I decided within the last few weeks to replace the existing Fujitsu 100GB x 2 Hard Drives in my AR21S for two reasons – I was beginning to get tired of the almost constant clicking noises from the drives even when idle and more worryingly, I was running out of storage space for the files I wanted on my notebook drives even although I had moved off about 1TB of files on to external drives.
I was faced with many choices for the replacements and researched web reviews of the various options. In the end I bought 2 Western Digital Scorpio SATA drives (Model WD2500BEVS) at the currently largest available capacity of 250GB each (Toshiba expect to release a 320GB notebook drive later this year but I don't want to wait). I had previous experience years ago of using the Scorpio family of drives and I never regretted my choice...they are very well made (stainless steel casings), they are fast (but not the fastest-but faster speed comes with some trade-offs re. noise and heat), are as near to silent as you need in a notebook and they don't get hot. I paid around £100 each for them which is reasonable given that 3 years ago I paid nearly as much for an 80GB slower model.
When you buy these drives they come in a sealed anti-static bag in a foam protected plain-vanilla box with absolutely no instructions which can be a bit daunting for the inexperienced user , hence this article which will hopefully provide some guidance on how to avoid some of the perils and pitfalls of the replacement process. I'm not holding any of this out as the only methodology but I have given an honest account of my experiences, however, no warranty is given by me of success with your particular machine if you follow these steps, and you do so entirely at your own risk.
New OS or Transfer of an Existing OS:-
All of the potential difficulties which I will detail in a moment are avoided if you simply want to replace the existing drives and instal a fresh Operating System like VISTA from scratch...in other words a “clean build”...you just swop out the drives [as described by me in detail below] the system BIOS automatically detects them, decide whether to run the drives in non-RAID or RAID 0 or RAID 1 [see below] put in the installation CD and follow the instructions from there. Pretty straightforward.
If, however, you want to either install a fresh version of XP or transfer your existing OS and Data files over to your new hard drives and you don't want a RAID 0 setup (as I did) then you face several problems (I know because I experienced them on this machine when I tried to use my Acronis True Image to transfer my XP MCE 2005 setup!). You cannot simply use this type of backup program to an external drive in the hope of copying files and folders back over to the new drives because...deep breath, here goes... the drives are SATA (not IDE) and the AR21S native Phoenix NoteBIOS 4 release 6.1 unhelpfully gives no SATA recognition options and XP does not load the SATA drivers by default... and Sony unhelpfully don't supply the XP install discs anyway...which means they need to be injected somehow after boot-up by way of a floppy disc (which of course the AR21S does not have!) and...bottom line... the new WD SATA drives cannot be recognised by the backup software. To get around these difficulties, after some head-scratching and re-installation of the old disks, I was able to download and run from my existing setup a BartPeBuilder customisation and burn a cd-rom boot disc from the ISO it created and from there get Acronis to transfer the system files and folders on to the new drives but I then ran into the problem that as my Acronis software version could not backup partitions on a RAID volume but only copy files and folders off it, I then had to modify the boot.ini file to stop the transferred OS from trying to load critical NTLDR file from the wrong partition (the default factory instal has the hidden partition on the volume for the Sony restore function which causes the OS to look for the wrong partition number in the boot.ini file when the Volume is not copied in full). Eventually after some hours of tweaking I got a working transfer but then I discovered to my dismay that even after getting DriverMax to re-install the 67 separate hardware driver files I had copied beforehand it had failed to see the elusive Sony Blu-Ray drivers (so no Blu-Ray drive, weep!)...and since I couldn't find them myself at that point (and the website downoads didn't work either) I gave up and went back to the drawing board. In despair, I took out the new WD drives (again) and re-installed the old Fujitsu drives (in their correct slots!) and everything worked fine as before. Safely back to square one!
So here is the skinny on how to do it properly, preserve your Blu-Ray and what hair you have from being torn out....I bought from Overclockers.co.uk (Stock ID HD-027-BT) an Icy Box External Enclosure for 2.5” SATA HDDs (Model IB-266StUS-B) for around £18 into which I fitted one of my new WD 250GB blank drives (the connector is soldered hard on to the circuit board so you need to slacken off the 2 screws holding it down to get sufficient angle to insert the drive). The Icy Box is a nice bit of kit in anodised black aluminium and has the added benefit of an e-sata socket as a future-proofing option (e-sata cable included along with a neat extra usb power cable which allows you to plug in a second usb plug- which connects into the first-for more power if one usb port cannot deliver enough juice) I then connected it up using the supplied USB cable (one seems to supply enough power to the WD drive from the AR21S) and ran my Acronis Partition Manager to covert the blank drive to NTFS with default settings (although the same job can be done using instead the built-in XP Pro Disk Management facility under Admin Tools or indeed by using the free tools on the WD website which can be burned to disc from the ISO file using the free “ImgBurn” program from the web) . I repeated this procedure to format the 2nd WD drive for NTFS (although this step can be done later from the AR21S again using inbuilt disk management as it is only a secondary drive and not the primary OS drive). Then I used Acronis True Image software (although again an alternative would be to use the free tool from WD website) in “Clone Disc” mode which transferred to one of the WD drives a bootable (and this is the clever part) exact bit-for-bit image of the three Restore/C/D partitions in about 1 hour or so of my entire existing 200GB RAID 0 volume, with room to spare. I then took this imaged WD 250GB drive out of the Icy Box case (which I will re-use later as an external case for my old 100GB Fujitsu drive from the Sony to give me additional external storage) and put it into the AR21S in the Primary slot with the other WD 250GB drive (pre-formatted for NTFS but otherwise blank) going into the Secondary slot [see below]. The machine then booted up perfectly into XP MCE 2005 as normal after Acronis had done its part automatically without user intervention to make the disk bootable and “sysprep-ed” for this machine. I then transferred the contents of my data D drive off the first drive and on to the second, leaving the OS of course on the first drive “C”. Everything worked perfectly as before, including, hurrah!, the Blu-Ray drive.
Do I want RAID 0 or RAID 1 or neither?:-
In the “Clean Build” installation envisaged you need to decide beforehand whether to run the two drives in (the Sony default configuration of) RAID 0 [whereby the 2 drives are merged together as one very big 500GB “volume” which is then “partitioned” into “C”and “D” subsets if you like and all the files are “striped” (the easiest way to imagine this is to think of each batch of files being separated into odds and evens sets with each set being physically written to each drive respectively)] or whether to run them as physically separate drives so that e.g. you name one of them as your C drive and the other as your D drive. The big disadvantage of the RAID 0 setup is that because each drive carries bits of the same file across each drive if even only one drive fails then all of your OS and Data files are lost and will be totally irretrievable (another reason why it is important to run external backups on a regular basis of your hard drive contents). In other words, running the drives in RAID 0 is statistically halving the reliability of the overall setup. Since to my mind there is no speed advantage over the WD drives running as standalone units I cannot see any compelling reason to persist with the RAID 0 setup and accordingly I have not re-enabled it (more on this in the next few paragraphs). Of course, for completeness it should be said that with 2 drives you are given also the option to run them in RAID 1 whereby one drive is “mirrored” by the other almost instantaneously. There are 2 main disadvantages to this; firstly, you lose half of your maximum capacity...you will only have 250GB of storage space in total, not 500GB or thereabouts; secondly, there will be a slight slow down in system performance as the data gets written not once but twice. Frankly, I also suspect that if the primary drive gets corrupted then it will simply write the corrupted file to the secondary mirror and thereby defeat the point of having RAID 1. I would prefer to have the greatest capacity available in the notebook and then choose when and where I want backups to an external drive so for me RAID 1 would never be a viable option in a notebook, but your mileage may vary as they say.
In its out-of the-box state the AR21S existing Fujitsu drives are set up in RAID 0 which is supposed to give a faster throughput of data writing. Frankly, based on my personal experience I'm not convinced that the implementation of this in the AR21S with the Fujitsu drives gives any speed advantage over the WD Drives in a non-RAID setup (i.e. I have set them up to work as physically and logically separate drives). In fact, my experience is that the AR21S under XP MCE 2005 seems faster and noticeably more responsive with the new WD drives in non-RAID than the previous Fujitsu drives were in RAID 0 which is frankly a pleasant surprise given that they both have the same spin speed and the same 8MB cache. I have tested both makes of drive capturing TV recordings whilst working on other programs. Furthermore the almost constant irritating ticking/cycling noise of the old Fujitsu's has gone, although I cannot say for certain whether this is due to the different drive manufacturer or the change from RAID 0 to non-RAID or a combination of both.
All of this is probably just as well as frankly I have no idea how you achieve a fully working setup (with functional Blu-Ray !) on new drives with RAID 0 enabled and attempt to re-instal a pre-existing OS from the old drives as any new drive with data on it gets wiped when you actively enable RAID 0 under the Intel Matrix Storage Manager setup, and you have no OS installation disc from Sony.
Removing and Replacing the Drives:-
Fortunately, as with the rest of the AR21S Sony have beautifully engineered the hard drive bay to allow easy access. Simply unscrew the 5 screws around the large panel on the lower right-hand side having flipped the machine over on to its closed lid (make sure you rest it on a clean towel or similar to prevent lid scratches to that lovely gloss finish). Setup 3 saucers or similar nearby beforehand for safekeeping the screws. Note that the bottom screw nearest the edge needs to be removed completely before the hard-drive lid can slide downwards and off. If you are feeling unsure/nervous of the rest of this procedure then I suggest you take as many digital photos of the pre-existing layout at this point as you need so that you have something to fall back on if the need arises. Avoid using heavily magnetised screwdrivers as these can adversely affect the disks. The 2 Fujitsu drives will now be evident. Hard drives are sensitive to static electricity so “ground “ yourself by making good hand contact with a nearby radiator immediately before handling the drive tray or the drives. They sit in a polished chrome drive tray which itself needs to be removed by unscrewing 2 screws either side and one at the top making 5 in total again. Before you lift out this chrome drive tray take the precaution of using a cd-marker pen to write “Primary” on the label of the Primary drive on your Right as you look down at the tray and “Secondary” on the label of the Left one (if you look closely enough you will see both of those words printed on the circuit board connector at the top of each drive and they should correspond obviously). Doing this now will save you a heap of trouble if you should need to replace those drives unaltered at any later stage for any reason because their order under RAID 0 is vital, should you require to re-install them. Place an envelope or similar protection on the bottom of the casing to the left side of the opening to accept the next step. Once the 5 screws are removed then ground yourself and flip the drive tray over to your left through 180 degrees...notice there is a small plastic pin at the top left screw-hole so the tray needs to be lifted up clear of this before flipping over. The drives are held in the tray by 8 dumpy polished chrome screws which become evident when you flip the tray over to your left. Unscrew all 8 screws and set them aside. There is no need to undo the connector plates or black cable from the tray. Gently lift the tray up and the drives should want to fall down at the bottom edges. Coax them out at the bottom if they are reluctant to fall down a few millimetres. Hold each drive at the bottom edge at a shallow angle in turn and gently rock them from side-to-side to pull them down and out of the connector plates at the top until they are free of the tray. Set them gently and carefully aside. Next, cutting the anti-static bags as close to the sealed top edge as possible (to allow them to be re-used when you take out the old drives) fit the new drives by sliding each one into the connector plate at the top...they simply push-fit and only go in one way with the label side uppermost in the tray...if you look at the fitting on both sides of the connectors their internal “L” shapes of each half should correspond...once fully into the connectors the drives should sit snugly and flat inside the lip of the tray. Then re-screw in the 8 hard drive dumpy screws on the underside of the tray (the alignment of the holes should be perfect...if not then there is a problem and you should repeat the previous steps until they match) flip the tray back over to the right and making sure the plastic pin fully protrudes through the hole top left, proceed to re-screw the 5 tray screws top and sides only (note that you should be left with a hole at the bottom of the tray nearest the front edge of the machine through which the outer case screw will fit into). If you have not already done so mark the new drives “Primary” and “Secondary” on their respective labels before proceeding next to refit the outer case lid using the remaining screws (don't overtighten these to avoid cracking the plastic). Put the old drives into the anti-static bags from the new drives and re-package and store away safely until you have well run-in the new drives and are satisfied all is working fine. The hard work is now over! You are now ready to power-up and re-boot but read the following first.
So, how do you check to see if RAID 0 is enabled/disabled or choose to enable it if you are doing a clean instal? After (and only AFTER) you have followed the steps described above to replace the existing hard drives with the new ones you may want to do the following to double-check the setup. If you elect to run a non-RAID setup (as I did) it should not be necessary to do so as the AR21S ought to automatically detect and treat the new drives as separate drives but it might be prudent to check this by doing the following. WARNING: THE FOLLOWING ASSUMES YOU HAVE INSTALLED THE NEW BLANK DRIVES. DO NOT FOLLOW THIS PROCEDURE WITH THE PRE-EXISTING FACTORY-FITTED FUJITSU DRIVES STILL IN YOUR MACHINE BECAUSE THE SONY DEFAULT IS FOR RAID 0 TO BE ENABLED AND CHANGING THAT SETTING FROM WITHIN THIS UTILITY WITH THOSE DRIVES STILL IN PLACE WILL CAUSE ALL OF THE OS/DATA TO BE IRRETRIEVABLY LOST IN THAT EVENT. From the off/shutdown state boot it up by pressing the power button on. Immediately thereafter press and hold down the “F2” key on the top line of your keyboard. You will then hear a series of fast beeps at which point stop pressing the key. This will take you into the computer BIOS Setup Utility after a few seconds delay. Use the left and right arrow keys to navigate across the various pages named “Main/Advanced/Security/Boot/Exit” in that order. Select the “Advanced” page and then using the up and down arrow keys go down to the word “hide” next to “RAID Configuration” (3rd one down from the top) and change this from hide to “show” by pressing the shift key and the + key together. Press the “F10” key on your keyboard to save and accept this change and select Yes at the next dialogue box by pressing the Enter/Return key. Your computer will then automatically shut down and boot itself up from new having saved the change you made. This time you will be presented with the RAID setup summary page (normally hidden, now shown) and it ought to show both 250GB drives with an available capacity of 239.9GB and it should say NON-RAID on the right-hand side for each disk. If it says anything other than this then you will need to press BOTH the “Control” (Ctrl) key AND the “i” key (next to the “U” key!) TOGETHER in order to call up the RAID options page. Be warned that you get a ridiculously short period of time to select this page so you have to be quick at pressing both keys as soon as you see the initial RAID message.
You will then be presented with 4 options under the Intel Matrix Storage Manager ROM version 5.7.0.11 ICH7MR :- (1) Create a RAID Volume (2) Delete a RAID Volume (3) Reset Disks to Non-RAID (4) Exit . Make sure you select (3) if and only if the disks are displayed as being part of a RAID Volume (otherwise you can simply exit), and then choose to exit and save.
On the other hand, if you really want to run in RAID 0 with the computer seeing both drives as one huge volume and you have an OS installation CD/DVD then now is your opportunity to change that default behaviour. Exit saving/accepting any changes. Put in your OS installation disc at this point (the blu-ray drive tray should open on pressing its dedicated button on the side of the opening tray but if it does not do so then simply inset the end of an opened paper-clip into the hole beside the button to manually open it), press enter and run as normal [ I haven't done this for myself so I cannot assist with precise instructions but it should be self-explanatory...the first steps will be to format the new blank hard drives as NTFS drives (assuming XP or VISTA) with the default 4kb clusters named C and D respectively without partitions at present (this can be done later after install if needed)]
If you have chosen to follow the non-RAID setup route (which I chose) then just let the machine continue to boot up as normal and it will find the OS on the new (Primary) C drive, and from there you can move files/folders around as you please to the new separate (Secondary) D drive (remember to format it for NTFS 4kb clusters first if you did not do so before fitting the new secondary drive). Note however that simply using Windows Explorer to move/transfer Data files off the Primary “C” drive to the Secondary “D” drive has the disadvantage that the files lose their original dates; the way to avoid this is to copy the Partition these files are in off to an external drive using Acronis True Image or similar program and transfer it back on to the Secondary D drive.
Some further refinements can be made thereafter if desired. I have created a separate partition of about 6GB size on the Secondary D drive to which I have re-directed the Windows Pagefile, Temporary internet Explorer files and Printspool. I also created another separate partition (about 80GB in size) into which I have re-directed (using TweakMCE) the (rather large 1-2GB) individual MCE 2005 dvr-ms files created from my TV recordings so that neither my C nor D drives choke when defragmenting.
Thereafter congratulate yourself on a job well-done and enjoy the extra 300GB or so (and the silence)!
