SSD Help - FKA Should We...?

[Doogie2K]

I installed my new SSD three days ago. Set up AHCI in both BIOS and Windows, let Windows see the hard drive, then migrated the partition over. Everything was hunky dory. Shut down my computer at 2:15 AM last night and everything was peachy.

Turn it on this morning, log in, and Windows Explorer encounters an error. Hit check for errors and restart. Same popup again. Repeat. Then I blue screen with a BAD_POOL_HEADER error. Okay what the fuck. Try to reboot. Get past the load screen, half-second blue screen and auto reboot. Lather, rinse, repeat. Get my Windows disc. It doesn't see my partition to repair it (but then it never does, the useless piece of shit), but I try anyway. Nothing. Try restoring from the Acronis image I made when I moved my drive three days ago. Boots up, logs in...can't find one of my other drives. And on top of all this, my mouse refuses to work unless I unplug and replug it in, and my DVD drive was making weird noises one (but only one) of the times I tried to use it this morning.

So now I've got two options: nuke and reinstall on the SSD, or migrate back to the platter and see what happens. I'm trying option #1 now, but the Windows DVD is literally taking ten minutes to load Setup, then another ten to load the next screen. Oh, and on top of that, I've been having a lot of burned discs coaster lately, which I wouldn't consider relevant except for the fact that everything else is going wrong, so I might as well throw it in.

So what's going on here? What happened? Will this fix things? Will I need to RMA the drive, or is my motherboard pooched somehow? Is AHCI at the heart of this? How do I definitively establish this one way or the other?

[Handmade.Mercury]

Reinstalling Windows is always the answer!

Except when it isn't. Honestly, if I were in this position, I'd just go ahead with the reformat and reinstall right onto the SSD. I really enjoy the experience of a fresh OS install, though.

[Chris_D]

How about a late 2006 Macbook Pro issue. I'm getting screen flicker in OSX which seems to mostly happen when there is some impact on the desk that it sits on or when I hit the keys a bit hard. It doesn't happen at all in Windows XP. So, at first I assumed it was a problem with the onboard graphics (loose wiring?) as Windows only uses the dedicated graphics under Bootcamp. So I did some research and it seems that while recent Macbook Pros have both integrated graphics and dedicated graphics, my older MBP is only equipped with a Radeon X1600 mobility card.

Any ideas?

[Doogie2K]

Originally Posted by Handmade.Mercury

Reinstalling Windows is always the answer!

Except when it isn't. Honestly, if I were in this position, I'd just go ahead with the reformat and reinstall right onto the SSD. I really enjoy the experience of a fresh OS install, though.

Did that. Funny enough, the documents drive still wasn't showing up. Get a brainwave, check Computer Management. Fucking thing's there, but with no drive letter.

Rather than going through all that reinstallation bullshit again, I play a hunch, restore my old Windows install, restore the drive letter, reboot, and everything's back. For now. I still want to know what the fuck's up, though. It's weird that I had that many simultaneous issues that all resolved themselves at once about halfway through the day, which allowed me to actually get everything installed again.

Backing up this new working version of Windows in a new file. Because I can. And I'm keeping an eye on things over the next few days. I'd still welcome any theories as to what the fuck went wrong. I've got about three and a half weeks left to RMA the drive, so I'd like to know if I need to be wary of anything in particular, too.

Edit: Incidentally, the Acronis boot screen is now full screen instead of letterboxed, and more importantly, selecting the Windows option causes it to fail to boot. Still really weird.

[evilgoodwin]

In before "Reset the CMOS."

[Bone]

When you say you migrated Windows over to the SSD, did you mean you cloned the old non-SSD partition to the SSD?

[Doogie2K]

Originally Posted by Bone

When you say you migrated Windows over to the SSD, did you mean you cloned the old non-SSD partition to the SSD?

I did. Like I said, I changed the registry value for AHCI, installed the SSD, turned on AHCI in the BIOS, then booted into Windows to make sure it'd see the hard drive first, then cloned the partition over.

Was that wrong? It's far from the first time I've migrated my Windows partition to another hard drive; was I supposed to do something different this time?

[Bone]

In this case, yeah I think so. Let me find the article explaining why it's potentially bad.

[Mot Wakorb]

Originally Posted by Doogie2K

To keep tech support posts out of the main Magic PC thread.

No. We should not have a general hardware-troubleshooting thread. Please change your thread topic name so that we don't start down this horrible path.

Here's why: too many mixups, too hard to find answers when you're attempting to find just one problem to one answer. It's easier to have a one problem: one answer thread than it is to have many problems:many answers - it's basic helpdesk/knowledge base theory - Microsoft has one answer to one problem for a reason, so that we can find an answer quickly to the one problem we're having. Imagine if the entire MS Knowledge base was one huge document. I'd kill myself working in IT.

[Bone]

Yeah, but the magic PC thread isn't the place for those questions and answers, I don't think.

[Mot Wakorb]

Originally Posted by Bone

Yeah, but the magic PC thread isn't the place for those questions and answers, I don't think.

Simple solution: make one thread with your problem, answers go in that thread. Creates a self-service knowledgebase for people who have had problems in the past and answers to those problems. Shouldn't clog the pipes.

[Troggles]

Is anyone really having a difficult time keeping up with threads in this forum?

[Mot Wakorb]

Originally Posted by Troggles

Is anyone really having a difficult time keeping up with threads in this forum?

That's not the point. Easily searching for the problems/answers is the point. What's easier: one thread with 5-10 solution posts, or one thread with 200 questions and 1000 answer posts? It's basic common sense.

[Troggles]

Originally Posted by Mot Wakorb

That's not the point. Easily searching for the problems/answers is the point. What's easier: one thread with 5-10 solution posts, or one thread with 200 questions and 1000 answer posts? It's basic common sense.

I was actually supporting you, but worded it terribly. What I was referring to was that I don't think it would be harder to keep up with multiple threads rather than one catch-all thread.

[Mot Wakorb]

Originally Posted by Troggles

I was actually supporting you, but worded it terribly. What I was referring to was that I don't think it would be harder to keep up with multiple threads rather than one catch-all thread.

Oh, alright then. I was quite confused

[Jackel]

In support of not having one thread. Look at how many folks put up a unique thread when THEY are building a PC, as opposed to simply posting about it in the BYOPC thread.

[Doogie2K]

Originally Posted by Mot Wakorb

No. We should not have a general hardware-troubleshooting thread. Please change your thread topic name so that we don't start down this horrible path.

Here's why: too many mixups, too hard to find answers when you're attempting to find just one problem to one answer. It's easier to have a one problem: one answer thread than it is to have many problems:many answers - it's basic helpdesk/knowledge base theory - Microsoft has one answer to one problem for a reason, so that we can find an answer quickly to the one problem we're having. Imagine if the entire MS Knowledge base was one huge document. I'd kill myself working in IT.

Fair point. Poor Chris's issue got completely lost in the shuffle already. Fixed.

Bone: By all means. I don't really have an issue with starting from scratch; I'd just like to actually do that of my own volition instead of being forced to by my OS not loading/working correctly. (Figures, given that I just wiped and reinstalled on my mom's computer last week, and now she's gone and bought an SSD herself.)

[Khrymsyn]

Originally Posted by Doogie2K

I did. Like I said, I changed the registry value for AHCI, installed the SSD, turned on AHCI in the BIOS, then booted into Windows to make sure it'd see the hard drive first, then cloned the partition over.

Was that wrong? It's far from the first time I've migrated my Windows partition to another hard drive; was I supposed to do something different this time?

Hey Doogie,

I know the thread's kind of went askew, but here's my 2 cents.

The way platters work, and the way SSDs work are two very different beasts. The controller board of each HDD assist the operating system in determining the right way to access, but it's still a fundamentally different type of hardware. While going from HDD to HDD via an imaging software usually works very well, going from HDD to SSD with imaging software, not so much. It really should have been a clean install onto the SSD to begin with. Sorry.


Chris,
If you are booted up, hold onto the bottom corners of the screen while open, and gently "counter" flex them to each other (i.e. twist) and I mean GENTLY, does that happen? What about holding the screen at the bottom corners again and "wagging" the screen (like, tilt the top forward and backward a little like a shake). I know in many LCDs there's a ribbon style connection that runs along the back of the screen that can get lose either in the screen/lid itself, or at the small lockdown style connection on the motherboard. Seems weird that it wouldn't happen on the windows side as I wouldn't expect there to be any difference UNLESS we're talking some sort of heat issue in which the Win side isn't doing enough work to get things cooking.

[Doogie2K]

Shit. Mot/whoever, can you fix the thread title? It didn't take.

Khrymsyn: I wouldn't think the actual installation process would make a difference. I mean, if it references the control board, wouldn't it just work the same regardless? Or do you mean how the files are sorted in the first place? More to the point, what are the consequences of this?

[Bone]

That's the gist of what I read earlier (and cant find the link to). The alignment is different- frankly it's beyond me, I just clean installed on my SSD when I read that tidbit, it wasn't worth trying to keep my old OS install.