Sony forum: Sony Vaio TX - Possible to upgrade HD to SSD?

I have successfully managed to get a SSD into my VAIO.

The Toshiba MK8007GAH is an IDE 44 pin drive and its getting pretty old. I only found one manufacturer - Kingspec who make a suitable replacement but they were really helpful and the drive went in smoothly.

I'm installing Windows 7 now and it's all working.

I went for the 64Gb model - KSD-CF18.1-064MJ

I have no need for large capacity as I don't do movies etc.

Interestingly, the disk access is so quick that ReadyBoost is now disabled! Boot time is a little shorter, installing new software is quicker but the loading time for acrobat reader and office is phenomenal for a laptop that is 5 years old!

This helped too: http://www.coderetard.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/vgntx.pdf

Good Luck

CORRECTION BELOW
See : http://sdd.toshiba.com/techdocs/MK8007GAHUserGuide.pdf

Sorry for the delay - I don't follow this site.

In answer to your question, I had to do a clean install.

The Sony VAIO recovery disks let me down a long way back! XP was originally installed but it crashed and I could get the recovery disks to work (interestingly I think it was the fact that they were recorded on DVD media (as Sony recommended) and the BIOS only allows CD boot from the optical drive).

With a clean windows 7 install, I used the sony support site to get the AV mode and volume buttons to work.

Good Luck

Thank you for this information. I would have destroyed my computer without the PDF and the comments here. RTFMing really works sometimes.

I purchased the same Kingspec drive and successfully replaced it. At one point, I was sure I damaged that goofy little ribbon thing, but luckily it stayed intact.

I put everything together again and I am not able to get anything to boot correctly.
- I get the main BIOS screen and am able to go into the BIOS
- I can select the boot order and when I boot the CD starts spinning but I end up with a screen that says "operating system not found"
- The HD, optical, etc is all recognized and appears to be working properly
- I tried booting off a USB drive but no dice
- I tried disabling all boot choices except optical and USB, no dice
- I tried booting with Win7, Linux, and distributions on CD rather than DVD (thanks for that advice tony_wh), nothing.
- I also found out that my BIOS is an older version and am wondering if I should update and if I can from a CD.

Any ideas? I am about 8 hours into my 14 hours...

I have the VGN-TXN15P/B and it uses the PATA ZIF hard drive. I have used Acronis before and followed your suggestions. When I try to boot the laptop is seems to hang on the post screen. I also tried to do a clean install but the bios seems to just hand whenever I install my 128GB Kingspec SSD. I know the drive works I was able to access it and format it using a USB to ZIF adapter.

Did you ever get this Kingspec to work on your sony. I have the same problem as you. The drive is seen by the bios but when you allow it to attempt to boot it hangs for a long time then the drive can't been seen.

Thanks for the info.

I bought an external DVD and it weirdly enough, it will only boot up Windows 7 (but Windows will not recognize the drive). I tried to boot a Linux distribution to format the drive, but no dice. Nothing will boot from the internal DVD drive. I want to try padishar73 's elegant solution, but that means taking whole thing apart again, which I would rather avoid. Where did you get MS-DOS?

I've got KSD-CF18.1 64Mb, which is unfortunately doesn't run on my old VGN-TX3 model. The BIOS recognize the drive however it won't boot neither from SDD nor from CD-ROM. Seems BIOS can't handle this drive properly. The old hard drive has been thrown away and I've booting from SSD installed in USB case.

There is some space inside the notebook near hard drive (and SDD is slimmer than original hard drive), so at the first look its possible to install USB->CF converter somehow near SD card driver. However my converter seems too big to be installed without moving out something from inside. Maybe I will remove internal CD-ROM since I never using it.

no, thats not it. without SSD connected to the internal CF port system boots just fine.

I am in the same boat. When I had the SSD in my TX, the CD-rom wouldn't boot. I used an external DVD drive and it would only boot WIndows 7 (but Windows 7 would not recognize the drive either). It would not boot any other operating system, including Wondows XP, multiple flavours of Linux, etc. When I have the old Toshiba HDD in the unit, I can boot anything off the CD-ROM. I still have not been able to get my SSD to work with my Sony TX 850P.

As for you, the SSD is recognized via the USB connection.

Finally, I tried the elegant solution of using Acronis, but no dice there either.

Everything works out fine, if you clone the original system shipped with the sony. If you try to install a new drive and install a new os to it, it is
going to fail - cause the system searches for the recovery partition etc..

So I think the only way is, to clone the original system to the new drive via USB. And after inserting the drive with old OS, booting with it, you are able to install Windows7. But you should leave the recovery space where it is...

My little one works with the original Windows XP now for more than 2 month. It is a lot of fun, it consumes less energy and it is really fast and you don?t have to worry in shaking it...:-)

My take on the CD ROM thing was that as the TX2 was fairly old, it wasn't a drive you could install from and you had to put 'drivers' on first.

Thanks Bob - Is there a well known guide on how to remove the internal CD-ROM? And are you suggesting that the SSD will boot if the CD-ROM is disconnected? Is there a discussion on this that my google searches did not uncover?