Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

I have a x61s and a friend has a spare mini pci express 8 gig SSD http://www.stec-inc.com/product/umssd.php (it is the small 50mm size)

I'm wondering if I can install it to my spare mini pci-e slot, and if I will have to flash the bios to accept it to fix that 1802 error?

Also wondering if I would be able to boot from it or if it would only be able to be used as a secondary(D:) drive?

Anyone ever done this successfully ? I searched all over google and asked a few irc channels with no definitive solution.

FYI it is a x61s with no turbo boost and just the standard wifi.

You should give it a try if anything. Although it is known that you can not boot off of this drive, you would most likely be able to use it as a secondary drive. If you are really adventurous maybe you can get around the missing boot code in the Thinkpad BIOS.

I have some developer friends who could help me figure out how to play with the C in the bios config.... I hope this works. Should get the card later on this week

Any news?

Still waiting on the part.

Still no news?

waiting for the outcome of this.

dmdsoftware wrote:waiting for the outcome of this.

same goes for me.

regards.
bearmann

Alright got the ssd today(finally!), installed it - although forgot screws so I strapped it down with some electrical tape.

Booted back up and it is not recognized in windows or in the bios anywhere. Still running stock bios - I think I will update this weekend...

Anyone else have any thoughts?

I'm also going to buy some screws just in case it's not contacting properly for some reason (And for piece of mind)

- Maraxus

Did you enable WWAN in BIOS?

Try with the Zender BIOS. It should allow all cards to be recognized.

andykrej wrote:Try with the Zender BIOS. It should allow all cards to be recognized.

Hi, I'm looking for the Zender BIOS for several weeks and I haven't found where I can download it.
Could you somebody me please ? I have x60 + MC8775 (with tapped PIN 20) for second month and I can't use it... / Thank you.

rwagner wrote:Hi, I'm looking for the Zender BIOS for several weeks and I haven't found where I can download it.
Could you somebody me please ?

Check your mail. Sent you a PM.

So, does it work with the modded bios?

No updates so far? I'm going to try my unit this weekend then with leftover 16GB SSD from
my upgraded S101

No outcome on this?

I'd say you should try Middleton BIOS. I think it opens things up more than Zender.
Also, he is currently still taking open suggestions to add or fix things on the BIIOS.

He might just find a path to access/ boot from there? If so, then i'd get a small SSD too

PS: I am wondering if one could boot off that SSD if you had a Multi OS BootManager like Acronis or Chameleon (e.g. Mac OSX-86/Retail)

PPS: I'd love to do this on my X61T.. if I could.. can I?

Any news on this...?

I could use a little more performance on the X61T, in particular when running Lightroom. Need the storage space offered by spindling drives for photos. Wondering if I can install a mini PCIe SSD, maybe an 128GB one, in the 2nd slot, to improve the performance...?

Cheers.

My research shows it is a hardware limitation, no magic bios can resolve.

Yes. But is it possible to use a Chain Boot loading?

BTW Can the SSD even be seen/ accessed/ used as storage on an X61/T ?
Maybe Boot something like PLOP and have it Chain Load from the Mini PCI-e.
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html

Just how Mac OSX 86 cant boot on a Intel PC because they have EFI based Bootloader on Intel Macs etc? So they came up with Empire EFT and Chameleon etc to do the Needful before to Add to the BIOS and then Boot OSX.

You mean to use a 3rd party bootloader like GRUB to load Windows installed on the mini PCIe SSD...?

Cheers.

I am sure it could? Basically what makes "bits & bytes" bootable? Its telling the CPU to EXECUTE certain code.

If we could get some Code that is Executing in Memory to Read the SSD and put the relevant stuff into memory and pass on Execution Control... Why not?

The question is how easy or difficult would this be?

The 1st question to ask would be - Is the X61 even able to RECOGNIZE the Mini SSD as valid readable storage/ disk/ drive?

If that is a YES, then its as good as passing control. Anyone been able to recognize the SSD as storage on Mini PCI-e?

A similar thing is apparently done by PLOP Boot Manager that allows (I think) you to BOOT from a USB drive even if your MOTHERBOARD CHIPSET does not support USB Booting.

Ah! I thought that the only problem was the BIOS can't recognize the drive and use it for boot, so the bootloader had to reside on the spindling drive.

This seems more complicated...

Cheers.

P.S. Was thinking about the Intel 310...

Turns out the hardware actually has to support mSATA which it doesn't

Wow... Someone did the opposite by modding a mini PCIe SSD to be a mSATA SSD...

http://www.thejoojooforum.com/viewtopic ... 776&p=4961

Are there "real" mini PCIe SSD that doesn't cost a fortune but still provide reasonable performance improvement...?

Cheers.

P.S. Am concerned mainly about running Lightroom, don't have other "heavy" app in mind... Know the latest Core i5/i7 are much faster, but getting a new box is expensive and the X220, for some reasons, doesn't have eSATA and USB 3.0. Besides, what takes most of my time these days is cataloguing/tagging the photos, and I think moving the OS, the ACR cache and maybe the LR database to a SSD would help...

Wow! Nice find.

Wow, that is hardcore.

Ahha... According to this (http://www.computer-darkroom.com/blog/w ... rformance/), a SSD won't help Lightroom much...

Cheers.

So, did anyone wver reach any conlussions?
Personally, was thinking about something along the lines of MiniPci-e to CF as I have a few highspeed CFs that I don't use..

If you do care, my conclusion is to forget about it and save the $$$ for upgrading to a newer box later.

But the decision was made based on the reason that upgrading to SSD will not help Lightroom's performance significantly.

However, the difficulty in obtaining a mini PCIe SSD (instead of mSATA) is a problem for all.

Cheers, and happy CNY if anyone is a Chinese... : )