# Can a SSD Hard drive be installed in a IDE laptop



## trt740 (Jan 21, 2013)

I have a old Compaq Presario R3000 Laptop that I am trying to breath a little more life into. I was wondering if it is possible to install a SSD drive into this older Windows Xp machine. I have never cloned and installed a SSD drive, and I was try to figure out if this is possible. Here are the old Lappys specs. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&product=442915  Believe it or not, it still looks brand new and is decent for  home work or basic surfing the net. If it is possible, can you recommend a small drive to replace its current 4500 rpm 30 gb hard drive.


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## ALMOSTunseen (Jan 21, 2013)

Putting an ssd in would be pointless, as IDE only reaches speed's of 133Mb/sec, which is the speed of most HDD's. But it is possible to get IDE SSD's.


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## trt740 (Jan 21, 2013)

I did not realize that, but I was wondering can you recommend a fairly fast IDE hard drive to replace my current one. My current drive is a 2gb 4500 rpm, or would SSD be faster.


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## ALMOSTunseen (Jan 21, 2013)

trt740 said:


> I did not realize that, but I was wondering can you recommend a fairly fast IDE hard drive to replace my current one. My current drive is a 2gb 4500 rpm.


The question is, what do you want to spend? And how much space do you need?


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## Frick (Jan 21, 2013)

Any fairly modern drive would probably be faster.


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## trt740 (Jan 21, 2013)

ALMOSTunseen said:


> The question is, what do you want to spend? And how much space do you need?



I do not need more than say 60 to 100 gb, and I would be spending a $100.00 . This is just a old home work machine. It was my father in law's before he died and has nostalgic value to my wife.


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## Frick (Jan 21, 2013)

trt740 said:


> I do not need more than say 60 to 100 gb, and I would be spending a $100.00 . This is just a old home work machine.



I really wouldn't spend that much on the machine. I probably wouldn't pay that for the entire computer.

How about this?
Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD1600BPVT 160GB 5400...


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## trt740 (Jan 21, 2013)

Frick said:


> I really wouldn't spend that much on the machine. I probably wouldn't pay that for the entire computer.
> 
> How about this?
> Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD1600BPVT 160GB 5400...



It was my father in law's before he died and has nostalgic value to my wife. So it is important to her.


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## Frick (Jan 21, 2013)

trt740 said:


> It was my father in law's before he died and has nostalgic value to my wife.



Saw the edit after I posted. 

But any of these would be a good upgrade:
Notebook Hard Drives, Laptop Hard Drives - Newegg....

250 - 320GB for less than $50. You can probably go cheaper if you look at Ebay or something like that. Or see if someone on this forum has one for sale. The WD I posted is only 160GB.


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## ALMOSTunseen (Jan 21, 2013)

Frick said:


> I really wouldn't spend that much on the machine. I probably wouldn't pay that for the entire computer.
> 
> How about this?
> Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD1600BPVT 160GB 5400...





Frick said:


> Saw the edit after I posted.
> 
> But any of these would be a good upgrade:
> Notebook Hard Drives, Laptop Hard Drives - Newegg....
> ...


It has to be PATA/IDE, not SATA


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## trt740 (Jan 21, 2013)

Frick said:


> Saw the edit after I posted.
> 
> But any of these would be a good upgrade:
> Notebook Hard Drives, Laptop Hard Drives - Newegg....
> ...



Cannot use SATA need IDE.


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## Frick (Jan 21, 2013)

I THOUGHT I HAD FILTERED!!!11!! I was surprised at how cheap and plentiful IDE drives were. 

Right.


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## brandonwh64 (Jan 21, 2013)

They do make IDE SSD's but like others have said, it would still be bottlenecked by the controller.

https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...=X&ei=G6b9UIH4BOHI0QGZ4oCwAw&ved=0CIQBEPMCMAI


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## trt740 (Jan 21, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> They do make IDE SSD's but like others have said, it would still be bottlenecked by the controller.
> 
> https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...=X&ei=G6b9UIH4BOHI0QGZ4oCwAw&ved=0CIQBEPMCMAI



I wonder if it would be faster, but I bet a IDE drive would be less hassle and faster than my current drive.


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## ALMOSTunseen (Jan 21, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> They do make IDE SSD's but like others have said, it would still be bottlenecked by the controller.
> 
> https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...=X&ei=G6b9UIH4BOHI0QGZ4oCwAw&ved=0CIQBEPMCMAI


And you are paying for it too, as they are not widely produced.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jan 21, 2013)

This is the only IDe drive newegg has.

Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD800BEVE 80GB 5400 R...


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## ALMOSTunseen (Jan 21, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> This is the only IDe drive newegg has.
> 
> Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD800BEVE 80GB 5400 R...


Just found that one too! Amazon has quite a variety:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?bbn=1254762011&qid=1358800645&rh=n%3A172282%2Cn%3A!493964%2Cn%3A541966%2Cn%3A193870011%2Cn%3A1254762011%2Cp_n_feature_keywords_six_browse-bin%3A6158679011%2Cp_n_feature_keywords_three_browse-bin%3A4990425011&sort=popularity-rank

Edit:
Link not working for some reason. Just filter for Internal HDD, PATA(IDE), and 2.5 Inch


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## trt740 (Jan 21, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> This is the only IDe drive newegg has.
> 
> Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD800BEVE 80GB 5400 R...



From the reviews someone wrote, "Pros: Received in 3-days. Easy install, booted & loaded Win-XP less than 1-hour. Works great. Revived old Presario R3000 notebook.Cons: None at this time."   So it will work with my current computer.


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## ALMOSTunseen (Jan 21, 2013)

trt740 said:


> From the reviews someone wrote, "Pros: Received in 3-days. Easy install, booted & loaded Win-XP less than 1-hour. Works great. Revived old Presario R3000 notebook.Cons: None at this time."   So it will work with my current computer.


Any IDE drive should. Check amazon, that is way overpriced for it's capacity.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jan 21, 2013)

trt740 said:


> From the reviews someone wrote, "Pros: Received in 3-days. Easy install, booted & loaded Win-XP less than 1-hour. Works great. Revived old Presario R3000 notebook.Cons: None at this time."   So it will work with my current computer.



fair enough.



ALMOSTunseen said:


> Any IDE drive should. Check amazon, that is way overpriced for it's capacity.




Id be wiery. Ive got stuff from amazon before where they fullfilled it and its from another retailer, and it was junk. It wasn't a computer part but something else. Nothing like description and shit. So OP if you buy from amazon, make sure it says ships and sold by amazon haha.


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## ALMOSTunseen (Jan 21, 2013)

These look fine:
http://www.amazon.com/HTS541210H9AT00-Hitachi-HITACHI/dp/B000ZYCWG6/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1358800936&sr=1-6
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-ST980815A-80GB-5400rpm-Drive/dp/B000H4WKWK/ref=sr_1_7?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1358801017&sr=1-7


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## brandonwh64 (Jan 21, 2013)

Pata is IDE so yes it should work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA


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## ALMOSTunseen (Jan 21, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> Id be wiery. Ive got stuff from amazon before where they fullfilled it and its from another retailer, and it was junk. It wasn't a computer part but something else. Nothing like description and shit. So OP if you buy from amazon, make sure it says ships and sold by amazon haha.



Pretty much all the IDE drives are from other retailers, probably because amazon doesn't bother to stock them any more.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 21, 2013)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007N9I1UW/?tag=tec06d-20

I'd get that.  For the price you are looking at spending on an HDD, you might as well just go ahead and get the SSD, as long as space isn't a big concern.  And heck, the SSD is bigger than the HDD in it now.

Yes, and SSD will be slowed down by the IDE interface, however it isn't just about raw read/write speed.  Latency is a large factor in why SSDs make the system feel faster.  Plus, most 5400RPM IDE drives, even modern ones on the market today, will be way slower than an IDE SSD.


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## ALMOSTunseen (Jan 21, 2013)

newtekie1 said:


> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007N9I1UW/?tag=tec06d-20
> 
> I'd get that.  For the price you are looking at spending on an HDD, you might as well just go ahead and get the SSD, as long as space isn't a big concern.  And heck, the SSD is bigger than the HDD in it now.
> 
> Yes, and SSD will be slowed down by the IDE interface, however it isn't just about raw read/write speed.  Latency is a large factor in why SSDs make the system feel faster.  Plus, most 5400RPM IDE drives, even modern ones on the market today, will be way slower than an IDE SSD.


I was considering this, but it 32gb enough for him? If he wanted more, 64 GB would be the next step up, and that would be about 100 or so.


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## drdeathx (Jan 21, 2013)

I would stay with what you have and call it a day.


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## ALMOSTunseen (Jan 21, 2013)

drdeathx said:


> I would stay with what you have and call it a day.


Hah, yeah, that would be the safe option, to the laptop, and your wallet.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 21, 2013)

ALMOSTunseen said:


> I was considering this, but it 32gb enough for him? If he wanted more, 64 GB would be the next step up, and that would be about 100 or so.



He said he would be spending about $100, so the 64GB one would be in his budget still.


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## Frick (Jan 21, 2013)

I would look for used drives tbh. Make a WTB thread, see if anyone has something of interest.


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## trt740 (Jan 22, 2013)

newtekie1 said:


> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007N9I1UW/?tag=tec06d-20
> 
> I'd get that.  For the price you are looking at spending on an HDD, you might as well just go ahead and get the SSD, as long as space isn't a big concern.  And heck, the SSD is bigger than the HDD in it now.
> 
> Yes, and SSD will be slowed down by the IDE interface, however it isn't just about raw read/write speed.  Latency is a large factor in why SSDs make the system feel faster.  Plus, most 5400RPM IDE drives, even modern ones on the market today, will be way slower than an IDE SSD.





ALMOSTunseen said:


> I was considering this, but it 32gb enough for him? If he wanted more, 64 GB would be the next step up, and that would be about 100 or so.



How would I clone my hard drive to this Ssd drive?


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## Peter1986C (Jan 22, 2013)

Make a clone (sometimes referred to as "disc image") with Clonezilla/Norton Ghost/Acronis True Image/whatever to an external hard drive, then put the SSD into the laptop. Use the cloning prog you used, to "restore" the image to the disk (SSD). Make sure you reconfigure Windows afterwards because now it does not realise it is on a SSD (disable defragmentation and MSDOS style filenames; you don't need those anyway. Disabling file indexing could be a good idea too).


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## trt740 (Jan 22, 2013)

Well, I may just have to give it ago then.


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## SAJJAD (Mar 21, 2013)

*install ssd on a compaq nx6110*

I've managed to get my old laptop(compaq nx 6110) running on a ssd hard drive but got a MLC SSD should have got a SLC SSD(twice the price). Now its speed is 80mb/s could have had 130mb/s. But still it's running faster than my old harddrive with windows 7. Once again being used. If anyone's intrested on how this is done will update post.


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## AsRock (Mar 21, 2013)

I was thinking SSD would still be faster due to the lower access times and laptop drives typically being 5400 drives.

I do know if i was going pay $80 for a IDE i would just put another $20 to it and just get a SSD.


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## Geofrancis (Mar 21, 2013)

if your running xp with an ide SSD then check out a program called flashfire it stops the stuttering xp does with a ssd as it tries to read and write simultaneously.


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## SAJJAD (Mar 22, 2013)

*Flashfire*

I've just downloaded and installed flashfire on my laptop(compaq nx6110) but I am not using an IDE SSD I am using an 1.8" microsata with an adaptor to convert to IDE and running Windows 7. I found this method the quickest way to get the SSD hardrive to work because my IDE SSD was not being detected in the bios, it made no difference how I formatted it, I wasted so much time on this and could not find a bios update for my laptop(compaq nx6110) for this IDE SSD. So if someone knows a bios update that will work for my laptop it may help anyone wanting to go down that route because they are cheaper that other SSD harddrives. Cost me £35 for 2gb ram and £60 for 64gb mircosata ssd harddrive and £5 for the adaptor. Like said it is now being used every day.


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## Geofrancis (Mar 22, 2013)

SAJJAD said:


> I've just downloaded and installed flashfire on my laptop(compaq nx6110) but I am not using an IDE SSD I am using an 1.8" microsata with an adaptor to convert to IDE and running Windows 7. I found this method the quickest way to get the SSD hardrive to work because my IDE SSD was not being detected in the bios, it made no difference how I formatted it, I wasted so much time on this and could not find a bios update for my laptop(compaq nx6110) for this IDE SSD. So if someone knows a bios update that will work for my laptop it may help anyone wanting to go down that route because they are cheaper that other SSD harddrives. Cost me £35 for 2gb ram and £60 for 64gb mircosata ssd harddrive and £5 for the adaptor. Like said it is now being used every day.



windows 7 does a lot of drive caching on its own so you wont notice as much of a difference with it compared to XP. its night and day with XP. when i used an Acer aspire one ZG5 with the really crap 8gb ssd it would take over 3 mins to boot to the desktop then another min to open the start menu. after i installed flash fire it was booting in under 30 seconds and the start menu was up as soon as i clicked on it.

if you have one of the SSD EEEPC 700 or 900 series or aspire ones with a ssd i recommend it.


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## SAJJAD (Mar 22, 2013)

*link to tune up ssd*

I've found a very useful link on SSD harddrive on this forum which sent me to a different forum, I have tried there tweaks on my laptop(compaq nx6110) and it has worked a treat doesn't explain a lot but booting a lot faster(under 25sec). When I find that page again will add link.


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## CJW293 (Jun 9, 2015)

This may be an old thread and I may be new here, but I feel the need to say something about the whole SSD in an old IDE laptop thing. When I read these threads about installing an ssd in an old 44 pin ide laptop, I see the typical whining and complaining from those who seem to be doing little more than googleing an answer.
   I have been a tech for 20 years now and one of my favorite quotes applies to computer tech as well. " The quickest way to get an American to do anything... is to tell them it can't be done ". Although most of this country seems to have given up on that, I have not.
   I have a 12 year old Motion Computing M1400 Tablet with the 44 pin IDE interface. Just for shits and giggles, I decided to install a 256Gb SATA SSD via a 44 pin IDE to SATA adapter. It bears mentioning that this particular SSD came out of a customers system as a defective unit, overheating and freezing, I kept it as a demo to show others. The original 80Gb hard drive  was split down the middle for XP tablet edition and Linux Mint Debian edition. I simply cloned this drive to the SSD and WoW. Even in it's partially defective state the SSD was at least 3 to 5 times faster and well beyond the typical 120Gb cap that most of these older systems had.
   My plans are to order a 44 pin IDE to msata adapter and a 256Gb msata card for this wonderful tablet. I have also recently discovered that there 802.11 n wireless card available for these older systems as well. Nothing can be done about the 2Gb memory limit, but with Linux that won't be an issue.
   It is not my intention to put down anyones... opinion on the use of SSD's in the older systems, however, now that SSD and adapter tech is getting cheaper and better, it truly is practical, feasible and most definitely useful. I don't know that I would go so far as to install say a 4Tb Sandisk sata SSD, at $ 6,000.00 in and older system, but currently anything up to a 256Gb SSD is worthwhile.


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