Changing from HDD to SDD

Topic

New Reply

I have a Vista machine that basically works.  Disk Chk reveals that there are various bad sectors on the hard drive.

Can a Vista machine be updated to a Solid State Drive?  Would it be worth while for me to do the update?

Reply | Quote

Replies

Only you can answer whether a Vista-era device is worth upgrading to an SSD… but, if the device supports SATA, technically I can’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t work and Google shows loads of videos of it working.

Just be aware that TRIM support wasn’t added until Windows 7.

If it was me, I would be looking for a really cheap second-hand one being sold by someone upgrading to a larger capacity… but that’s just me. 🙂

Reply | Quote

WS,

You need a little more than it supporting SATA. I tried updating a 2012 era laptop that supported SATA, Crucial’s site even offered a “compatible” upgrade SSD. But it didn’t work!

Initially, all seemed fine but as I worked more and more with machine it started to throw all sorts of funny errors. I finally realized that although the connectors were SATA the Controller did not support ACHI mode. I couldn’t find a setting for it in the BIOS. I finally confirmed it with HWINFO64.

I wish I still had the problem machine in my possession so I could show you what HWInfo reported.

If you don’t see the yellow highlighted entry I wouldn’t recommend trying to update to an SSD.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

Reply | Quote

Me, I’d get a refurb Windows 10.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

Reply | Quote

Agreed, get a new (for you) refurbished / second hand W10 machine.
(I have such a beast but it would cost way too much to get it to you.)

cheers, Paul

Reply | Quote

I ran an SSD in a laptop that originally came with Windows Vista. That was my Core 2 Duo F8Sp, Core 2 Duo laptop. It worked, and it was substantially faster. I never did try to use it with Vista, though… I had upgraded it to 7 before I put in the SSD, and later to 8.1 and Linux.

I would find it hard to put much money into a unit that old these days, and certainly not with Vista, so long after it stopped being supported. I do like keeping older gear going, and I used that F8 series for a long time (more than a decade), but even I have my limits. I retired the F8 when I bought an Acer Swift laptop that had about the same performance at a fraction of the size and weight, and with more than 5 times the battery life, and with a full HD (1080p) IPS display, for $299. I could not pass up that deal when I saw it, and once I had it, there was really no more point to the F8.

If you can’t afford to upgrade to a newer unit (even a low end unit will likely exceed the performance of your old one), upgrading the old one could work, but it would not be my first choice. I’ve often said that a computer is only obsolete if it won’t do what you need or want it to do, but the Vista era was really a long time ago.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/16GB & GTX1660ti, KDE Neon
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, KDE Neon (and Win 11 for maintenance)

Reply | Quote

For using as a general purpose computer I agree you want to build on a better foundation.  There are lots of pretty cheap used Windows 7 (check for a 64-bit cpu) computers that effectively include a free upgrade to windows 10.  The only reason I would put an SSD in a computer pre-Windows 7 is if you had a certain piece of software that you really wanted that only works on XP or Vista.  Getting XP to work with an SSD and Sata was not easy.  Most of the things I tried to get the SATA driver installed failed, had to slipstream the SATA drivers into an XP install ISO.

Reply | Quote

Thanks for all the replies.  The consensus being that it is not worth the attempt.

Reply | Quote