Recent content by malch

Set the BIOS to AHCI before the Windows installation. This should result in the default msahci driver being installed. Then it becomes your choice if you want to replace that with the Intel iaStor driver. However, if you do this on a SSD, make sure you grab one of the very recent versions...

I used to be a fan of the MyBook. But recently, I bought a 1TB Mybook and the performance was horrible compared to my existing 500GB and 250GB Mybook drives. I spoke with WD who pretty much confirmed it was a price to be paid for the newer "improved" firmware. They also told me it's a lottery as...

I would suggest: 1. Allow the Windows 7 installer to create the partition (or do it yourself if an expert users). Do *not* install Windows 7 into an existing partition that was created by an earlier version of Windows. 2. Performing a secure erase immediately after installation is completely...

Ahhh, yes, for the record and the avoidance of doubt, I do not recommend that folks install a new SSD and load it up using an image from their previous HDD. There are just too many gotcha's down that road. Add a new SSD; perform a clean Windows install. However, the context was... making an...

Some of us work with a lot of applications. I'm willing to perform a fresh install when necessary but it takes about a day and half of work to complete that process. Which do you think I prefer? 1. A day and half installing/configuring Windows and several dozen apps, or 2. 15 minutes to...

A potpourri of comments on the suggestions made in this thread: 1. Chipset drivers; they can matter. On my system, enabling AHCI in the BIOS resulted in my getting iaStorV (it seems msahci is not compatible with some motherboards including mine). iaStorV does not support TRIM. Installing the...

Well, in case it helps somebody else... 1. I've pretty much concluded that the msahci driver and my Dell XPS 420 don't get along. Apparently, some ASUS motherboards with the X58 chipset don't like the msahci driver either. 2. The very latest iaStor driver (version 9.6.2) is, however, working...

So I have an Intel X25-M Gen 2 SSD originally installed on XP. I've since migrated to to 64-bit Windows 7 and set about optimizing this thing in several ways: 1. I wanted to perform a secure erase and after much grief, I managed that ;-) 2. I wanted to fix the alignment and after much...