I was approached by a member to create him a Z3 drive on a 64gb SSD (Solid State Drive) drive. I was able to get the drive from an online retailer for about $200. When it arrives next week, I'll get it loaded up and installed in my truck for some testing.

The only potential problem that I foresee is the Non Toshiba Reboot Syndrome. I think that I may have created a new acronym NTRS

I'll post more next week, but let me know if you can think of anything else that I can do to test this drive other than boot speed, route speed, and NTRS.

How long does it usually take for NTRS to show it's ugly face?

In my initial testing phases, I had non-toshiba drives reboot after 5 minutes or as long as 12 hours (non consecutive). It's really really random. Good luck, though...should be interesting.

Do you reckon that they need specific drivers to run? Or is that handled within the drive itself...

You may not run into "NTRS" being that supposedly SSD's don't use as much power being it doesn't have disc to spin up or an armature to track... I have a 64GB SSD in my laptop, and it's notibly faster than most regular sata drives....

What model drive did you come up with?

Can't wait to see the outcome... I guess my truck's suspension is just a little on the rough side, as normal driving usually results in my Z saying it's too rough... well, also adding in the fact that the roads in Louisiana suck gorilla nuts...

good luck.... this will be kewl if it works.... hopefully making the Avic boot and run faster

The specific drvie that we will be testing is:

TRANSCEND TS64GSSD25-M 64gb 2.5 inch IDE solid state disk (SSD) (mlc chip)

I do not believe that NTRS is caused by power consumption but rather the drivers built into the Windows CE version on the AVIC Z.

I have run into my first snag...

Trying to use MHDD v4.6 to disable the security on the drive. It is able to see the drive. The eid command does show that security is high. When I try to run the config command to disable the security, I get "This drive does not support Device Configuration Overlay".

I have verified that the drive is not currently locked, and Acronis was able to restore the image. It did take longer to restore on the 64gb SSD than it does on a 60gb Toshiba drive...

Any other suggestions for disabling the security on the drive?

atapwd.exe does not work either...

I decided to test the drive in the Z, and it does boot a bit faster than the 5400 rpm drive.

I was hoping the the Z would not be able to lock the drive, but it did

Normal drive unlocking methods are not working, so I have contacted support at both Transcend and A-FF Data Recovery...

The SSD probably has a slower write speed than regular disk drives, but it probably seeks and reads much faster... which the slower write speed would probably never be noticed in the Avic, being that it only writes at the speed of the DVD (4x I believe)

That stinks about the lock.... maybe see if this little app can do anything with it...

http://www.hddunlock.com/

[edit] oops...guess I'm behind the times... appears that link IS AFF or uses the same method...10$ for a 80GB..

Come on Dawgbone, you know that I already tried A-FF and hddunlock...

That's avic411 101...

Anyone have other suggestions to try unlocking this thing?

I haven't messed with the unlocking in awhile... even more-so being that my current drive is from you

I really don't know much about the stuff actually...pretty complicated stuff, from what I've read... BUT, I would imagine that it would be no different than a normal IDE or SATA drive. Maybe just the brand i not supported with MHDD... I mean...the Avic locked it....

I actually used my old chipped Xbox to unlock and disable my first/original drive... If these people can write a Xbox BIOS that can lock/unlock HDD's, you would thnk that there is somethng else out there for a PC... maybe have a quick look through some of these older Xbox tuts...

http://xbox-scene.com/xbox-tutorials.php

http://www.xbox-scene.com/tools/tools.p ... =harddrive

Hello,

 

I am very sorry, but SSD drives are not supported at this time...

 

Sincerely,

Daniel Clay

Atola Technology

http://www.atola.com

 

*********************************************************************

Repair Station How to Use: http://hdd-tools.com/products/rrs/howto/

Repair Station FAQ: http://hdd-tools.com/products/rrs/qna/

HDD Unlock Wizard FAQ: http://www.hddunlock.com/support/faq/

Partition Find and Mount manual: http://ntfsundelete.com/

*********************************************************************

The official word from Atola (A-FF and hddunlock), is that they do not support Solid State Drives.

sombitch

Probably too obvious, but did you try just asking Transcend about the procedure, or whether they have some software for this ?

http://www.transcendusa.com/

.

Yes. I have a trouble ticket open with them, and it has been escalated to their R&D team. I have sent them a bunch of data.

Dear Garret,

I will refer this issue to our engineer in RD. I would assume our SSD has no such a feature. Do you mind to elaborate on this ATA password security?

 

Sincerely,

Chiun-Chu Chang

Tech Support

Transcend Information, Inc.

Yes. I have a trouble ticket open with them, and it has been escalated to their R&D team. I have sent them a bunch of data.

Yep, sorry, I saw in your earlier mail

garrettoomey, let's sum up.

You wrote that the SSD seemed to work fine in the Z, but the Z locked the drive. Did it suffer from the reboot problem? Did you test it long enough to check for that problem?

I have a brand spank me new Patriot 64GB SSD sitting right here, installed in my new desktop. I'll email Patriot to confirm security can be disabled. If so, I'll take a stab at it.

But if you encountered the reboot problem, I'm not going to bother.....

Thx.

I did not have it installed long enough to test for rebooting. Transcend was unable to unlock the SSD, and the SSD did not support disabling security at this time. I was told that they will be sure to include the feature in their next release...

with the new annoucement 2009 will bring a faster Z3

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/05/sand ... -write-sp/

I did not have it installed long enough to test for rebooting. Transcend was unable to unlock the SSD, and the SSD did not support disabling security at this time. I was told that they will be sure to include the feature in their next release...

Any news on unlocking the Transcend?

Did you get a feel of the speed while using the SSD? I don't think Transcend has the fastest IDE-SSD, both Super Talent and RiDATA has 32 GB disks with higher Read-speeds (60 Mb/s)

The SSD was returned, and the project has ended, for now...

As I might be a bit behind on this conversation about locked drive vs unlocked drives I am going to ask..What is the point of unlocking the drives? From What I was able to read in this thread an image was able to be installed on the SSD and it did function, even if it wasn't tested long enough to determine the reboot issue. I ask this for two reasons. One being that I am curious. And second is that I would really love to have a SSD in my Z1. I installed my Z1 in my Z31 (300ZX) by cutting a whole for it to fit into in the dash, as I originally did not have a double din place for it. However I assume the ride might be a bit rough for it as I am noticing a few more songs that are getting choppy, like a grooved record and the needle gets stuck. I can only assume this is from the shock, and a SSD would of course fix this. Ultimately, depending on the answer here, I would be happy to buy a SDD to test in my Z1 for the reboot issue, if someone would give me an image. While it would be nice to not have to recopy all my music, if that is what the unlocking is for, I don't really care THAT much if I have to redo it as long as the SSD works.

Thanks!

Read any of the other threads to learn why disabling locking is necessary.

With the current SSD drives, disabling locking is not possible, and we do not yet know if they encounter the rebooting issue.

Update:

I have been working with Transcend and they have agreed to load special firmware on my SSD drive to disable ATA security functions. I should have the updated drive back in about 10 days, I'll report back on how it works on my Z1. Keeping fingers crossed.

I'll update as I get more info.

-Ed

GREAT NEWS! I received my special SSD drive back from Transcend today and it works great in my AVIC-Z1!

No locked drive! The special firmware removed the ATA security functions and I now have a working SSD in my AVIC that I can remove anytime and connect to my PC for updating. I loaded the new updated software via the torrent going around with updated logos and maps.

I'm going to test it throughout the week to see if there are any reboot issues that have been discussed here. If not, then I think we have found a solution!

So far it seems faster, especially when searching, but I can't say for certain if it is just the drive or the new software or a combination.

You can order the drive with the special firmware from Transcend directly. Exact details on how to do that I have to find out from my contact at Transcend, but be warned they aren't cheap. I think the 32GB version is $219.00 and the 64GB version is $330.00

If there is enough interest, I would be happy to do a bulk purchase from one of my suppliers I deal with at work and have the special firmware loaded on them, along with the new updated software for much less than what transcend sells them for.(I think in the $170 range). I am happy to return a favor to the people here who have provided so much good info for the AVIC series.

I'll keep everyone posted with details of my extended testing.

-Ed

So far, so good. No mystery reboots or anything. I think we have a winner.

No comments so far huh? I'm surprised. This seems like a perfect solution for aging AVICs.