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

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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

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Answer 1

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The hatter

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Dec 9, 2008 3:42 PM in response to YusifSaladin

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

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Answer 2

Dec 9, 2008 3:53 PM in response to YusifSaladin

I have the exact same problem and think it's a driver issue as well. When installing XP, it asks you to press F2 to install any 3rd party drivers that are out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any drivers for the drive itself.

I have tried XP SP2 & XP SP3

Its nice being able to load programs in 1 second tho 🙂

Message was edited by: Maven1975

Message was edited by: Maven1975

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Answer 3

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Dec 9, 2008 4:18 PM in response to Maven1975

Maybe there is something on Google "SSD drivers XP" which looks promising:

http://www.google.com/search?q=SSDdriversXP

But watch out, some of the links look like spam or something - you don't need to BUY drivers or something definitely.

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Answer 4

YusifSaladin Author

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Dec 9, 2008 4:40 PM in response to YusifSaladin

My apologies, I don't think I was clear enough:

This is most likely not a driver issue. (as in not a windows driver that you add at the f6 portion, or a PnP driver)

Remember, the 320Gb 2.5" sata (standard) drive works fine, so we therefore don't have a problem with the sata drive controller drivers, right?

But note the odd thing missing: There isn't a device noted of any kind by windows. (ie, start up disk management, you'll notice there isn't a device. If you start up device manager, there isn't an item (of any type) with a 'unknown driver' next to it.

Windows isn't aware that there is any type of anything plugged into the sata port at all.

Drivers won't help, as you have nothing to apply it to...<grin>

That's usually a warning bell (on a pc) that you need a BIOS update to enable your operating system to 'see' the device. (then you need a driver for your OS to use it, but that's another story)

(this is what I meant by the drive not appearing at all in my original post)

for added 'fun' information, from viewing the smbbios information for the machine (accessed via ReFit EFI shell menu)

The bios version is:
MBP51.88Z.0074.B00.0810241236

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Answer 5

Dec 10, 2008 11:57 AM in response to YusifSaladin

Did you figure it out yet? I have the same issue using the Intel X25-M. OS X install was fine. I use BCA to create partition and start Vista installation. Windows installer loads (with help by holding the [option] key during boot) and continues until it trys to find the hard disk to install to. None are listed. It's asking for drivers.

Also, I wasn't able to eject the Windows installer disk to be able to insert another disk, but I have an external USB DVD drive that is recognized by the Windows installer. ..... If only it was a driver problem.

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Answer 6

Dec 10, 2008 3:18 PM in response to YusifSaladin

There is a firmware update for MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs available today. The description notes that it improves device compatibility. Any possibility that it will help?

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Answer 7

Dec 10, 2008 5:16 PM in response to mr_sonicblue

I applied both of today's new EFI and SMC firmware patches, removed the boot camp partition, recreated it, and booted from the Vista DVD again. It still was not able to see any hard drive.

P.S. I also unsuccessfully tried this method to use boot camp with the SSD.

1. Reinstall the stock hard drive.
2. Install Boot Camp.
3. Use Winclone to make an image of the boot camp partition.
4. Reinstall the SSD and create a boot camp partition.
5. Use Winclone to restore the image to the new SSD partition.
6. Boot Windows to BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!

; )

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Answer 8

Dec 10, 2008 5:48 PM in response to notetoself.net

It sounds like you got a little further with the imaging than I did with my X25-M. I could never make it past the boot selector. It would only show a blinking question mark folder when I selected the Windows partition.

If you can actually boot from the drive, might I suggest partially installing Windows before imaging it over. What I mean is... run the installer only until the first reboot. It might be better if you had a different PC available to partially install directly to the Windows partition on the SATA drive, before swapping it back into the MacBook.

Message was edited by: mr_sonicblue

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Answer 9

YusifSaladin Author

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Dec 11, 2008 2:22 AM in response to mr_sonicblue

Darn.

Same result as above, the new firmware updates didn't help the issue. (totally unrealistic to expect that I know, as I figure the testing for those updates is measured usually in months....which means I don't see this getting fixed prior to March 2009....fooey.)

I'm all but convinced at this stage that the BIOS implementation utilised by Apple isn't compatible with the SATA device presented to it by the Intel SSD. (sure, I could also blame Intel, but as from a post mentioned earlier, I suspect that updating the firmware in the SSD simply isn't going to happen)

For now....I think I'll just keep raising the topic with our apple support rep, and see where that gets us.

P.s Apple: If you're reading these forums, *This Needs Fixing*. There are quite a number of reasons to connect one of these (and presumably upcoming other similar SSDs) to a mac, and these drives (particularly the X25-E versions) are going to be POPULAR.

p.p.s Thanks for all the responses! (and if we figure anything out, we'll let people know what occurs)

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Answer 10

Dec 11, 2008 4:34 AM in response to YusifSaladin

I spoke with Intel support about this last week. Even if the problem is really Intel's fault, the firmware on the SSD is not upgradable (flash-able).

When talking with Apple support, one could argue that the drive works in most every other machine (and the ones where it doesn't are being fixed). When talking with Intel support, one could argue that any other drive works with the MacBooks.

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Answer 11

Dec 11, 2008 10:31 AM in response to mr_sonicblue

When I saw the flashing question mark during boot, I had to restart and hold the "option" key from before the grey opening screen and bell sound until the boot option icons began to show up.

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Answer 12

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Dec 11, 2008 11:03 AM in response to notetoself.net

I found once when I had trouble booting, that just holding the mouse key down to open the optical drive, was enough to allow something to catch up and then get the option to at least do a safe boot.

Slashdot has link to an article on SSD performance on various OSs.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/08/12/11/1627239.shtml

ComputerWorld best OS for solid-state drives
MacBook Air - now with SSD

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Answer 13

YusifSaladin Author

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Dec 11, 2008 4:00 PM in response to mr_sonicblue

Some more information (we're looking further)

The drive is using a DCO overlay for some reason. (device configuration overlay - similar to HPA introduced in ATA-5, DCO was introduced with ATA-6 specs to include some interesting capabilities to drives.)

(normally you'd find it on a vendor drive to cause it to reduce capacity or something like that, ie, so an 80gig drive would only report 40gig. (so they could differentiate products with only one drive type.)

The weird thing is that the information we have (at the moment) is that the drive is reporting it has a native capacity of 2TB (yep, terabytes) and it's reducing down to the correct value. 74.5GB.

However, DCO entries can be 'unusual'. We're looking at changing the DCO data directly on the drive (oh yes, we're heading for a potential brick on a cable here) and we'll let you know what we get....(I'm assuming still nothing, but hey...)

It's certainly something 'different' about this drive than the normal ones you see. (fyi, the included 320Gb sata 'standard' drive doesn't contain either a HPA area or DCO information.)

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Answer 14

Dec 16, 2008 2:21 AM in response to YusifSaladin

Does anybody find a solution for this?

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Answer 15

fuugus

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Dec 16, 2008 10:39 AM in response to YusifSaladin

same problem/config here with vista (sp1, 32bit & 64bit) as well. i was heading for efi as well after all the stuff i tried, but what i cant understand is that osx sees the disk, but vista does not.

on the other hand: there is an /efi folder on the vista install dvd... could it be that part of efi is loaded and replaced live from the dvd during install???

- efi update 1.6 installed
- macbook: osx install works on hdd/ssd
- pc: vista install works on hdd/ssd
- macbook: vista install works on hdd but not on the ssd
- preformatted ssd with master boot record doesnt work
- bootcamp doesnt work
- acronis cant clone the hdd to ssd, not even if attached to a pc

ill try ubuntu next and let you know, but i dont think with that we have much more clues to go.

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