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From: Martin Racette on 17 Jul 2010 10:13
Hi,

A few days ago the primary HDD in my laptop (Pavilion DV7), decided that it
was taking a permanent break, so I am forced to replaced it and I would like
to know what you think of the Seagate ST95005620AS Momentus XT 500GB Solid
State Hybrid Drive

--
Thank You in Advance
Merci a l'avance

Martin

From: Paul on 17 Jul 2010 13:12
Martin Racette wrote:
> Hi,
>
> A few days ago the primary HDD in my laptop (Pavilion DV7), decided that
> it was taking a permanent break, so I am forced to replaced it and I
> would like to know what you think of the Seagate ST95005620AS Momentus
> XT 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive
>

The Newegg reviews don't look that encouraging. The mechanical parts of
it seem to suck. I'd go for a regular drive, something where the
users don't have concerns with the physical aspects (vibration, failure rate).

If you really want NAND flash chips that bad, buy an SSD.

Paul
From: Martin Racette on 18 Jul 2010 08:45
That is what I was thinking as well, but when I saw that one on Tigre Direct
Canada, I was tempted since it is way cheaper than SSD

Newegg Canada does not list that drive, and since we can not order from the
US site I do not tempt myself by looking at it ;-)

"Paul" <nospam(a)needed.com> wrote in message
news:i1so9b$2od$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...
> Martin Racette wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> A few days ago the primary HDD in my laptop (Pavilion DV7), decided that
>> it was taking a permanent break, so I am forced to replaced it and I
>> would like to know what you think of the Seagate ST95005620AS Momentus
>> XT 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive
>>
>
> The Newegg reviews don't look that encouraging. The mechanical parts of
> it seem to suck. I'd go for a regular drive, something where the
> users don't have concerns with the physical aspects (vibration, failure
> rate).
>
> If you really want NAND flash chips that bad, buy an SSD.
>
> Paul

--
Thank You in Advance
Merci a l'avance

Martin

From: Martin Racette on 20 Jul 2010 22:52
I got a OCZ Agility2 240Gb SSD HDD, I was able to restore the whole system
from a backup, it booted into Windows Vista, I did re-installed a few
program taht were not on the backup, when I had to re-boot I did a restart,
but the laptop now just stays in the HP logo screen at the begining of the
sequence and then nothing happen, I even tried to remove the SSD, when I do
this I can boot using a DVD but if I place the SSD back it will not do
anything at all

BTW I did tested the SSD in an external enclosure on my desktop, and I can
access it


"Paul" <nospam(a)needed.com> wrote in message
news:i1so9b$2od$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...
> Martin Racette wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> A few days ago the primary HDD in my laptop (Pavilion DV7), decided that
>> it was taking a permanent break, so I am forced to replaced it and I
>> would like to know what you think of the Seagate ST95005620AS Momentus
>> XT 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive
>>
>
> The Newegg reviews don't look that encouraging. The mechanical parts of
> it seem to suck. I'd go for a regular drive, something where the
> users don't have concerns with the physical aspects (vibration, failure
> rate).
>
> If you really want NAND flash chips that bad, buy an SSD.
>
> Paul

--
Thank You in Advance
Merci a l'avance

Martin

From: Paul on 21 Jul 2010 00:42
Martin Racette wrote:
> I got a OCZ Agility2 240Gb SSD HDD, I was able to restore the whole
> system from a backup, it booted into Windows Vista, I did re-installed a
> few program taht were not on the backup, when I had to re-boot I did a
> restart, but the laptop now just stays in the HP logo screen at the
> begining of the sequence and then nothing happen, I even tried to remove
> the SSD, when I do this I can boot using a DVD but if I place the SSD
> back it will not do anything at all
>
> BTW I did tested the SSD in an external enclosure on my desktop, and I
> can access it

I can think of some possibilities -

1) The Pavilion laptop has a problem with the SATA connector, and
is damaging drives connected to it. But the proof that is not the case,
is that you were able to use an external enclosure.

2) The laptop relies on some MBR (master boot record) feature,
and somewhere along the way, you've upset the structure that
was present when the hard drive was there.

3) Since you say the SSD is functional, as demonstrated by it working
in an enclosure, then I guess we have to conclude it is not an
early failure.

My approach would have been to copy the hard drive, sector by sector,
to the SSD. That would include copying the MBR. (Depending on how
evil your laptop setup is, I might also investigate whether an
HPA or Host Protected Area was present on the drive, as you can
hide stuff in there, and that might be missed by a backup. HPAs
are hard to work with. The BIOS tends to "lock the door" on HPA,
such that the user can't play with it or inspect it. I understand
that some piece of Linux software can tell you whether an HPA
is present, but I don't know how reliable such indications are.)

The very first step, is going to be making that SSD safe to connect
to the computer. Seeing as you cannot boot with the thing connected
directly to the computer, you may have to use a USB enclosure for the
SSD, and connect it after the computer is booted.

Using a Ubuntu CD, I'd try the following.

1) sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

That would erase the MBR (the first sector) on the SSD in the USB enclosure.
It's the quickest way to "erase" a drive, without having to waste
write lifetime on the drive. The name of the disk "/dev/sda", varies
with Linux environment, so you have to use other info in Linux to
figure it out.

Erasing the SSD with DBAN, would be wasteful. It would achieve the
same ends, only it would waste hours doing writes to all the sectors,
largely for nothing. The "dd" command above, only takes a second.

There is even a version of "dd" for Windows, but then, how are you
going to run it, if you don't have a bootable Windows setup ?

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

2) Copy the original hard drive, sector by sector. Say the
original hard drive was connected in a USB enclosure, and the
SSD is back inside the laptop.

sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/hda

That would work, as long as the size of the two drive devices
is consistent with the purpose. If the original hard drive was
larger than the SSD, then some part of the original hard drive
would be lost. You could not have a partition "out past the end"
of where the SSD would have storage space.

The dd command can also copy individual partitions, but would
take a lot more care to do successfully. You'd need to apply
sector offsets to the command perhaps, to end up with the partition
in the right place.

The purpose of this careful copying, is on the theory that there was
something about the original MBR that was magic. Some laptops contain
code for intercepting the "recovery" key press, and perhaps that is
setup via the MBR.

Other than that approach, you'd have to figure out why Vista is not
able to boot. If you can't boot *anything* with the SSD connected,
that may make it difficult to do a Vista repair install, or whatever
the repair equivalent is for that.

The only good news I see here, is that the SSD still seems to work.
Keep track of how much time you have with your retailer, to get
a quick replacement, if it looks like the thing really isn't working
right.

SSD's can have some "alignment" issues, but I see that as a performance
issue, rather than a "refusing to work" issue. So even if the
partition alignment is less than perfect, it should still work.

On ordinary hard drives, the first partition starts at the 63rd sector,
rather than the 64th. The flash chips, as far as I know, work in 128KB
chunks. So some other starting location for the partition, may make a minor
difference to the performance. I don't own any SSDs here, so I don't have
a collection of utilities just for SSDs, and can't advise what is the
best thing to do in your situation.

You can spend hours chasing down the latest "polishing" techniques
and benchmark tests. I consider not getting a device to do anything
though, to be a much more serious issue, than getting "the best" from
my new purchase. That will take time, to find enough articles like
this, to get everything set up well. (Each OS has its own set of issues,
which is part of the fun.)

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?48309-Partition-alignment-importance-under-Windows-XP-(32-bit-and-64-bit)..why-it-helps-with-stuttering-and-increases-drive-working-life.

So one of your challenges, is determining what evil lurks in the HP setup
of the disk. In the process of "restoring", did that process miss a
step ? Is there some detail about the MBR that needs to be resolved ?
Doing a "dd" style transfer, is a shot in the dark about there being
some part of the restoration that is missing. If copying the original
information sector by sector works, but restoring just the partition
results in "failure to do anything", I'd have to suspect the HP is doing
something with the MBR. There are some laptops, that actually rewrite
the MBR on a boot, as the situation dictates. It allows them to "hide"
a partition, so the user cannot access it. Or alternately, when the
user needs it, the hidden partition can be mapped back in again.
I consider such practices to be "evil", because they make it
practically impossible for the average user to understand what
the hell is going on. If any company considers doing such things,
they should be *well documented*. As another example, say something
is "hidden" on the drive, and normal backup techniques can't see
that thing. Then, if the hard drive fails, you'd have no copy of that
bit of it. (This is one of the reasons I like my home-built
computers, because they're very "ordinary" in terms of how they're
set up.)

So part of this adventure, would be to start by analysing the original
disk (if it is still working). You can look at the primary partition
entries with a tool like this, while at the same time, look on the web
for any articles that address what "tricks" were used in the setup of
your hard drive.

(Picture of PTEDIT32 output - three working primary partitions, with
"monkey business" in two of them. Only the 0x07 partition is ordinary
and is probably the C: partition on this computer.)

http://www.vistax64.com/attachments/vista-installation-setup/7308d1224108918-hidden-partiton-recovery-dell-xps-420-dell-tbl.gif

(Executable for download)

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PTEDIT32.zip

Paul

>
>
> "Paul" <nospam(a)needed.com> wrote in message
> news:i1so9b$2od$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...
>> Martin Racette wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> A few days ago the primary HDD in my laptop (Pavilion DV7), decided
>>> that it was taking a permanent break, so I am forced to replaced it
>>> and I would like to know what you think of the Seagate ST95005620AS
>>> Momentus XT 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive
>>>
>>
>> The Newegg reviews don't look that encouraging. The mechanical parts of
>> it seem to suck. I'd go for a regular drive, something where the
>> users don't have concerns with the physical aspects (vibration,
>> failure rate).
>>
>> If you really want NAND flash chips that bad, buy an SSD.
>>
>> Paul
>
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