Agilent 54831B - getting a fresh XP installation

[toli]

Hi All,

I've ordered myself an Agilent 54831B which should get here in the very near future, and I'd like to do a fresh installation of XP on the machine (preferably on a new drive too). This might also prove useful in the future in case I run into any issues with the HDD.
I've gone through the forum, and read quite a bit. Including the "Agilent 54831D modernising" which was quite useful. I've also seen the 1GHz BW hack option which is as simple as removing a single resistor, and I'll probably get to it too.
Despite reading quite a bit, there are a few things I'm not completely sure about, and I'd sure appreciate input members of this forum.

1 - I would like to install a fresh copy of the operating system on a different drive (probably an SSD while at it). Since I don't want to simply clone the current drive to a new one (that could be plan B), but rather  create a fresh installation I need one of the following:
A - download fresh installation of the original XP copy for these scope, which isn't the same as the jelly-bean XP operating system.
B - create a clean installation CD from the recovery partition on the units HDD.
Regarding A, I was unable to find such a file, and I'd appreciate if someone has this and could share it with me.
For option B, I'm not entirely sure I can do this, and if so how this is accomplished. Again, if anyone could offer some insight I would highly appreciate it.

2 - It seems there is some debate as to whether an SSD would work well in these machines. Now that people have been using these machines with modified drives for a while, are there any conclusions? What SSD can be used, and are there any issues with this modification? Additionally, is this modification significant in terms of performance or is the unit similarly limited by the CPU/memory?

Thank you.

[toli]

I'd like to update here, in case anyone who will purchase a 54831B/D/54832B/D in the future might need some help with setting up this device with an SSD like I did. Most of these things are on the forum (which was helpful for me as well), but it never hurts to read a bit more

First things first, getting the IDE->SATA adapter. There are a few options, including mSATA, and even using CF card with an appropriate adapter. I've decided to go with a regular SATA connector, seemed more robust as I have access to a few such SSD's/HDD's. There are quite a few cheap adapters online from various chinese vendors. Most of them get quite poor reviews, with many of the malfunctioning and others getting very low read speed. There are one or two that seem reasonably good, but I've decided against it simply because I didn't know what I'll get. I've decided to look for one that uses a Marvell IC. There is one supplier on Amazon selling these, and I've also found one seller on eBay who has an older stock of these, so I've ordered a couple from eBay. One for use, one as a backup as these things are getting hard to find.
I'm using this adapter on the main IDE connector (straight into it, had to remove the floppy cable which was in the way, but its not like I need the floppy anyway), and an IDE cable with the CDROM drive on the second IDE connector of the board.

Next you'll need to find somewhere to get power to the SSD/adapter. The scope has no 4 wire power connectors like on regular PC's, so you'll have to improvise. I've ended up using a 24pin->20pin power supply connector adapter. The power supply and motherboard are both 20pin, so I cut the extra 4 pins out (GND/3.3V/5V/12V), removed the 3.3V, and soldered the other 3 to a regular 4 pin power connector. This can now be split into as many outputs as needed easily. If you ever decide you don't need it, simply remove this adapter and you are back to the original state - you only cut/solder the additional adapter cable.

As for software used, I've started with Acronis True Image bootable CD, but had some problems with it. First, it wouldn't boot with the external monitor on the MB VGA connector (which supports higher resolution than the main graphics card). I've used it on the 640x480 output instead, and saved an image of the disk. However, I was unable to get it to boot with this image deployed on the new Kingston A400 120GB SSD even after numerous attempts. I've ended up using HDclone 8 instead. It has a free version which I've used, and it worked great. It doesn't support network drives (unlike Acronis), so plan accordingly (either add another drive, or use clone instead of image).