Tag: SSD

Tuesday (27-August-2013) — New Jersey

Sometimes Technology Keeps Me From Doing What I Really Want To Do.

I know that I said that I would try to be posting something daily again, but ran into some technology issues. This weekend, I got an e-mail/text message from ATT that I had exceeded 26 GB of wireless data, and that that each 1 GB above my 5 GB/month would be charged at $10/GB. This was really surprising in that it indicated that I had used over 19 GB in one day. I only uploaded a few images (jpg’s not raw) and hadn’t downloaded any big programs or movies. My 4G connection to the Internet via ATT through my phone is good, but not good enough to upload/download 19 GB in one day. I had been moving some of my backup hard drive data from a Synology disk array to an old Drobo Disk Array, but via a hard-wired Ethernet connection. I did some checking to make sure that my internal data transfer wasn’t being broadcast either WiFi or onto the ATT network. During the process I made some changes to the networking configuration on my main image processing computer. The downside – I could no longer connect to the internet with this computer,. ARRG!! This is the computer that I do all of my image uploading to PhotoShelter, Google+, and my Blog. Well, I tried a number of fixes to the networking, but still couldn’t get my main computer to connect to my phone and bridge to the internet.

OK – what to do? As I mentioned the other day, I just set up a HP MediaServer (Windows HomeServer). One of the things that the HomeServer does is backs up each computer connected to it every night (first time full backup, and then incremental backup of any changes thereafter). This will be a good test to see if I can reset my main image processing computer back to where it was before I made any changes. Because I am paranoid about these type of major changes, before I did anything I ordered a new Crucial M500 SSD (solid state drive). I this regard Amazon is great in that I could order the drive, and have it delivered in less than 24 hours. (I was even more surprised when the new SSD drive arrived and found it to be 960 GB, rather than 500 GB). I used the Apricorn EZ-GIG-IV hardware and software to make an exact copy of the boot drive before I try to use the HomeServer software to recover/restore the original SSD drive to a state before I made any of the networking changes. I’m posting this from a different computer and will let you know if it works.

The next day I got an e-mail/text message from ATT that I really only used 1 GB of excess wireless data. I still plan to do the recovery/restore to confirm that the process works. This post is from my backup computer, and I really need to get my main image processing computer back on to the Internet so I can post some new images.

Saturday (08-December-2012) — New Jersey

Technology Update: ThinkPad W510 DIY Upgrade – Part II.

The Apricorn/Crucial data transfer program took about 4 hours make an image of my old hard drive on the new SSD drive. Access to the hard drive and memory for the W510 laptop is from the bottom. I replaced the old hard drive with the new SSD hard drive. I also checked the SIMMs installed and found two 2-GB cards. The other two cards are under the keyboard. So I did only have 8-GB of RAM installed. I should have looked up the instructions for checking on the RAM under the keyboard. Instead, I did it the hard way by removing all screws on the bottom. In the process of separating the top and bottom of the laptop case a ribbon cable became separated from its connector. I couldn’t figure how to reconnect the ribbon cable until I realized that the keyboard pops off after removing two screws from the bottom. With the keyboard removed reconnecting the ribbon cable was much easier. I put everything back together, and turned the computer on. I was amazed how quickly the computer booted up. Everything with the computer seemed snappy. I’m not sure how much of the increased speed is due to the new SSD hard drive, and how much is due to the data on the hard drive being defragmented during the data transfer process. I ordered four 4-GB SIMMS so I could upgrade the RAM in the computer to 16-GB, and then went to bed.

The computer was still on when I checked it in the morning, however there was no response when I tried to enter my password. I powered the computer off, removed the keyboard cover – the easy way this time and checked the ribbon cable connection. It appeared to be loose. I realized that I hadn’t locked the ribbon cable connector. After putting everything together again, I powered the computer up and everything worked. If the SSD hard drive failed, I also had the option to use the old hard drive.

The Ultra Bay hard drive caddy arrived in the mail. I didn’t expect it until next week. It was simple to install the new 1-TB hard drive into the Ultra Bay caddy, remove the CD/DVD from the Ultra Bay slot on the computer, and replace it with the new Ultra Bay hard drive caddy. When I turned the computer on, it recognized that a new device had been installed and installed new drivers. After waiting a bit, I tried to open up the MMC storage management program to set up the new hard drive. The storage management module didn’t open – locked up trying to connect to the virtual drive manager. I rebooted the computer – it still didn’t work. I rebooted the computer, to check if I missed some setting in the BIOS. It was taking too long for the computer to shut down, so I forced the power off by holding the power button down. This was a big mistake. After checking the BIOS and not finding anything I let the computer continue to reboot. Nothing – the new SSD hard drive was not recognized. I tried twice more, still nothing. I didn’t panic. I put the old hard drive back in and rebooted. This time the new 1-TB hard drive in the Ultra Bay was also recognized.

I went online to the Crucial support site and found a comment that the SSD drive will go into a “safe mode” to prevent data corruption if the power goes off unexpectedly. That is probably what happened when I forced the power off. The instructions on how to reset the SSD drive were to 1) power the laptop but hold it in the BIOS setup mode for 20 minutes. 2) Turn the computer off. 3) Remove the SSD drive for 30 seconds. 4) Reinstall the SSD drive. 5) Repeat steps #1 and #2. 6) Allow the computer to reboot. This worked!! Also, the new 1-TB drive in the Ultra Bay was recognized. I formatted the 1-TB hard drive as D:-drive to be used for data. The OS, program files, and cache will be on the new faster SSD C:-drive.

Laptop Computer Hard Disk Upgrade. Image taken with a Leica X2 camera (ISO 800, 24 mm, f/2.8, 1/30 sec) (David J Mathre)
Laptop Computer Hard Disk Upgrade. Image taken with a Leica X2 camera (ISO 800, 24 mm, f/2.8, 1/30 sec) (David J Mathre)