Adding SSD to Z1 Workstation

[Captain_WD]

Hey, glad to hear you are making progress!

Post back with photos once you have everything up and running!

Regarding the issues with cloning, the link that you've provided does offer some helpful solutions and tips, but you can't be 100% sure that your SSD will be problem-free when cloned to from a HDD. I would just consider keeping regular and close backups in case something goes sideways. 🙂

Captain_WD.

[TomCole]

---

@Captain_WD wrote:

Hey, glad to hear you are making progress!

Post back with photos once you have everything up and running!

Regarding the issues with cloning, the link that you've provided does offer some helpful solutions and tips, but you can't be 100% sure that your SSD will be problem-free when cloned to from a HDD. I would just consider keeping regular and close backups in case something goes sideways. 🙂

Captain_WD.

---

---

Thank You Captain_WD

All good advice  -  Will back up everything.  Will go with the cloning Option 1 simply because it is potentially much quicker than Option 2 - fresh install.

But I seem to have hit a major problem - see below.

Fair Winds

Tom

[TomCole]

---

@SDH wrote:

That is good news!  I think we have it easy here in the U.S. with eBay and so many used parts available.

I'm sure your project will help many others via the forum.  The pics were great, and more will help also.

p.s.  Regarding that Hard Disk Sentinel..... it served a purpose, but caused some trouble.  I plan to only install it to answer a specific question and uninstall thereafter.  Don't leave it installed, in my opinion.

---

Thanks Scott

The hard disk drive will not physically fit inside the Z1 bay along with the 2.5" SSD, so I cannot be sentimentally attached to history!

Thom

[TomCole]

I seem to have struck a major roadblock in getting the SSD to work when connected externally via a USB socket.

[Previously I had backed up data only using DVD's and occasionally even to USB thumbdrives.]

Initially I connected the new Intel SSD 535 to a USB socket and power supply.  Nothing happened and I eventually found a poor power connection between the AC/DC adaptor and the SSD;  five hours to isolate and fix!

Now I get one positive result.  Using Windows 7 Pro 64, if I run START => COMMAND PROMPT => DISKPART => LIST DISK  -  it shows as follows:

Disk 0   Status - Online  Size - 465 GB  Free - 0 GB

Disk 1   Status - Online  Size - 447 GB  Free - 447 GB

{Disk 1 only became visible after I debugged the above power connection, so it must be the SSD}

I then ran  Select Disk 1 => clean and It responded "DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk"

It seems that the SSD is detectable and accessible at the DOS level.

But Windows does not detect the SSD.

• START => COMPUTER lists the HDD, DVD Drive and a USB Thumbdrive (if inserted) but does not detect the SSD.
• CONTROL PANEL => SYSTEM => DEVICE MANAGER  does not seem to list anything related to the SSD.  (I might have missed an acronym here.)

Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox details the HDD but not the SSD.

• Intel Solid State Drives - nothing at all visible.
• Other Drives - C:\463.76 GB,  120.55 GB Used Space,  343.21 GB Free Space.

[Drive C:\ appears to be the one referred to as Disk 0 at DOS level.]

I am now totally lost,  but past the point of frustration.

Tom

[SDH]

Agree with the Captain.... it is always best to do a clean install from scratch, but more time.  I have been able to use Acronis to convert from a good HDD build to a SSD build multiple times, but my instincts still are always to do a clean install from the HP/MS DVD.

I think I may understand what you are up against.  You have one HDD with your current OS/programs on it and you want to create an image of that and clone it onto your new SSD.  With Acronis you can do that on another workstation and when you are done you can put that cloned SSD into your single slot and boot from it.  You boot from the Acronis CD and target the drive you want to capture the image from, and point to the drive you want to capture the image to.

Again, you can capture the image from your current boot HDD using a workstation that is not your Z1, and you can use a workstation that is not your Z1 to then clone from that image to a SSD and then later transfer that SSD into your Z1 and boot from it once installed.  We could accomplish that in about 20 minutes here... bring the beer.

Or, if  you have the image captured on a drive you can transfer that image to a thumb drive, and then you could put your blank SSD into your Z1 workstatin, plug in the thumb drive into the Z1 (with the single image file on it), boot the Z1 from the Acronis CD, target to the thumb drive for your image source,  and target to the blank SSD to clone onto.  Then remove the CD and boot from the SSD.

I generally use an eSATA drive for these projects.... it is on the fast SATA bus, easy to target to for capturing an image to, and easy to target to for cloning that image onto an internal blank drive.  For our HP workstations it is easy to just plug in an adapter to have one of the SATA internal ports be dedicated to an eSATA port on the backplane.  If you only have one internal SATA port then you can't do that.  I use this approach on all xw6400, xw6600 and Z620 workstations.  

There even is an Acronis Cloud you can capture your image to, and clone off that, but I have never used that.

[TomCole]

Thanks, Scott

The Z1 has only a single bay for disk drives and that bay will take either 1 x 3.5"  or 2 x 2.5" drives.  I cannot mount the SSD internally while the HDD is in place.   Hence my efforts to clone to the SSD while mounted externally.   Increasingly sounds like a fresh install may be the best option.

But a new winkle has emerged.

I thought I had downloaded drivers for the SSD 535 from the Intel website, but now I am not so sure.

If I go through the CONTROL PANEL to DEVICES AND PRINTERS I get a new icon for "USB TO ATA/ATAPI BRIDGE". Clicking on this and going to the HARDWARE tab I get a message "Device Status:  This device is working properly".  The hitting the PROPERTIES button, then the DRIVERS TAB I get the following:

• Driver Provider:  Microsoft
• Driver Date:  21/06/2006
• Driver Version:  6.1.7601.17577
• Digital Signer:  Microsoft Windows

When I try to Update  Driver it seems to start the process and then states that I have the most recent drivers installed.

This is most confusing, drivers are ten years old ??  and they are not by Intel.

I still cannot get Windows to detect that the SSD is attached to the computer.   Yet Control Panel says its there.

Tom

[SDH]

Your SATA to USB bridge is keeping the SSD from being seen as a SATA bus device.

I'd try the spare workstation approach I posted about before.... it will be easy if you have a spare but you might not.

You also could try a USB-attached external HDD, and boot off the Acronis CD with HDD inside, capture the image to the external HDD, swap in the SSD, boot from the Acronis CD wiht SSD inside, and clone from the external image to the internal target.

Loading from scratch..... another option, as you note.

Hang in there..... you'll pull this off!

[SDH]

Just had a thought looking at your latest picture.

You mention one can run 2 2.5" form factor drives.  That means that there are two SATA ports available to you.  One will be SATA port 0 to which you are supposed to hook up your boot drive.  The second will be SATA port 1.

Thus, you can hook up your hdd externally with a longer SATA data cable, and your ssd also externally with another longer SATA data cable.  Then boot off the Acronis CD and you should be good to go.  You'd need two of those external drive power supplies this way.  You might even be able to fit the 3.5" inside and snake a longer second SATA data cable outside and get by with your one external power supply.

Your drive bay sled part numbers:

671193-001 supports one 3.5-in hard drive
671192-001 supports one or two 2.5-in hard drives

Your technical and service manual:

http://h20566.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=5230510&docId=emr_na-c04076661&docLocale...

Your drives slide in the sled back to mate with the "blind mate" system by Foxconn, which HP uses in its other sled-based slide in drive attachments.  The blind mate receiver back in there will be the equivalent of a fixed SATA data and SATA power cable plug ends bonded together.  I don't know if you need a special adapter to make this work outside of the case.

[Captain_WD]

Hey again,

I'm sory for the bumps along the road. We'll get there eventually, I'm sure of it. 🙂

One thing I've noticed from your photo: where is the power coming from?

I would suggest trying the same with a simple enclosure (with or without external power, won't matter for a 2.5" SATA SSD connected to a USB port), a docking station or a AIO SATA to USB cable (such as this one from WD Black2 http://i.imgur.com/rEidVFW.jpg ). You should be able to connect your SSD externally with one of these.

There may be issues when the power is not coming from the same place as the data connection itself.

Is the drive visible at all in BIOS, Device Manager or Disk Management?

Captain_WD.

[TomCole]

Good Morning Captain WD

I am ever so appreciative of you and Scott oversighting my blundering.  As you have probably guessed, I am not a geek and I am well outside my comfort zone.  But I will persevere.

I live in a 230v 50Hz part of the world and bought a USB to SATA connector that was available locally (often a problem!).  I thought it would do the job.

The power supply comes from the mains to the AC/DC Adaptor then via a 17 pin plug to the SSD.  Then the SSD is connected through a USB cable with white plug (USB 2 ?)  into the blue USB 3 socket on the Z1 Workstation.

The Intel SSD is visible as follows:

• BIOS - Visible as "Hard Disk - USB 480 GB"
• DOS - Accessed via command prompt => diskpart => list disk and it appears as  "Disk 1,  Status=Online,  Size=465GB, Free=0GB"
• Device Manager - Disk Drives => Intel SS DSC2BW480H6 USB Device,  Device Status = "This device is working properly",  Driver = Microsoft  12-6-2006  Version 6.1.7600.16385
• Devices and Printers - Device => USB to ATA/ATAPI Bridge  => Hardware = Intel SS DSC2BW480H6 USB Device,    Driver = Microsoft  12-6-2006  Version 6.1.7600.16385,  Device Status = "This device is working properly",

The SSD is not visible in Disk Management.  When I hit the "Computer" icon it shows the HDD and DVD-RW drives (always) and any thumbdrive in either of the USB3 sockets.   Even though the SSD is plugged into one of the USB sockets it does not appear here.

Guessing, but it seems as if some sort of software command is blocking access to the USB port or not facilitating access.   Could it be that apparently elderly Microsoft driver?  I guessed that Intel would provide their own driver and I thought that I had downloaded it from their site.  To me, this seems strange.

Thanks again

Tom