Trouble installing Windows - IDE to mSATA

Trouble installing Windows - IDE to mSATA - MBR/GPT?

Topic actions

First post, by britain4

Posted on 2018-05-07, 09:02

britain4 Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 271
Joined: 2018-02-21, 15:27

I’m having a spot of bother with a Toshiba Libretto U100 and an mSATA drive.

Because the laptop uses a proprietary 50-pin connector I needed an mSATA to ZIF adapter plugged into a ZIF to 50 pin. At least one other person has this combo working fine but I’m having trouble.

On first fitting the drive in, it tried to boot but gave an Intel boot agent error. I thought this was down to the GPT Windows 7 install that was on there so I continued with the process. The drive is recognised fine by the BIOS and in various partition managers I loaded off my USB stick - the right capacity and model number of the drive is reported.

So I went into the Windows install disc and the mSATA drive is recognised fine, went through a full format and copied all the files over with no trouble. On restarting the computer I get nothing but a blinking cursor/underscore followed by “A disk read error occurred” after about 30 seconds.

I used the same XP CD to do a clean Windows install on the original hard drive with no issues.

Anyone know if this could be some remnants of the old GPT gubbins on there stuffing things up, an issue with the adapters (which would seem unusual since the drive seems to be recognised fine by the laptop) or some other issue I’m overlooking?
I’ve tried running “fixmbr” from the XP recovery console - which did recognise that there was a Windows install on the SSD - and it reported that it was “non-standard or invalid” and claimed it had successfully repaired the problem but didn’t make any difference.

- 486DX2-66, SoundBlaster 16, Crystal VLB graphics
- P-MMX 200MHZ, PCChips M598LMR, Voodoo 1, AD1816
- PIII 933MHz, MSI MS6119, Voodoo3 3000, SB Live!
- PIII 1400MHz, ECS P6IPAT, Voodoo5 5500, SB Audigy

Reply 1 of 5, by britain4

Posted on 2018-05-07, 15:21

britain4 Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 271
Joined: 2018-02-21, 15:27

Zeroed out the entire drive, reinstalled XP and it’s still not having it, I can only assume the laptop doesn’t like booting with the adapters.

Might think about getting a CF card which I think should work as it’s still IDE. Back with the hard drive for now (an absolute pain which requires the disassembly of nearly the entire laptop - in contrast to how easy the earlier Librettos were to work on with the HDD caddy on the side) but it’s zippy enough in the interim at least.

And at least I got in there to replace the thermal paste so the fan doesn’t spin up as much now!

Reply 2 of 5, by weldum

Posted on 2018-05-07, 18:09

weldum Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 500
Joined: 2016-02-16, 07:25
Location: Mendoza-Arg

is the disk initialized as MBR or GPT, you may use a bootable iso like Paragon Partition Wizard Bootable, it's free and lightweight

other problem may be due to the adapter itself, i know that some adapters are troublesome, but i don't have the knowledge to explain why

you should try the msata disk in other computer, without the adaptor, and see if you can install XP. be sure to enforce IDE/Legacy/Compatible mode in bios for XP to recognize the disk

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 3 of 5, by britain4

Posted on 2018-05-07, 19:24

britain4 Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 271
Joined: 2018-02-21, 15:27

Yeah the disk is definitely recognised as an MBR disk in partition managers and also in the Windows setup. I had the mSATA disk running in a laptop for a long time and never had any trouble installing Windows on there... I’m not sure if installing in another machine would help in this instance because the install goes through fine but will not boot.

Sadly I don’t have any more time to put into it so it’ll be sticking with it’s hard drive until I get a CompactFlash for it.

Reply 4 of 5, by weldum

Posted on 2018-05-07, 19:27

weldum Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 500
Joined: 2016-02-16, 07:25
Location: Mendoza-Arg

Is very strange, but if you can fix it without the compact flash, let me know as i have a netbook with a ide ssd, that in xp setup is not recognized

Reply 5 of 5, by britain4

Posted on 2018-05-08, 08:39

britain4 Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 271
Joined: 2018-02-21, 15:27

Yeah I’ll update if I do get it fixed, it’s a weird one for sure. Tried 2 different XP disks as well just to be certain but still no dice. I can’t think of a reason why it would recognise the drive fine, read and write to it fine but refuse to boot from it. Perhaps some weird master/slave issue with the adapters.

Really wanted to use the old mSATA drive over a CF as it should have lasted a lot longer...

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to General Old Hardware