Impossible to install XP on a T60p with an aligned SSD

[kamaleon]

Hya folks how is everybody around here?

Latest issue I've been having with my beloved T60p.

I'm trying to install a fresh XP SP3 on this machine having preformatted and prealigned an SSD OCZ Vertex 30GB on a windows 7 machine beforehand.

During the install the files are copied to the SSD as per usual, then the machine reboots but then it can't go on from there: "a disk read error occurred press ctrl+alt+del to restart".

I also tried cloning an image to that same SSD and the same error occurs.

I can install a fresh XP only and IF i don't align the SSD (meaning I'll let the installer format the partition during install) but as everybody knows this is really not the way to go.

More information on how this started can be found here:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... eless-now/
Also to be found here the following quote:

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... to-restart

"Some boards will not boot if XP is installed with anything other then the default offset."

So is this a familiar issue with the T60p? I'm using the latest BIOS. Flipping from AHCI to IDE doesn't change a thing, and the SSD boots when taken from the thinkpad and put inside a desktop so I really believe this is an incompatibility between the aligned SSD and the thinkpad mobo.

I also installed 7 x64 on the tpad and the same SSD and it works like a charm, so it's not the alignement per se but a rather strange combination of alignment + XP + the tpad...

Any help appreciated, as per usual! THanks!

[Bibin]

You should not install XP to an SSD. Apart from generally not knowing how to handle itself with one, XP does not support trim, and as a result the SSD will rapidly slow down as you use it, requiring you to run a wiper utility frequently that takes a very long time to work.

[kamaleon]

Ok, thanks, but I can live with that and apart from that it's what I'm stuck with for the time being...

I have run this for the past few months but it wasn't aligned and now since I updated the firmware of the SSD i would like to align it.
I bought this SSD cheap and the speed difference is remarkable compared to my previous 7200rpm drives.

[msb0b]

During the install the files are copied to the SSD as per usual, then the machine reboots but then it can't go on from there: "a disk read error occurred press ctrl+alt+del to restart".

The symptom seems to suggest XP does not have a driver for AHCI installed. The standard (retail, msdn, technet, etc) XP CDs do not support AHCI out of the box.

You can go into BIOS and change hard disk mode from AHCI to compatibility, install the appropriate AHCI driver in Windows XP, and then switch it back.

I agree Win7 is recommended for use with SSD.

[kamaleon]

I'm sorry but it's completely unrelated to this, as I mentioned on the first post, I tried toggling between IDE and AHCI.

If using AHCI the XP loader won't even see the drive so it just won't install it. So I'm using IDE mode.

The issue is definetly between the tpad motherboard and booting XP to an aligned partition, making XP see it as "non-standard".

[dsvochak]

See this topic: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=94795

[kamaleon]

Hi thanks. Yesterday I found this guide:

http://www.tuxyturvy.com/blog/index.php ... -Data.html

and it worked!