Upgrading an R50e to SSD.

[spamnchips]

Hi,
I have looked through lots of posts in various locations and they all seem to agree that my R50e 1834 Thinkpad could be upgraded to run with an mSATA SSD. I have purchased a PATA to mSATA conversion box and a KingSpec 256GB mSATA SSD. Having installed the hardware, the BIOS does not recognise the new drive. I am wondering if this because the drive is not partitoned or formatted or if there is a deeper issue. The BIOS is 1WET90WW which appears to be the latest for this machine. Does anyone have any recommendations please?

Regards
John

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

Not all adapters will work with ThinkPads, it's unfortunately somewhat of a trial and error. Which one did you purchase ?

[spamnchips]

Hi,
Thanks for the quick repsonse. I grabbed one of Ebay. It did not have a manufacturers name but waas identified as

mSATA to 2.5" 44 PIN PATA/IDE SSD HDD mSATA to PATA Convertor Adapter Card {NAW}

Is the a recommended maker ?

Regards
John

[RealBlackStuff]

Give us the eBay link, please.

[spamnchips]

Hi George,

Ebay link

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/mSATA-to-2-5 ... 2749.l2649

[ajkula66]

Hi George,

Ebay link

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/mSATA-to-2-5 ... 2749.l2649

That looks OK but...one can't always go just by the appearance.

Have you tested that mSATA SSD in another system ?

Way back when I was toying with this approach I used an Addonics adapter and it worked fine.

[spamnchips]

Hi,
No, but I have bought a SATA to mSATA adaptor today and will hook it up to my PC to see if it recognises it and if it can be partitioned and formated. I will then put it back in the Thinkpad and see if it is then recognised by the BIOS.

Regards
John

[Shredder11]

I needed some hard drives for some of my IDE based Thinkpads recently, and in the end it made more sense to buy some 128GB mSATA SSD drives + mSATA to IDE adapters from Aliexpress. I'm in the UK so it cost a total of £20 shipped, and took just over a week to arrive (things take way longer then they do to the USA, so this was very fast). If I had stuck with old used mechanical drives from Ebay, it would have cost £10+ for a 60GB drive.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3298222 ... 4c4daUfUYC * mSATA SSD

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3284782 ... 4c4daUfUYC * mSATA to IDE adapter

[spamnchips]

Your adaptor looks identical to the one I bought on UK ebay. Have you successfully installed the SSD's yet?

Regards
John

[Shredder11]

Yes I have used three of the four sets so far, and all of them working just fine in a Thinkpad G41, T43p and Acer Aspire 5612WLMi. I also have another branded adapter mentioned here on the forum, that I successfully used with a Plextor SSD. The performance of that is about the same as the cheap Aliexpress one, except the Plextor combo cost about five times more in 2015/6.

[spamnchips]

I purchased a SATA to mSATA adaptor and installed the mSATA drive into my Windows PC. Initially Windows did not see the drive although it was recognised in the BIOS. After trawling the internet I found some advice that suggested running Windows Memory Diagnostic. Sure enough the drive was then identified and I was able to format. Tried it back in the laptop but no recognition by BIOS or Windows. Conclusion. Forget the laptop and buy a secondhand IDE drive from Ebay. Use the mSATA in a new build coming up soon.

Regards
John