M2 to IDE adaptor

[Squarewave]

Can anyone suggest an M2 SATA to IDE 44 pin, 2.5" adaptor which they have used that works?

Thanks.

[coromonadalix]

normally this one worked for me,   since it has B + M notch     

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284581729312?

but again,   they do talk about  the ngff    next gen form factor ...   who could play tricks, since it is a sata mode ....  mine was ok

meaning you have tried some ...        and dont forget  you will not gain  tons of speed, since you translate sata to ide ...          you do have ide 44 pins  ssd

some like this

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166652552663?

[Squarewave]

A solid state IDE, now that's interesting!

[Squarewave]

Just so that you know what I'm trying to achieve.......I have an old Pentium 4 laptop, it has a parallel port, so I thought I'd try and get it set up for the Micromaster LV48. The hard drive is 20 years old and very slow. So with an IDE adaptor, I could remove the worry about drive support.

[Gyro]

Hah, almost exactly the same situation as me, an old IBM T42 for old parallel port Agilent logic analyser and Dataman 48 EPROM programmer. I have a small SSD bodged in with a small bare IDE-mSATA PCB and a bit of cardboard a couple of years ago, very unsatisfactory. I hadn't realized 2.5" cased versions had become available. I ordered one of these (ebay UK) this morning... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124256370900

[Squarewave]

Although I have an M2 drive, let me know if that adaptor works when you get it, then I'll try one and get a mSata drive.

[Gyro]

Yes sure. IDE M2 adapters in the same form factor seem to be only a couple of £ dearer though. The guts look almost identical (apart from the connector slots presumably).

I've picked up all my mSATA drives cheap on ebay so far, main brands and no duds. You really don't need anything big to support a couple of bits of legacy TE. I'm putting XP x32 SP2 on mine (the earliest that supports TRIM). Even a basic W7 x64 install only takes up less than 15GB so allowing twice that for drive longevity and the application s/w...

[Zoli]

I've bought recently a couple SATA to 2.5"IDE(44pins) adapter:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/205032074245
I've tested with an Innodisk 3MG2-P slim(half-size, PCB only) thru an USB adapter, it works. Warning: the adapter has a master/slave jumper, which is set to slave by default.

[tooki]

A solid state IDE, now that's interesting!

That’s more or less what a CompactFlash card is.

[Halcyon]

A solid state IDE, now that's interesting!

That’s more or less what a CompactFlash card is.

Yep. CF had an IDE interface. No fancy circuitry needed, just a physical pin adapter.

[tooki]

That’s what I thought, just wasn’t 100% sure. 👍

[Gyro]

@Squarewave:

As promised, an update to say that I now have XP x32 running on my old Thinkpad using the IDE mSATA 2.5" adapter and Crucial M4 64GB mSATA drive. All working fine and fast. I see no reason why you should have a problem with the M2 version, or mSATA if you choose to go that way.

Just a few notes that may be helpful (I've learned a few things from the web during setup)...

- The installed size for XP x32 Pro, together with the collection of old Parallel port and other TE S/W comes in at 1.9GB. You really don't need a big SSD. As I think I mentioned previously, I've picked up all my mSATA SSDs cheap on ebay without a problem.

- I mentioned earlier that I thought XP SP2 supports SSD TRIM. I've installed SP3 and found that this still isn't the case, it's a bit too early to know anything about SSDs. In practice, it doesn't appear to matter. There isn't likely  to be enough data flying about for the SSD to have difficulties with slowdown. If you want to do a manual TRIM (I think later windows versions do one about once a week), there are standalone utilities. Naraeon SSD tools is one, but I think there are others.

- Probably a more important one. For best endurance and performance, SSDs need to have their partition(s) 4k aligned. Later windows versions do this by default for SSDs, but the XP installer does not (something about using a 63 block offset rather than 64). To avoid this, it is easiest to create the primary partition on the SSD using a later version of Windows, and then have the XP installer install into the existing partition (you might be able to jump out to the command prompt on the installation CD and create the aligned partition that way but I didn't pursue it). Nareon will also tell you if your partition is correctly aligned or not. The first time I just used the XP installation CD and it complained, the second time I created the partition using W7 and all was fine.

- Again, for minimum wear, it is helpful to optimize a few things - disable the Page File (should be fine if you have 2GB RAM), turn off indexing (search is fast on an SSD anyway), turn off system restore, etc. Naraeon has an optimize function to do these and a couple of others in one hit but there is discussion on line.

- SSD-Z is also a useful standalone tool. It tells you basic SSD parameter data, partition alignment, SMART data etc. It doesn't have an option to initiate a manual TRIM though.

I hope this helps.

[Squarewave]

Thanks for the write up, in fact I was thinking earlier about whether or not you've got your adaptor yet.

All sounds good, apart from the laptop only has 512mb of ram, upgradable to max 1.5gb! I guess I could have a go anyway and see what happens.

[Gyro]

You're welcome, yes it turned up yesterday. That should be more than enough for a prom programmer s/w without any significant performance hit, you might look for a cheap SODIMM on ebay though [EDIT: You need to check the laptop memory spec but around £2 seems to be the going rate for a 1GB SODIMM]. Nothing is 'essential', apart from the partition alignment maybe, as that effectively doubles the number of blocks accessed and hits performance. Keeping the page file wouldn't be the end of the world.

[Squarewave]

Where do you buy your mSATA disks from? I can't seem to find any from my suppliers.

[Gyro]

Where do you buy your mSATA disks from? I can't seem to find any from my suppliers.

I've picked all of mine up on ebay. Two Sandisk X300 128GB, two Kingston 120GB, and a Crucial M4 64GB one. All very low hours, good SMART and cheap. Not a failure yet. It's handy to be able to keep them as boot drives for Linux and Win7 for two laptops (three counting my XP legacy equipment lab one).  I can bolt them into my Thinkpads for longer term or use them in cheap 2.5" adapters for easy access.

[Squarewave]

Hopefully I'll find one then, as it doesn't appear that they can be bought new unlike the M2 format of SATA. If I could find one, I'll use the converter you used, as I'd rather use something someone says they have and works. Previously I tried an M2 STAT to IDE and it didn't work.

[Squarewave]

I've bought that same adaptor as you have, as you say you have one and it works.

I'm just waiting on an mSATA disk at the moment, one is with Royal Mail, but I'll have to wait until the middle of next week until I can collect it.

[amyk]

- The installed size for XP x32 Pro, together with the collection of old Parallel port and other TE S/W comes in at 1.9GB. You really don't need a big SSD. As I think I mentioned previously, I've picked up all my mSATA SSDs cheap on ebay without a problem.

At those sizes, even SLC SSDs might becoming affordable, and you'll never have to worry about it wearing out with one of those.

[Squarewave]

@Squarewave:

As promised, an update to say that I now have XP x32 running on my old Thinkpad using the IDE mSATA 2.5" adapter and Crucial M4 64GB mSATA drive. All working fine and fast. I see no reason why you should have a problem with the M2 version, or mSATA if you choose to go that way.

Just a few notes that may be helpful (I've learned a few things from the web during setup)...

- The installed size for XP x32 Pro, together with the collection of old Parallel port and other TE S/W comes in at 1.9GB. You really don't need a big SSD. As I think I mentioned previously, I've picked up all my mSATA SSDs cheap on ebay without a problem.

- I mentioned earlier that I thought XP SP2 supports SSD TRIM. I've installed SP3 and found that this still isn't the case, it's a bit too early to know anything about SSDs. In practice, it doesn't appear to matter. There isn't likely  to be enough data flying about for the SSD to have difficulties with slowdown. If you want to do a manual TRIM (I think later windows versions do one about once a week), there are standalone utilities. Naraeon SSD tools is one, but I think there are others.

- Probably a more important one. For best endurance and performance, SSDs need to have their partition(s) 4k aligned. Later windows versions do this by default for SSDs, but the XP installer does not (something about using a 63 block offset rather than 64). To avoid this, it is easiest to create the primary partition on the SSD using a later version of Windows, and then have the XP installer install into the existing partition (you might be able to jump out to the command prompt on the installation CD and create the aligned partition that way but I didn't pursue it). Nareon will also tell you if your partition is correctly aligned or not. The first time I just used the XP installation CD and it complained, the second time I created the partition using W7 and all was fine.

- Again, for minimum wear, it is helpful to optimize a few things - disable the Page File (should be fine if you have 2GB RAM), turn off indexing (search is fast on an SSD anyway), turn off system restore, etc. Naraeon has an optimize function to do these and a couple of others in one hit but there is discussion on line.

- SSD-Z is also a useful standalone tool. It tells you basic SSD parameter data, partition alignment, SMART data etc. It doesn't have an option to initiate a manual TRIM though.

I hope this helps.

Eventually, I got my mSATA disk, using the same adaptor as you, I can't get it to work..............I am having no luck with this at all 

The same issue with the M2 SATA to IDE adaptor. Connecting to my IDE to USB adaptor, windows isn't seeing anything, disk manager isn't seeing anything. 

[Squarewave]

Ok, here's something strange. Using the IDE to USB adaptor, if I connect only the mSATA to IDE adaptor in, without the mSATA disk fitted, Disk Manager shows it as a removable drive with no media. Start again with the mSATA fitted and it doesn't show at all.

What may that be indicating?

[Squarewave]

Ok, I tried this.....

I installed it into my Pentium 4 laptop, not expecting anything at all. I put an XP installation disc in (this laptop won't boot from USB, not many options in the BIOS) and it appears to work. It found the HDD, correct size, formatted it and installed XP, I got as far as entering the licence key, but I don't actually know where mine is.

So, strange why it won't be seen on the USB adaptor, which usually sees any other IDE disk I throw at it. Not a massive issue then as it looks like I've somewhere to go now.......

[Gyro]

Curious that it wouldn't work on the USB adapter. I can't think of any reason other than some obscure 'incompatibility'. As long as it works when installed in the laptop though.

Regarding XP licensing / activation. I was surprised to find that the offline telephone activation system still works using the UK number that XP provides. This was just a few weeks ago. You clearly don't want to expose an old XP machine to the web.

Hint: Once you have typed in the activation code that the MS telephone system prompts you with, do not hit enter until you have noted it down. The next page tells you that this code can be re-used for future activations and there is no way to go back to the previous page!

For XP there is also a standalone activation err, 'utility' to be found on the web, and also a utility that will extract the key and activation code from the registry if you have forgotten to write it down.

[Squarewave]

Yes, strange how it wouldn't work on the USB, maybe it doesn't like being converted twice?

I know Microsoft have uploaded ISOs to some archive page with activations. I must have the product key somewhere for my original installation disk, it may be attached to the book which comes with the disc.

[Squarewave]

I did try the wmic get original product key command which works on some computers, but didn't work on this one to find the key.

I've been in the loft today to go through all of my paperwork, couldn't find the product key, so will have to try a few other things, before burning a DVD with the installation ISO of one of the XPs from the archive.