

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Reply 4 of 23, by rasz_pl

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Iv got generic $5 JM20330 44IDE to MPCIE converter
this exact thing https://alitools.io/en/showcase/msata-ssd-to- … top-32837266359

except for getting hot it worked brilliantly in T61/X220/X230 and XP/7/8/10, used it with random pulled mpcie SSDs when SSDs were actually expensive 😀

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Reply 5 of 23, by mockingbird

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Here are my preliminary findings.

The Ableconn/Delock Marvell 88SA8052 does not work properly with DMA enabled on the ICH2. I tested it with two drives, one with a Linkmedia chipset and one with a Sandforce. The test platform was the ICH2 southbridge with the latest Windows 9x Intel INF installed for this platform (6.3.0.1007). I tested in both APM and ACPI mode. The symptom exhibited was that the mouse movement was slow, but I couldn't point that behavior specifically to read/write operations, since this did not happen during ATTO benchmarking, and ATTO benchmarking was perfectly fine with good numbers, despite this issue.

I then moved on to testing with a Startech IDE2SAT which uses the same Marvell chip. The chips look different though, the Ableconn has a 2021 datecode and the Startech a 2020 datecode. The Startech chip also has the Marvell logo, while the Ableconn does not, but they are both QFP and exactly the same shape, so I don't think this is really that important or pertinent. I interfaced the IDE2SAT using an "ST6006C" mSATA to SATA adapter. I booted the system, and the problem disappeared completely, and the computer ran perfectly. No more mouse choppiness, and ATTO benchmarks were up to spec.

Why this is happening, I do not know. Maybe the Ableconn adapter has signal integrity issues due to design errors. Who knows. The setup is technically exactly the same, with the same chipset, albeit with two circuit boards being used to achieve the same result as the Ablecon.

So I recommend the Startech + "ST6006C" adapter for mSATA drives.

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Reply 6 of 23, by Anilocin

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mockingbird wrote on 2022-02-02, 18:29:
Here are my preliminary findings. […]
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Here are my preliminary findings.

The Ableconn/Delock Marvell 88SA8052 does not work properly with DMA enabled on the ICH2. I tested it with two drives, one with a Linkmedia chipset and one with a Sandforce. The test platform was the ICH2 southbridge with the latest Windows 9x Intel INF installed for this platform (6.3.0.1007). I tested in both APM and ACPI mode. The symptom exhibited was that the mouse movement was slow, but I couldn't point that behavior specifically to read/write operations, since this did not happen during ATTO benchmarking, and ATTO benchmarking was perfectly fine with good numbers, despite this issue.

I then moved on to testing with a Startech IDE2SAT which uses the same Marvell chip. The chips look different though, the Ableconn has a 2021 datecode and the Startech a 2020 datecode. The Startech chip also has the Marvell logo, while the Ableconn does not, but they are both QFP and exactly the same shape, so I don't think this is really that important or pertinent. I interfaced the IDE2SAT using an "ST6006C" mSATA to SATA adapter. I booted the system, and the problem disappeared completely, and the computer ran perfectly. No more mouse choppiness, and ATTO benchmarks were up to spec.

Why this is happening, I do not know. Maybe the Ableconn adapter has signal integrity issues due to design errors. Who knows. The setup is technically exactly the same, with the same chipset, albeit with two circuit boards being used to achieve the same result as the Ablecon.

So I recommend the Startech + "ST6006C" adapter for mSATA drives.

Thanks for your detailed response.

However your MSATA setup probably only works for desktops, as laptops require a 2.5" drive, and as such, the Startech IDE2SAT + ST6006C adapter will not fit in laptops.

Do you know any 2.5" MSATA -> 44 Pin IDE adapters that will run fine in DMA mode under Win9x?

I suppose that the adapter you mentioned that won't work in DMA mode under Win9x is this: DeLOCK 62495 - interface cards/adapters (IDE, mSATA) https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00ELC8GFO/ref=cm_sw … 90CQKWBV9GDVEVB

I have seen cheaper 2.5" MSATA -> 44 Pin IDE adapters which have the JM20330 controller chip. However I'm not sure if DMA works well with the Jm20330 under Win9x...

CY White mSATA Mini PCI eSATA SSD to 2.5" IDE 44 Pin Laptop Hard Drive Adapter with Enclosure https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01GRMUQRG/ref=cm_sw … ding=UTF8&psc=1

Medion MD 9783 2Ghz P4 Notebook w/ Win98SE/2K/XP Multiboot

694X 733Mhz P3 Build w/ Win98SE/XP Dualboot

Reply 7 of 23, by weedeewee

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I've got one in my compaq armada m700, a cheap one, uses the jm20330, and it works fine with dma.
This ST6008C on aliexpress : https://aliexpress.com/item/4000333853537.html
The one thing I can't remember if it works fine with dma if the cdrom is attached since hdd & cdrom are on the same ide channel on this laptop.
I'm a bit fuzzy on this, since I had some problems with a sd2ide adapter that uses a fc1307 chip. DMA wouldn't work with the cdrom attached, though without the cdrom it would work ok.

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Reply 8 of 23, by hyoenmadan

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mockingbird wrote on 2022-02-02, 18:29:
The Ableconn/Delock Marvell 88SA8052 does not work properly with DMA enabled on the ICH2. ... […]
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The Ableconn/Delock Marvell 88SA8052 does not work properly with DMA enabled on the ICH2.
...

The Startech chip also has the Marvell logo, while the Ableconn does not, but they are both QFP and exactly the same shape, so I don't think this is really that important or pertinent.
....

That doesn't sound good. Be WARY on counterfeit or 2nd hand defective parts.
JMicron stuff is a hit or a miss. Some people has success with these, but others like me had very bad experiences with it. Also, so far I never have been able to reach ATA133 with none of these bridges (both marvell and JMicron, despite Marvel actually claims to be compatible with it). So for XP configurations, better find a SATA card and plug the SSD to it (unfortunately for laptops, you will need go to an actual PATA SSD if you need speed on these).

PD: This is why this sort of thing really needs a hardware foss implementation. Would be a bit easier to modify or fix the bridge for these disk controllers who don't implement correctly the ATA specifications.

Reply 9 of 23, by mockingbird

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hyoenmadan wrote on 2022-02-02, 21:05:

That doesn't sound good. Be WARY on counterfeit or 2nd hand defective parts.

Point well received... However, it should again be reiterated that this has probably more to do with a later production batch than it does with a counterfeit chip. The QFP shape is exactly the same as the real 88SA8052 on the Startech, and doesn't match Sunplus, SIL, or any other chip. Only the printing on it has changed. The only other thing that can be attempted is to borrow the chip from the Startech and then swap the chips on the Ableconn with hot air reflow... And this would then answer the question of changes in perhaps the chip stepping, if that swap did fix the Ableconn (because again, this is almost absolutely not an issue of counterfeit). Perhaps someday.

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Reply 11 of 23, by mockingbird

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Plasma wrote on 2022-02-02, 21:52:

"Counterfeits" can also be salvaged factory rejects. It will look like the real thing because it is. It's just not in the trash where it belongs.

A very lucid point... But these ICs are as 'cheap as chips' (no pun intended)... I just don't see Marvell dumping the silicon wafer outliers on the masses...

That said, I might have to have a word with the Ableconn people in Taiwan, with photos of the two different chips, and ask them for an explanation.

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Reply 12 of 23, by mockingbird

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Anilocin wrote on 2022-02-02, 20:16:

However your MSATA setup probably only works for desktops, as laptops require a 2.5" drive, and as such, the Startech IDE2SAT + ST6006C adapter will not fit in laptops.

Do you know any 2.5" MSATA -> 44 Pin IDE adapters that will run fine in DMA mode under Win9x?

Go with the Ableconn/Delock Marvell adapter... I think my issues are being caused by a decades old IDE to 44-pin IDE adapter PCB. Please report back.

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Reply 13 of 23, by Anilocin

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mockingbird wrote on 2022-02-03, 17:22:
Anilocin wrote on 2022-02-02, 20:16:

However your MSATA setup probably only works for desktops, as laptops require a 2.5" drive, and as such, the Startech IDE2SAT + ST6006C adapter will not fit in laptops.

Do you know any 2.5" MSATA -> 44 Pin IDE adapters that will run fine in DMA mode under Win9x?

Go with the Ableconn/Delock Marvell adapter... I think my issues are being caused by a decades old IDE to 44-pin IDE adapter PCB. Please report back.

OK, I will go will the Delock adapter - at €31 it is quite expensive, but it seems to be reviewed best.

The laptop I have is a Medion MD9783 with a 2Ghz Northwood desktop P4 - the board has the i845D chipset with ICH2 and DDR266 support.

The IDE controller is the 82801BA - I had problems getting it to run with Win9x/Me initially, due to the Intel Inf drivers configuring I/O addresses incorrectly and conflicting an I/O address with the DMA controller, causing the drive to run in MS-DOS Compatibility Mode.

After changing the I/O range to a free one and rebooting, there were no more conflicts and the hard drive and DVD burner were running once again under 32-bit Protected Mode drivers.

I'll report back as soon as the Delock adapter and the Transcend 128gb MSATA SSD arrives.

Medion MD 9783 2Ghz P4 Notebook w/ Win98SE/2K/XP Multiboot

694X 733Mhz P3 Build w/ Win98SE/XP Dualboot

Reply 14 of 23, by Anilocin

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mockingbird wrote on 2022-02-03, 17:22:
Anilocin wrote on 2022-02-02, 20:16:

However your MSATA setup probably only works for desktops, as laptops require a 2.5" drive, and as such, the Startech IDE2SAT + ST6006C adapter will not fit in laptops.

Do you know any 2.5" MSATA -> 44 Pin IDE adapters that will run fine in DMA mode under Win9x?

Go with the Ableconn/Delock Marvell adapter... I think my issues are being caused by a decades old IDE to 44-pin IDE adapter PCB. Please report back.

I've ordered the Delock 62495 MSATA>44pin IDE adapter as well as a Kingston SUV500MS 120gb MSATA SSD on Ebay, it should arrive soon.

According to Delock's website:

Specification
• Connectors:
1 x IDE 44 pin male
1 x mSATA slot (full size)
• Form factor: 2.5″
• For 3.3 V mSATA module
• Supports ATA/ATAPI-7 (ATA-133)
• Supports ATA/ATAPI Ultra DMA mode
• Supports ATA/ATAPI PIO mode
• Jumper for selecting Master / Slave and Cable Select
• Latch for mSATA module, full size can fit in

I hope that DMA works in Win9x as well at full speed. (I have ICH2 , so 100 mb/s is the theoretical limit).

One thing that I'm worried about is SSD wear and alignment.

I'm pretty sure that TRIM won't be possible due to the complete lack of AHCI on the nearly 20-year old laptop, and the lack of TRIM wouldn't be that much of a problem with older SLC-based SSDs, but the SSD I have has TLC.

Furthermore, I'm not sure if DOS/Win9x FDISK and Win2000/XP bootable setup can properly align partitions on a SSD.

I've heard that that overprovisioning (leaving a small part of the SSD unpartitioned, raw) would help the SSD firmware manage data and prevent SSD wear (speeds becoming gradually slower over time due to write amplification).

Is this true?
Since a 120gb SSD is roughly 111.76GiB, I'm considering leaving 11.76GiB unpartitioned, so that I'll have 100gb left for other partitions (I'm planning a multi boot setup between Win98SE, WinMe, Win2k and WinXP, all on FAT32).

I'd be thankful for any reply.

Medion MD 9783 2Ghz P4 Notebook w/ Win98SE/2K/XP Multiboot

694X 733Mhz P3 Build w/ Win98SE/XP Dualboot

Reply 15 of 23, by mockingbird

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Anilocin wrote on 2022-02-13, 17:13:

<snip>
I'd be thankful for any reply.

Now you are thinking in the right direction. I've gone through what you're about to, and each challenge has a solution. Let's begin:

1) Yes, ICH2 will give you 100MB/sec here... I have tested this on ATTO. It works well.
2) Yes, you will be able to use TRIM with this setup. You will need to do it from a pure DOS prompt. Look up R.Loew's TRIM.EXE
3) Yes, you should partition this in a unique way... I have a custom version of MKDOSFS by user Mathwiz at the MSFN forums. Please contact him for a copy. His is the only good solution I have found. Don't bother with trying to implement the plethora of different methods mentioned ad-infinitum here or elsewhere on the internet. Use his modded MKDOSFS.
4) Yes, you must overprovision. You need to use HPA to accomplish this, but don't use the method described on most place on the web that involves a Linux command. It will not be persistent. HDAT2 will be able to initiate a persistent HPA command (you toggle this in the program, whether you want it to be persistent or not). I'll leave it up to you how much to overprovision... I went with 40GB on my 120GB drive (total 80GB). You need to do this step after you're done installing Windows or anything else that messes with the MBR... Although the HPA provisioning survives power cycling, I found that it resets after something has modified the drive's MBR.

Good luck.

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Reply 16 of 23, by chiveicrook

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Decided to stop lurking and throw in my two cents here for future searchers as information about such adapters seems a bit scarce 😀

The Delock adapter looks identical to Renkforce RF-4174629 which I found to be very compatible.
This is the only adapter that worked in my Toshiba SatPro 440CDT (together with 8GB msata drive).
It also works in FSC Amilo L7300 (VIA PN800 + VT8235CE ) with UDMA and no problems at all.
It even worked fine in a desktop system with IDE 44 -> IDE40 converter cable

I've tried JMicron-based adapters as well but never had any luck with them. They usually caused hard lockups on 440CDT and for some reason were unbootable on L7300 (or not even detected).

Reply 17 of 23, by Anilocin

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mockingbird wrote on 2022-02-13, 17:29:
Now you are thinking in the right direction. I've gone through what you're about to, and each challenge has a solution. Let's […]
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Anilocin wrote on 2022-02-13, 17:13:

<snip>
I'd be thankful for any reply.

Now you are thinking in the right direction. I've gone through what you're about to, and each challenge has a solution. Let's begin:

1) Yes, ICH2 will give you 100MB/sec here... I have tested this on ATTO. It works well.
2) Yes, you will be able to use TRIM with this setup. You will need to do it from a pure DOS prompt. Look up R.Loew's TRIM.EXE
3) Yes, you should partition this in a unique way... I have a custom version of MKDOSFS by user Mathwiz at the MSFN forums. Please contact him for a copy. His is the only good solution I have found. Don't bother with trying to implement the plethora of different methods mentioned ad-infinitum here or elsewhere on the internet. Use his modded MKDOSFS.
4) Yes, you must overprovision. You need to use HPA to accomplish this, but don't use the method described on most place on the web that involves a Linux command. It will not be persistent. HDAT2 will be able to initiate a persistent HPA command (you toggle this in the program, whether you want it to be persistent or not). I'll leave it up to you how much to overprovision... I went with 40GB on my 120GB drive (total 80GB). You need to do this step after you're done installing Windows or anything else that messes with the MBR... Although the HPA provisioning survives power cycling, I found that it resets after something has modified the drive's MBR.

Good luck.

Thanks for your detailed answer.

The SSD arrived on Monday and the adapter should arrive today.

I'm thinking of booting from a Win7 DVD and running DISKPART, creating the partitions from the command prompt and leaving 10, maybe 15gb unpartitioned, as OS's predating Vista will start partitions at 63k.

SSDs however require the first 512k free, I believe - Vista and later will start partitions at 2048k, which is fine with SSDs.

Format will done as usual with FORMAT.COM from a W98 CD or floppy.

Medion MD 9783 2Ghz P4 Notebook w/ Win98SE/2K/XP Multiboot

694X 733Mhz P3 Build w/ Win98SE/XP Dualboot

Reply 18 of 23, by mockingbird

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I figured out why one Marvell adapter was fine while the Ableconn Marvell adapter caused me grief...

I installed everything with the Startech adapter and everything was working fine, and then I thought I'd try the Ableconn again but this time with a different IDC mini to 2.54mm adapter... Interestingly enough, when the Ableconn adapter is used, it passes on the drive string (vendor and model that's detected at the boot time screen) to Windows, while the Startech adapter doesn't (maybe Startech knew about this problem -- but how did they accomplish blocking the transmission of the drive ID? Does the Marvell chip have a buit in firmware? Maybe this can be accomplished by leaving a certain pin of the QFP disconnected on the PCB?).

The significance of that discovery is that once Windows had to reboot upon finding the 'new' drive (same drive that is now passing the vendor and model string with the Ableconn adapter), the probems immediately began.

Fortunately, the solution is to boot into Safe Mode, and update the driver, then choose "Disk Drive", and now it will show as that in device manager, and everything should work perfectly with the Ableconn adapter (Atto benchmarks are great).

Yay, now I can finally mount it in a 3.5" adapter and be done with it (was waiting on some monstrosity from Aliexpress to house the ST6006C + Startech, which lacks screw holes for mounting in any meaningful way).

EDIT 2/26/2022:

Well, turns out that in face the same issue exists... I don't know why it worked temporarily... Oh well, I'll go back to the Startech adapter.

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Reply 19 of 23, by Anilocin

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I would like to share my findings with the Delock 62495 MSATA>44pin IDE adapter.

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The adapter itself was installed in my trusty Medion MD9783 P4 laptop in combination with a Kingston SUV500MS 120gb MSATA SSD.

TEST LAPTOP SPECS
Medion Titanium MD 9783
Intel Pentium 4 2.0Ghz Northwood S478 512k L2
2x 256 MB DDR266
ATi Mobility Radeon M6 32MB, integrated
i845D-based board with ICH2
Avance AC'97 Audio - ALC 201, integrated
DVD-RW, connected to second IDE channel as master (Channel 1)

THE ADAPTER
The Delock 62495 MSATA>44pin IDE adapter costs roughly 38 Euros - or 40 US dollars.

Official Specifications:
• Connectors:
1 x IDE 44 pin male
1 x mSATA slot (full size)
• Form factor: 2.5″
• For 3.3 V mSATA module
• Supports ATA/ATAPI-7 (ATA-133)
• Supports ATA/ATAPI Ultra DMA mode
• Supports ATA/ATAPI PIO mode
• Jumper for selecting Master / Slave and Cable Select
• Latch for mSATA module, full size can fit in

UNBOXING AND SETUP

https://imgur.com/a/OXQXQQO

The Box itself comes with the packaging you would expect from Delock, nothing fancy, but good enough.
Screws for installing the adapter in a 2.5" HDD bay are included, the SSD itself does not require screws to be installed on the adapter.
The SSD is simply inserted from above with a slight angle into the MSATA connector, and then pushed down. The clip closes once the SSD has been pushed down completely, and the adapter is ready for installation.

Master/Slave/Cable Select is controlled via 4 pins that are clearly separated from the other 44 pins.
The pins are numbered from 1-48, 45-48 being the jumper setting pins. Leaving the four last pins unjumpered leaves the drive set to Master, which should be normal in most laptops.

After installing the adapter with the SSD, started the laptop and checked the BIOS. It shows that the full capacity of the SSD is detected.

PARTITIONING, WINDOWS INSTALL, AND PROBLEMS

WINDOWS 9X/ME
I first attempted to partition the SSD via DISKPART,
however Windows 98 SE failed to boot (after finishing the DOS file copy stage), hanging with the following:

Write fault error writing to device PRN
Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?

I don't know why it hung, considering the device PRN is supposed to access a printer.

Safe Mode did not work either, hanging with same error.
Config.sys and Autoexec.bat are therefore not culprits.

I eventually moved on, deleting all partitions and the MBR, and partitioned via W98 FDISK.
Nevertheless, never had I witnessed FORMAT.COM doing a full format on a 20gb primary partition in less than a minute before.

Just like on the first attempt, I copied the WIN98 folder from the CD to the freshly formatted partition.

Even though I partitioned via FDISK, I still wasn't able to boot WIN98SE after the file copy stage.
This time however, I had a different error:

Error loading USER.EXE

I also had this error trying to boot Safe Mode.

I reformatted and reinstalled three times, to no avail, with the same error every time:

Error loading USER.EXE

I eventually gave up on 98SE, deleting the MBR and partitioning this from the WinME CD.

I then copied the WIN9X folder from the CD to the hard drive, as usual, and then ran setup from the hard drive.

Just like with Win98SE, the copy file stage went without any problems.

However, upon the first restart, WinME hung after the splash screen with the following:

Please wait while Setup updates your configuration files
This may take a few minutes...

I waited for 5 minutes, but nothing happened and there was no drive activity at all.
Safe Mode led to the exact error, albeit Windows hanging at a never ending splash screen.
I didn't check the bootlog.txt, though.

https://imgur.com/a/KGyttvB

I eventually gave up Win9x entirely after partitioning, formatting, and installing Win98SE and ME a total of six times.

WINDOWS 2000
I installed Windows 2000 as usual by booting from the CD, partitioning and installing from setup.
Unlike Windows 9x/Me, installation was as bliss as it could get.

Even though Windows 2000 setup does not support quick formatting, the full format of the 20gb partition I created took less then a minute, showing the speed of the SSD.

Setup went as you would expect. The install was completed within 10 minutes, and I noticed no problems before and after installing the drivers.

DMA Mode 5 was supported out of the box by Windows 2000 SP4.

Boot time was roughly 25 seconds.

WINDOWS XP

XP setup was done in the same fashion of 2000.

The setup had an error however copying BOOTFONT.BIN,
which is required for displaying East Asian characters in the NTLDR bootloader and in the text mode setup phase. Fortunately, the file was more or less unimportant, and the error didn't happen again when I installed XP again on the SSD, so the CD probably was a bit dusty and the error wasn't something to worry about.

XP RTM supported DMA Mode 5 out of the box, and an upgrade to Service Pack 3 enabled DMA Mode 6.

Boot time was very close to the of 2000, roughly 25 seconds.

WINDOWS 7

Just for experimental reasons, I attempted to install Windows 7 SP1, despite the 512mb RAM, purely to see how Win7 would perform on 512mb with a relatively fast pagefile.

I tried to install booting from the DVD, but setup kept failing while "expanding files", throwing an error message. I then tried to copy the files to the hard drive, running setup from XP SP3, however this gave me error messages as well when attempting to run setup.exe.

However, the DVD turned out to be damaged, and I booted from another Win7 (SP1) DVD, copying the files to the hard drive and then running setup directly from the drive.
This turned out to be successful, and the setup took a total of 40 minutes to complete.

After installing drivers (which were meant for XP) I was surprised how well Win7 ran. Startup from completed POST to Desktop took no more than 40 seconds, something I would have never expected considering the low amount of RAM.

I ran the Experience Index with a result of 1,0 due to the ATi Mobility Radeon M6 which only supported DirectX 7.0. All the other components with the exception of the SSD got a score of 1,9 , the SSD got a ridiculously high result of 6,5, due to it being faster than any hard drive.

Memory usage idled between 45 - 55 % at desktop, which was very interesting.
Considering the specs, Win7 ran reasonably "quick" - it felt like running Win98 on a DX4 w/ 24mb.

Even though Win7 ran somewhat ok on these specs, I still feel that WinXP is better for the machine.

DMA Mode 6 was supported out of box by Win7 SP1.

DRIVE OPTIMIZATIONS
Due to the complete lack of TRIM, I took some precautions to keep the SSD healthy.

First, I left a small part of the SSD (10gb from 120gb) unpartitioned, as part of overprovisioning.

Second, I realigned the the SSD to 4k via shrinking the first partition by a few mb from a bootable GParted CD. GParted automatically corrects the partition when shrinking partitions from the left to right.

After a reboot, Windows XP/Vista/7 DISKPART shows the alignment of the SSD with

list disk
sel disk n
list part

(n stands for the drive number of your SSD, should be 0 in most cases)

If the the offset is divisible by 1024, then the partition is aligned correctly.

BENCHMARKS

https://imgur.com/a/sCi25N3

The Kingston SUV500MS/120G SSD used in this test is a TLC SSD which can be bought new on Ebay for roughly $34 even though it is no longer being produced.
According to Kingston, it is capable of up to 520mb/s reading and 320mb/s writing sequential.

However, the ATAPI bus supports an absolute maximum of 133mb/s, which makes the maximum speeds of the SSD irrelevant.

I used CrystalDIskMark 2.2.0p in 2000, XP, and 7.

Seqeuntial read speeds were practically same in 2000 SP4 and XP RTM due to DMA Mode 5 bottlenecking the maximum speed to roughly 90mb/s.
XP SP3 and 7 SP1 performed slighly better with a bit over 100mb/s in sequential reads due to DMA Mode 6.

Interestingly, speeds of over 100mb/s are achieved according to CrystalDiskMark, even though the laptop's chipset (i845) with its ICH2 southbridge should be technically limited to DMA Mode 5, so 100mb/s.

Even though there is a 10mb/s difference in sequential reads between DMA Mode 5 and 6, there is practically no difference while normal usage. The SSD is much faster than any hard drive in practice, and the biggest difference between a conventional hard drive from a reputable company and a SSD is the random write performance, which will make most of the performance difference in Windows. The SSD with the adapter performs roughly 40x faster in 4k random writes compared to the 80gb 5400rpm Hitachi which I had installed before.

CONCLUSION

The Delock 62495 adapter proves itself to be quite a performer, but there are two problems which might scare somebody from buying it for their old system.

The smaller problem is its asking price. There is no doubt that Delock adapters usually are quality components, this one being no exception, and the performance of the adapter when in combination with a SSD from a reputable company is practically unbeatable on any older ATAPI/IDE-only system, its price of $40 is very high for such an adapter.

The bigger and much more worse problem however is the the complete incompatibility with Windows 9x/Me for reasons that are unknown.
Technically speaking, it doesn't have to be the adapter necessarily - but I have tested Win9x/Me on many different 2.5" hard drives which worked fine without any problems at all. This leaves us with either the adapter or the SSD - it is more likely that the adapter, which is responsible for converting from SATA to ATA, is the culprit.

However, as mentioned, Windows NT-based operating systems seem to work great with the adapter.

So, is the Delock 62495 adapter the right choice for you?

If you plan on running solely Windows NT-based operating systems such as 2000, XP, etc., well then the $40 may very well be worth it.
But if you consider running Win9x/Me, you are better off trying another adapter, an IDE SSD (very overpriced), or maybe just sticking to a hard drive, which would be more period accurate anyways.

If anyone has also tested this or another MSATA -> 44pin IDE adapter, please let me know!

Medion MD 9783 2Ghz P4 Notebook w/ Win98SE/2K/XP Multiboot

694X 733Mhz P3 Build w/ Win98SE/XP Dualboot