Old PC & New SSD Causing Issues

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simon_t

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Jun 28, 2009
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Hey everyone, I hope someone can help me with an issue regarding an SSD I have just purchased.

I'm home from uni for a few days and my dad asked me to upgrade his ageing PC. It's an old Packard Bell around 5 years old. Unfortunately, I don't know the model number and nor and I see anywhere inside the case or chassis to tell me. Without really thinking, I went to the shops today and brought an OCZ Vertex Plus R2 SSD (60GB) on the assumption that I could plug it in and it would work (silly me!).

As the computer is old, the BIOS doesn't support AHCI, only IDE and RAID. As a result, I just cannot install Windows 8. I have tried Windows 7 too and get the same error code (0x80070057) when attempting an install- that is, I can't even partition the drive to begin installation.

I thought I would be smart and use my PC to format the drive which then allowed me to start the installation process from USB (on my dad's PC) but on two occasions, it has got to 22% complete and then froze giving me another error code (that I haven't noted down). I even completely installed Win 8 using my main PC, transplanted the drive over to my Dad's PC and it booted!! But upon restart, I was told that there was no boot drive.

So...I was wondering if I could buy a PCI-E SATA card (such as this: http://www.ebuyer.com/248986-xenta-2-port-sata-3-pci-express-controller-card-6gbps-cs0033). Does this card contain the chipset to allow installation and booting, without completely replacing the motherboard? The CPU and RAM in this PC is 100% fine for his needs, he just needs a faster drive as the old IDE one is very,very slow.

Any help that you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.
 
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J_E_D_70

J_E_D_70

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Is it an Intel chipset on the motherboard? Intel's RAID setting includes AHCI on non-raid drives (no clue on AMD - and, not sure how far back this applies to Intel) so you just use the RAID driver during installation and just don't set up an array. Be sure to delete all the partitions and start over clean when you go to reinstall.

If it's an older nVidia chipset, like the 650i, you just may be out of luck. I was unable to install Windows on an Intel 320 SSD connected to a 650i mobo. Never did figure it out, but the drive worked like a champ when I connected to my current setup.
 
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simon_t

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Thanks for the reply. I'm not 100% sure it's an Intel chipset but I don't think it is. I did try installing using RAID settings but the Windows set up wouldn't even recognize the drive was connected in RAID mode. It was recognised in IDE mode but I then experienced the aforementioned issues.

Would the PCI-E SATA card not resolve the issue then? I'm not sure I can take the drive back because it's in perfect working condition, I just didn't think about the incompatibilities...





 
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J_E_D_70

J_E_D_70

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If the card states that it's bootable and the BIOS has an option to make an add-in card the first device you should be good to go. Some off-the-shelf PCs like that have seriously locked down BIOS so would have to take a look at the options (there's a chance it won't show up until the card is in there, however - one reason it would be good to figure out the exact make and model so you can pull up the user guide and see).
 
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simon_t

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I will do some research on this now.

I have managed to get a model number at last- it's a Packard Bell iMedia 1429.
 
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JohnnyLucky

JohnnyLucky

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Bad News!

If the pc is 5 years old, then the motherboard was developed in 2008 or earlier. A motherboard that old will not support modern solid state drives. There are no motherboard system BIOS updates, chipset updates, or driver updates that can help.

I checked the specifications for your pc. It is an AMD based system with an AMD Athalon 64 cpu. No mention of solid state drives in the owner's manual.

I also checked a few other resources. Your pc was introduced in 2006 which is two years before the very first consumer ssd's were introduced. That is a very good indication that your pc does not support ssd's.

You are not alone. Recently there were several similar threads. Each time, the problem was an older motherboard that did not support modern ssd's.
 
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simon_t

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Thanks for your reply! The drive isn't SATA3- it's SATAII. Does this change the situation?
 
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simon_t

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Do you know why exactly? You first said that it's because an old motherboard doesn't support SATA3. That makes sense but this is a SATA2 drive. Is it because the mobo doesn't support AHCI?

Also, it doesn't quite add up with the other facts 1) Win8 installation will show that the drive is there when under IDE mode 2) if I format the drive in another computer, setup will then allow me to begin installing Windows on the newly created partition 3) if I install Windows completely using a different computer, the old PC will then boot into Windows 8 for the first time (after which it seems to wipe the partition such that on subsequent boots, I get the familiar error of "no os present")

 
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JohnnyLucky

JohnnyLucky

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ACHI mode in the motherboard's system BIOS is mandatory for a system with a solid state drive. That is one of several reasons why the old motherboards do not support solid state drives.

The various SATA standards have been around for 13 years or so. Unfortunately the old SATA 2 3Gb/s controllers and chipsets on the old motherboards were not designed to support solid state drives. The old controllers and chipsets only supported conventional devices such as hard disk drives and optical drives. The same problem exists with the older Intel LGA Socket 7XX series motherboards. Fairly well documented years ago. AnandTech, another well respected web site, published one of the first articles that discussed the lack of ssd support in December, 2007. I actually went back and read the review this past weekend because we had other forum members with the same problem. Lately the problem is surfacing more frequently.

Sometimes solid state drives will operate when the motherboard's system BIOS is set to IDE mode; however, performance will be similar to a hard disk drive. That pretty much negates the purpose of having a solid state drive.

 
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