Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT

> Learn more

> Add to your calendar 

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: YusifSaladin
YusifSaladin Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Can't install windows XP to a macbook pro with an Intel X25-M SSD

It's a strange problem:

We just bought some new unibody macbook pro 2.8Ghz machines, (4GB ram)etc. We also obtained some of the new Solid State Drives (SSDs) from Intel, the X25M-80GB.
(part number: SSDSA2MH080G1C5)

After installing the SSD into the macbook pro, everything works.....in OSX. Installation of 10.5.5 went without problem, all updates/firmware applied, everything works fine.

The problems start when you try to install XP. We used the boot camp assistant, and created a 32GB partition, put in a XPSP2 disk, and start the installation.

Everything starts up nicely and goes to the blue/white text based installer for XP. It loads drivers, and then reaches the point where it would ask you to select a disk to install to (where you would normally see the three partitions, 1 being the FAT32 you select as C:).

However, what you get instead is an error message that: +"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer...."+ and then you have to exit.

If you use the original 320GB drive, everything works as expected, (nothing wrong with the laptop hardware, or the installation CD). If you stay in OSX, everything works as expected. (nothing wrong with the Intel SSD either)

To further add information, we also installed the Intel SSD into a Mac Pro (2008) as a second drive, booting to a windows installation (through boot camp) on the first disk. Windows boots fine, but there is no sign of the other drive AT ALL. (not a driver issue here - there simply isn't any hardware here as far as windows is concerned.)

That brought us to our conclusion that there is something awry in the BIOS/EFI
being presented to Windows, that doesn't support the Intel X25M drive at all.

However, there is no user customisation (or even access) to the settings or what's happening at that point in the boot cycle, so I'm unable to diagnose further.

Given the Intel SSDs are using their SOC (system on a chip), (I believe - but I could be wrong on that one) perhaps that just isn't supported by the EFI?

Would appreciate some advice on where to go from here? These SSDs cost about 1400AUD+ each, so we'd rather like to actually use them....

I suspect we're asking/requiring for an EFI update.

(to head off some questions: Yes, we've used different discs, and also different computers...The disk and hardware themselves are just fine. Also, the drive WAS formatted with a GPT paritition.)

Thanks!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Dec 9, 2008 2:56 PM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply
User profile for user: The hatter
The hatter
User level: Level 9
60,990 points

Posted on Dec 9, 2008 3:42 PM

From reading Vista forums support for SSD is one of the things Vista SP2 and Windows 7 hope (need) to improve upon. I was in a similar discussion once befoe on SSDs:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8482110

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10026010-64.html

http://www.intel.com/design/flash/nand/mainstream/index.htm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-US&q=IntelSSDVista

I don't think it is EFI issue, but with XP and drivers, lack, and wonder if you can try with Vista?
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080908-intel-tosses-hat-into-ssd-ring-wit h-80gb-launch.html

That won't solve performance issues, but should work.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/07/22/sandiskssd_vistabeef/

"My guess is that [Samsung and Microsoft] are maybe working on the OS recognizing an SSD with a 4K-byte sector size instead of a hard disk drive with a 512-byte sector size," Wong said.

Sun is already working with Samsung to bulk up SSD support on the ZFS (Zettabyte File System), which is included in the Solaris OS, and will also be supported in Apple's upcoming Mac OS X 10.6, codenamed Snow Leopard. Sun is adding capabilities to boost the durability and performance of SSDs on ZFS-based operating systems. For example, Sun may add defragmentation capabilities for SSDs, which organizes data in a particular order to enable quicker data access.


SSDs were not considered ideal for defragmentation because of limited read-and-write capabilities, Wong said. However, Samsung and Sun in July jointly announced an 8G-byte SSD that bumped up durability from 100,000 read-and-write cycles to 500,000. That brings defragmentation in SSDs closer to reality, which could improve its caching and provide quicker access to data. Sun plans to put SSDs into storage products later this year.
http://www.itworld.com/operating-systems/54115/samsung-microsoft-talks-speed-ssd s-vista
View in context
29 replies
User profile for user: YusifSaladin
YusifSaladin Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Dec 16, 2008 8:45 PM in response to fuugus

fuugus wrote:
but what i cant understand is that osx sees the disk, but vista does not.



You're right, it is weird, and it's a certainly different, but not unexpected. It's down to how EFI is actually different from BIOS, and it's interaction with hardware.

When the computer (intel mac, that is) intially loads (so we're independent of OS at this stage), we're booting into an EFI environment. The devices are detected/accessed using their respective EFI drivers (yep, EFI has drivers) and we get access to them to use at this point.

EFI also supports a higher framework, which is where all the cool stuff starts happening. On our Intel macs, one of the components that is loaded by this framework is the "BIOS compatibility module". (BCM)

At this point onwards, if an operating system wants to address hardware via a BIOS call, it does so via the BCM. For the most part till now, everything has worked fine, and XP/Vista (and linux in compatibility boot mode) has access to hardware (such as hard drives) and we're all happy campers installing away. (then you need drivers to run this hardware correctly with the OS, but that's a seperate problem, and has been addressed by the drivers provided by Apple on the installation media (and subsequently in the 2.1 update, or the 2.1.1 drivers supplied with the new macbook pro installation dvd)

Now: What we're experiencing here is down to the device not being compatible with the settings/information/etc assigned to it via the BCM. Once this occurs, you end up with the situation we have here. (ie, a hard drive that is as accessible as a piece of cheese installed into a computer)

It (the Intel SSD) works with OSX, and Linux installations (not running compatibility mode boot mode). That makes sense, as these operating systems are completely EFI compatible/native, and they don't utilise anything to do with BIOS to interface with hardware. Their calls go via EFI, and everything works because the device is compatible with the EFI drivers for the SATA class of devices...

You occasionally see this behaviour in a standard BIOS PC, and to fix it you'd change the settings in BIOS for the sata controller (ie, to SATA native, or RAID, or AHCI...that type of thing)

Whew....that's a rushed summary (and people are welcome to correct anything I've over-summarised. It's not meant to be a 100% 'pass an exam' explanation, but it's pretty close.)

For more information on the EFI environment, wikipedia is a very good source for this. It explains this much more coherently...<grin>
Reply
User profile for user: The hatter
The hatter
User level: Level 9
60,990 points

Dec 17, 2008 1:34 AM in response to YusifSaladin

Vista 64-bit SP1 has support for EFI, though, right? UEFI (Unified EFI 2.x).

Some Macs you would think support (officially) Vista 64-bit, though, are not listed by Apple (Mac Pro pre-2008) only because it uses older EFI 1.x and EFI32 instead of EFI64.

And yet, 2008 MacBook and MacBook Pros do get official Vista 64-bit support or "nod" from Apple. And the Penyrn iMac from mid-2008? Not a bit.

I have older Vista 64-bit media, and it has worked fine, though sometimes but not always I have had to remove hardware (PCI Express cards). Vista installs but after the first big update, BSOD hardware crash (white text on blue).

Bought Vista 64-bit SP1. This DVD gives me some kind of boot menu with "Choose Option 1 or 2" screen but sits frozen and won't respond. In that case, I can install a 2nd version of Vista while in my first original OS (I have 2 copies of Vista installed on their own hard drives.

So that EFI-X would allow the Mac user to access the settings, and maybe tweak "BIOS compatibility module." Something I was unaware of before. Add support for Intel X225-M SSD even.

Could EFI-X actually help a stock standard Mac Pro etc. run Windows (not the other way around which seemed to be the intent, to run OS X on non-standard PC hardware)? benefit from being able to finally use stock PC hardware like Nvidia 9800GTX or GTX 260. Cards that for now lack EFI ROM and only work in Windows.

Okay, list of Macs with official Vista 64-bit support (does not differentiate between SP1 or not).
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1846

Microsoft (and Intel) had said that support for EFI would only be in SP1 64-bit UEFI2.x. And seems to coincide with Apple's 2008 Macs.

http://www.uefi.org/specs/
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/uefiguide.mspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFI
http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=EFI&i=58377,00.asp
Reply
User profile for user: GavMackem
GavMackem
User level: Level 1
15 points

Dec 17, 2008 3:09 PM in response to YusifSaladin

I'm a relative Mac novice but certainly not on PC boxes so here's my two penneth worth. There are similar issues installing a vanilla XP SP2 disc on SATA devices which use the AHCI format instead of compatibility mode which XP setup can detect.

In XP's case you could try and see if the Mac supports detecting a USB floppy drive on boot and try loading the driver via F6 when windows setup first starts. Else the only other option is to unpack the original XP disc and slipstream the files recreating the image with a later hacked XP AHCI SATA driver from Intel's website with the 'inf' file modified adding the extra strings present in Apple's boot camp SATA driver's inf file.

In Vista's case it supports USB drives on setup at boot which putting the drivers on a USB stick for Vista to detect.

Spelling is not my forte..
Reply
User profile for user: firatlogin
firatlogin
User level: Level 1
0 points

Dec 22, 2008 1:27 AM in response to YusifSaladin

I tried to install vista on another machine, failed.
I tried grub, failed.
I tried rEfit with bootable cd, boot from refit and than selected windows partition to continue, failed.
I tried windows 7 (azure) x64 build 6936, tried to setup, failed.

only hope seems to boot all the os from the cd. which is not good at all.

so in short, to boot from x25 to a windows os seems to impossible now.
intel x25-m unable to boot in bios mode on a macbook pro.

we will need a firmware update for macbook pro.
I do not think there will be any update soon.
Reply

Can't install windows XP to a macbook pro with an Intel X25-M SSD

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.
Learn more Sign up