Bit of advice needed in W7-->W10 upgrade

[Muse]

This Lenovo T60 laptop running Win7 32bit Home Edition is acting terribly. It's got an Intel 330 180GB SSD, two partitions and I get freezes that last 1-5 minutes (iastor errors) daily, in fact double digits now. A person who said he had essentially the same system/OS said when he upgraded to Windows 10 his freezes went away.

I have a lot of apps/utilities, I suppose I could do a fresh Win10 install, or upgrade the current one and see if the problems go away. If they don't I figure I will try to get Intel to honor the 3 year warranty on the SSD (which expires in a matter of a week or two).

I have burned a DVD of the Win10 ISO.

What do I need to do/know here? Just boot from the DVD and follow instructions? I imagine maybe it's more complicated than that. The DVD was made July 10, 2015, in case that's an issue (if MS has changed anything). Thanks for guidance/help.

PS As noted above, a major issue with this machine is the question of whether the SSD is bad. I just don't know right now. I suspect it is, but for all I know, an upgrade will resolve the freezes.

I had terrible problems yesterday while I was preparing for the upgrade. I was going to run malware removal software, Windows Updates, then backup the SSD, then do the upgrade. I ran Superantispyware then Malwarebytes. The latter found 5 questionable items (a program/utility) and when removing them, it had me reboot after which I had no network. I needed to restore to a point 5 days previous. So, evidently there's something on the machine forcing an internet proxy that when removed makes the machine unusable. Perhaps I should just do a fresh Win10 install, however I do have a backup of the SSD from about 3 months ago I could restore to, either before the Win10 install (fresh or upgrade) or after, if I don't like what's happening after the upgrade.

 

[JackMDS]

A person who said he had essentially the same system/OS said when he upgraded to Windows 10 his freezes went away.

This is like saying that every time somebody lose conscious is because they are Drunk. There 100 of thing that can result in a person losing consensus, and similar hundred of issues that result in a None functional computer that freezes every few minutes.
-----------------

If one make an image of the current installation and save it on an external Drive, with a fast program like Acronis TI.
It takes 10 Minutes, then One can try numerous amount of solution and always put back the Image as it was before the Trying fixes.

The lose of live expectancy because of the Anxiety provokes due to Enthusiasts Computer's problem merit the bellow ~ $50 expense of a good Boot imaging App.

 

[RampantAndroid]

If doing the free upgrade, you need to do an upgrade, not a fresh install. From there you could initiate a reset within Windows 10 (that more or less leaves you with a fresh install, sans going through the actual setup.)

 

[Elixer]

Muse, it would be better to wait for the win 10 fall update coming in Nov.
Then you can just use your old key with a clean install and it will activate.

 

[Z15CAM]

My advice is "Don't do It" unless you have a proven Win7 BackUp and wait until you're convinced WinX is the answer.

If doing the free upgrade, you need to do an upgrade, not a fresh install. From there you could initiate a reset within Windows 10 (that more or less leaves you with a fresh install, sans going through the actual setup.)

Any Upgrade or SP negates Reset and SYS-Prep - You should know better.

 

[Muse]

Muse, it would be better to wait for the win 10 fall update coming in Nov.
Then you can just use your old key with a clean install and it will activate.

As I hope I explained in the OP, my case is unusual in that

1. I am trying to troubleshoot (workaround, fix, whatever...) my 1-5 minute freeze issue on the machine

2. I suspect that the SSD is at fault and the warranty expires in November. I'll look in my data right now and determine when I bought the thing...

My records indicate that I bought the SSD on Nov. 23, 2012 and received it on Dec. 5. 2012, so presumably it's still within the 3 year warranty period. I figure I need to know very soon if it's the SSD that's bad so that I can initiate a valid warranty claim.

I figure I can do this:

Back up the machine now using Acronis Trueimage WD Edition. I have such backups from ~3 months ago, and one or two previous ones including one that's very early in the OS cycle, after I clean installed it on the SSD and did some basic things, a few major applications, all Windows Updates, AV installation, that kind of thing.

Then do the Windows 10 upgrade and see if I am still getting the freezes. If so, I could even do a clean Windows 7 installation and see if I get the freezes and if so, could upgrade that to Windows 10 and see if the freezes persist. If they do, I think I can assume that the SSD is indeed bad and pursue the warranty relief.

I could go back to any of my backups for the time being and when the new version of the Windows 10 download comes (you say November), can get that and do a clean install, WTH. Maybe that's the best idea.

Thanks for the help, folks! I really have to get past those freezes, they have been driving me up the wall, something like 10+, maybe 15 a day. They come from nowhere and stop my work in its tracks and there seems no rhyme or reason, it just hits regardless of what I'm doing with the machine.

 

[Underclocked]

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18455/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Toolbox

 

[Muse]

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18455/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Toolbox

Yeah, the toolbox. I've used it a fair bit, didn't help with my problems.

I can't think of another way to troubleshoot my problems here other than what I've explained. I think I'm going to restore to the backup I made of Win7 shortly after installing it on the SSD. Will maybe use it a couple of days and see if I get any iaStor errors. If I still do, will do the Win10 upgrade, again monitor those errors and if still getting them, try for warranty relief. I can see no other choice other than replacing the SSD with some other device, HD or SSD.

 

[RampantAndroid]

When you do a fresh install, try doing a secure erase of the SSD - that does not mean writing all zeros to the drive, it means sending a specific ATA command that tells the drive to clear all data by sending voltage to every bit simultaneously. It's basically the best way to reset a drive to the day you got it.

 

[Underclocked]

I thought the tool box might in some way give you a code or other info that you could relay to Intel for warranty purposes. Apparently not. But I don't see how they can confirm your drive is bad without some such software??

 

[Muse]

When you do a fresh install, try doing a secure erase of the SSD - that does not mean writing all zeros to the drive, it means sending a specific ATA command that tells the drive to clear all data by sending voltage to every bit simultaneously. It's basically the best way to reset a drive to the day you got it.

How do I do that?

BTW, I saw your Seahawks annihilate the S.F. 49ers last night. I tuned out before 1/2 time. I don't expect to watch the 49ers any more this year, they are depressing to watch. Your Seahawks, on the other hand, well, Wilson and Lynch, the head coach too, great people.

 

[Muse]

I thought the tool box might in some way give you a code or other info that you could relay to Intel for warranty purposes. Apparently not. But I don't see how they can confirm your drive is bad without some such software??

I don't know how an RMA will work with this. I did have a failed test using the Toolbox on the SSD some time ago but since then it passed. However, things have gotten a lot worse lately. But I haven't used the Toolbox lately. I don't know if I want to sit through another extended test right now.

A few days ago my email client, whose data is on the SSD, lost the ability to see a lot of the data including the entire inbox, whose data was over 1GB. The data was there, but the inbox appeared empty. Some other folders appeared likewise empty. This happened some months ago as well. I worked around the problem a few days ago by restoring a backup of the email client and its data from ~2 weeks ago, restoring the current outbox to that and then downloading mail again from my ISP, so I'm OK again. However, I think a bad SSD might be to blame for these issues, not to mention the freezes which have been driving me up the wall.

I'm close to doing the Win10 upgrade, not sure if I should do it to my system as it is or a backup. I have backups from 6 weeks ago, 3 months, 5 months, and a couple from May and April of 2014, when the Win7 installation was very young. I bought the SSD almost 3 years ago (Nov. 2012) but I never installed it until about April 2014.

I'd wait until the new Win10 upgrade mentioned in November that will allow me to install fresh but I need to check out whether Win10 will stop the freezes, as I have said. I have all those Win7 backups I can restore to, and of course, the Win7 install disk with its key.

 

[RampantAndroid]

How do I do that?

BTW, I saw your Seahawks annihilate the S.F. 49ers last night. I tuned out before 1/2 time. I don't expect to watch the 49ers any more this year, they are depressing to watch. Your Seahawks, on the other hand, well, Wilson and Lynch, the head coach too, great people.

http://partedmagic.com/secure-erase/

Should work.

For the Seahawks, that's the best they've done all year (you maybe missed an INT at the end of the half.) Wilson was intercepted twice, and sacked 5 times. The team isn't going well, and I'm not sure that Wilson is worth the amount of cash he's getting (then again, you can probably fault the O line with a lot of his problems.) I think last night was just the 49ers not managed to get anything going, and the Seahawks defensive line getting their stuff together for once. I REALLY hope this is like last season and they pull it together on offense...but it's the Seahawks. They've blown 3-4 4th quarter leads now. :-/

Wilson is a great guy, as is Pete Carroll - happy to have them here.

 

[Muse]

http://partedmagic.com/secure-erase/

Should work.

For the Seahawks, that's the best they've done all year (you maybe missed an INT at the end of the half.) Wilson was intercepted twice, and sacked 5 times. The team isn't going well, and I'm not sure that Wilson is worth the amount of cash he's getting (then again, you can probably fault the O line with a lot of his problems.) I think last night was just the 49ers not managed to get anything going, and the Seahawks defensive line getting their stuff together for once. I REALLY hope this is like last season and they pull it together on offense...but it's the Seahawks. They've blown 3-4 4th quarter leads now. :-/

Wilson is a great guy, as is Pete Carroll - happy to have them here.

Thanks for that parted magic suggestion.

Now about Wilson, he's close to the most elusive QB in the league so I have to think all those sacks (close to 30 now?) are the fault (largely) of the O line. Running backs have some responsibility to protect a drop-back QB too, of course.

Talk about a QB not worth his salt, Kaepernick is right up there. $126 million over 6 years, I think. I don't think he has it upstairs. He should spend a ton of time watching video of guys like Brady, Peyton and Russell. Some of the passes that Russell made in the first 1/2 on Thursday were just far better than anything Kaepernick does. No, I didn't see the interception you mentioned. I bailed after the score got to 17-0, pretty sure. Immediately after that touchdown, the 49ers looked inept again instead of responding and I just turned it off. The only O of any note they had was a couple of runs by Carlos Hyde earlier in one series.

I think the Hawks have a good chance to reach the post season still. The 49ers? Very unlikely.

 

[Muse]

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18455/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Toolbox

I ran the Toolbox yesterday and there's an Upgrade button and it lead to a recent (October) release for Toolbox, guess I was running the April version. I installed the new version and ran the Optimizer routine (trim?). I'd forgotten about that, it might make a difference. I'm confused about trim, I thought it was for XP and that Win7 and later had it built into the OS. I may be wrong. Anyway, I ran it against both SSD partitions and set up weekly runs that have some likelihood of running (the machine is in suspend when I'm not using it), and today thought better of it and initiated daily runs at ~8AM, when there's a fair chance the machine will be on.

Anyway, since running the Optimizer I've had a couple of iastor errors (data drive not responding within the timeout period) in two days. That's probably still not good or acceptable, but I was getting around a dozen a day, so there's been a huge improvement. It's early yet, will see what happens. Anyway, I should probably install Win10 anyway, I guess there's no good reason not to. I could be wrong in supposing there's no downside risk (I gather there are issues to deal with), I know there are many threads here about Win10 and upgrade issues, I should dive into them again.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Seriously, you need to image backup, secure erase, restore the image backup, and if you are still having issues, consider a clean install, and then an RMA.

 

[Muse]

Seriously, you need to image backup, secure erase, restore the image backup, and if you are still having issues, consider a clean install, and then an RMA.

Thank you, I'll implement that plan. The clean install, if it comes to that, could be Win7 or Win10, I suppose.

 

[Muse]

Is Secure Erase available free?

Intel SSD Toolbox has a Secure Erase button. When accessed it says it will not work on SSD's that are partitioned. Mine has 2 partitions besides the Windows 7 service partition, so I'd have to remove the partitions to do a secure erase using it. Could I restore my 3 partition backup to an unpartitioned SSD or would I have to partition it first?

Perhaps I'm better off using something different to secure erase the SSD.

Anyway, I haven't gotten an iaStor SSD timeout error in the Windows log since yesterday morning, after running the Intel Toolbox's Optimiser on both the C and D partitions. What I am now getting quite a few of that I haven't seen before are these errors:

Level ...... Source .... Event ID

! Error...... Disk ...... 11

Details

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR1.
- - - -
The errors I was getting before, many a day issued when the computer froze for 1-5 minutes were like this:

Level ..... Source .... Event ID

! Error...... iaStor ...... 9

Details

The device, \Device\Ide\iaStore0, did not respond within the timeout period.

 

[kitfox]

Secure erase is a built in hardware feature, you just need an app to access it (like RampantAndroid said - partedmagic is the easiest). But I don't think it's necessary for what your trying to do.

Personally if it was mine, I would not upgrade to Win10. It's a great OS for modern systems but its just going to bog down an older one. I would just delete the partitions, recreate them with windows setup (so they're aligned properly) and install 7 fresh with all the latest drivers.

Like others have said, always clone your drive before you do anything major like this. It'll then only take a couple minutes to undo if something goes wrong.

 

[Steltek]

Is Secure Erase available free?

Intel SSD Toolbox has a Secure Erase button. When accessed it says it will not work on SSD's that are partitioned. Mine has 2 partitions besides the Windows 7 service partition, so I'd have to remove the partitions to do a secure erase using it. Could I restore my 3 partition backup to an unpartitioned SSD or would I have to partition it first?

Perhaps I'm better off using something different to secure erase the SSD.

Anyway, I haven't gotten an iaStor SSD timeout error in the Windows log since yesterday morning, after running the Intel Toolbox's Optimiser on both the C and D partitions. What I am now getting quite a few of that I haven't seen before are these errors:

Level ...... Source .... Event ID

! Error...... Disk ...... 11

Details

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR1.
- - - -
The errors I was getting before, many a day issued when the computer froze for 1-5 minutes were like this:

Level ..... Source .... Event ID

! Error...... iaStor ...... 9

Details

The device, \Device\Ide\iaStore0, did not respond within the timeout period.

Back everything up, delete the partitions on the SSD, and then do a secure erase. Any decent backup tool should be able to back up all the partitions, then recreate and restore them later.

 

[Muse]

Personally if it was mine, I would not upgrade to Win10. It's a great OS for modern systems but its just going to bog down an older one. I would just delete the partitions, recreate them with windows setup (so they're aligned properly) and install 7 fresh with all the latest drivers.

Back everything up, delete the partitions on the SSD, and then do a secure erase. Any decent backup tool should be able to back up all the partitions, then recreate and restore them later.

I already did the backup, all 3 partitions including the hidden Win7 system partition, did it yesterday with Acronis TI WD edition. Hopefully that's "decent" enough to restore to an unpartitioned SDD. If need be, I can recreate the partitions before restoration, I think the hidden partition is 100MB.

I think I'll try what VirtualLarry said and restore the backup I just made and see how that goes and if that doesn't clear up the problems probably do another secure erase and do a clean install of Windows 7. The Lenovo forums have tales of successful Win10 installations on machines like mine, I'll investigate that, but I suppose there's no compelling reason to install Windows 10 unless it turns out that my SSD and Windows 7 and my machine indeed don't mix well. That one guy with my exact same system said his freezes cleared up when he upgraded to Windows 10, so I figured it was worth a try.