Samsung NC10 help

banja · 5 Sep 2013 at 20:21

Hi folks

Turned on my Samsung NC10 netbook today to be greeted with the message "Operating System not found" :eek:

It worked just fine yesterday. I'm assuming a HDD failure. In the BIOS it says IDE none so I guess it isn't even seeing the HDD an more.

So anyhow, I think if I'm going to replace the HDD I may as well go for an SSD. Would this be wise? I don't need a lot of space, it's mainly used for a bit of browsing and admin stuff at work and maybe a bit of music / video.

My knowledge falls down at SSD compatitbility though. What versions will work? Will a modern SSD connect via IDE? (I haven't even looked inside it yet)

If anyone has any advice I'd be very appreciative.

Nymins · 5 Sep 2013 at 20:28

I don't think the NC10 uses IDE, pretty sure its SATA in which case any 2.5" drive will work just fine.

andy_mk3 · 5 Sep 2013 at 20:34

Yeah most likely to be SATA, IDE is long gone!

banja · 5 Sep 2013 at 20:38

Ah, I just made that assumption because the BIOS said IDE none. That would explain that

Doesn't necessarily mean the HDD has died then??

Will any new SSD work, does the SATA version matter? Will the NC10 work with any new SATA drive??

Nymins · 5 Sep 2013 at 20:51

Yea any 2.5" drive should work fine.

Kinda confusing, but IDE is just a mode that a hard drive uses to communicate over the SATA controller. There are generally two available modes, ACHI and IDE. IDE doesn't necessarily mean a physical IDE connector, but rather the communication mode.

IDE is used mainly for legacy systems, so its best to choose ACHI if its available nowadays. But do this before installing the OS or it could cause issues.

JonJ678 · 10 Sep 2013 at 08:56

Any old ssd would work too. The NC10 is an atom 270 (maybe 330? one of the very slow things anyway). I used a first gen ocz ssd in one and it was excellent, convincingly cpu bound most of the time instead of disk bound.

So I'd suggest looking for an old, slow, cheap ssd instead of an exciting new one. I've got an N110 here with an ocz vertex drive which works well. It's not difficult to replace the drive.