Have you upgraded to a CF / SSD solution? 5 min is a bit slow even for vintage hardware, my first thought would be a spinning HDD that is failing. It sounds like it does boot, but in some cases it can get stuck with a dialog and you need to alt-tab to close it, like a date or swap file warning.

@@jasonnovak2121 mine has the CF card and adapter like yours

@@Raptor50aus assuming nothing is off with Windows itself, it's possibly the CF card, the raw read/write speed but also the random speeds / iops. I've tried some generic unbranded CF cards before that were noticeably slower. Otherwise possibly no swap file / filter driver is not industrial, but doubtful

@@jasonnovak2121 All good the date and time were incorrect It boost fast now

Sure, 1.8" options are bit more limited, I've used a few can see covered here, kzbin.info/www/bejne/rXuanK2Plp2cqbs - but in general the IDE interface is also going to cap the performance of a SATA drive a lot. For 2.5" I usually go sata/msata

There should be a VGN-# or similar model number on the bottom sticker which should give more details if you google it

Sure, yes if you turn it on via the power button it will boot into Windows like a standard PC, the special button boots directly into "Instant On" mode instead. It was mean for the days of slower computers and drives where it could take a few minutes to fully boot into Windows, with "instant on" you could quickly get into a browser in about 10-15 seconds.

Very nice, what model did you end up getting? I know they're pretty rare now

yes, pretty much. I believe the US models all came with 2GB, some Japanese models came with 1GB, but it's soldered onto the motherboard and not really upgradeable

@@jasonnovak2121 mine has 2 GB and SSD but it's slow probably due to Java heavy websites

@@phils7921 I'm guessing the CPU is probably hurting it too, it has an early gen single core low power Atom processor which wasn't too fast even at the time. A fairly wide range of speeds too from 1.3Ghz to 2Ghz

@@jasonnovak2121 hola, que window s, es que el funciona mejor en esta laptop?

@@cesarramirez9975 I would recommend Windows 7 over Vista for retrocomputing, if you need to do something modern then Windows 10 32-bit, but won't be ideal.

I think options are probably pretty limited, there is way to connect an SNES controller to a parallel port, but that's more for Windows, not sure if there are dos drivers. There is a PC card but I think it's pretty rare. Otherwise USB perhaps, the 100ct and newer one at least via the dock, or there are USB pc cards, but again maybe will have issues with DOS

It's a shame to have one of these rare machines locked out due to a password. I checked my ss1000 again my other docks and they're all either flipped or don't line up. I could offset it to plug into the ct20 dock, but I suspect the pinout is probably different. I actually made one of those parallel dongles to unlock a tecra 550cdt. It looks like the last dock I saw up for sale was a year ago, it's the pa2725uj. If you ever end up a complete dead end email me via about and maybe can work something out

I'd be curious if you have a thingiverse ID or similar to check, I haven't looked recently but I've been using those two fine in most other laptops. The liberettos seem to be a very tight fit, and I think with the IDE connector slightly off there is no room to adjust. If I recall I think the 50-70ct are a little better, but then the 100/110ct were tight again. Those caddies could probably be made thinner to help, or card moved slightly

You should be able to use the existing cable from the previous drive. Mine had a factory SSD, so it has a microSata cable + adapter. If you have a factory HDD, it has a zif ribbon cable instead. You don't need to replace the cable, you can still use an SSD, you just need a ZIF style adapter that fits your cable.

Yeah, I've not seen one of the modules yet. 64mb is probably the minimum I'd want to 98, I did have a libretto on 98 with only 32mb, but 95 is maybe better.

True, that would have been another good solution

Most of the spinning HDD's in mine were dead or removed, I think only the 110ct and u100 still had good drives

Yeah once mine die Ill replace them@@jasonnovak2121

I have another video going over all the flash solutions I use with links here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rXuanK2Plp2cqbs That ZIF mSata adapter I only found on eBay, he has other sizes (this is only if you had a factory SSD) www.ebay.com/itm/321866763439 This was the CF adapter, though I never used it, looks like it's shipping from overseas so can maybe get it cheaper from aliexpress directly www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085C66G9H My compact flash I just buy used on eBay - get industrial, all transcend industrial seems to be fixed disk

Yeah, that's the best way, with this form factor a working battery is a huge plus. I actually tried this first on my smaller battery, but it ended up not working, not sure if I messed something up, or the BMS just flagged the battery as EOL. I did record it, maybe I'll upload it at some point in the future to at least show the teardown and soldering the tabs.

I had the same issue with one of my batteries too but I have 3 x Vaio UX models the black Vista model like yours and the silver xp model which has the hdd still the black has the original 30GB SSD and dead one for parts. I think some of the battery charging boards go bad. Luckily I have 2 x that work great. @@jasonnovak2121

It could probably use it, but I don't think is possible, at least easily, since it's soldered down and atom processors weren't ever sold directly. There were slightly faster atom processors available though

@@jasonnovak2121nah, its not an atom, you need Core 2 Duo U7700 to max out this machine.

@@jasonnovak2121 UX never shipped with Atom. They all initially had either Core Solo or Core 2 Solo. There is a way to upgrade it to Core 2 Duo U7700 using a hot air station, however it requires skills and experience.

Interesting, my Vaio P has a pre-boot OS, I didn't realize this had the option, been seeing some videos on that lately. Hitting the button though doesn't do anything, I assume it needs a hidden partition I don't have. I'd used the recovery media someone had posted on archive.org, having to write the ghost image directly due to installer isssues. My U100 had some with two DVDs with burned copies of the recovery media, I didn't use them though. Checking the DVDs now though they are different, so maybe they include the extra partition. But one is the recovery DVD, and the other apps, so if there's actually a separate disk just for this I don't have it - however the recovery media does want to wipe the drive, so I'm not sure it would be done beforehand. I tried installing them directly but get errors, similar to how I did on the other media. But I can't write these directly (or browse the contents) since these files are password protected (I've seen other Toshiba images are the same way, none of the "known" passwords seem to work), whereas the other set on archive.org isn't. I'll keep playing with it, maybe I can slipstream in a newer ghost client. I've updated the description with the new ISOs in the meantime. I'd suggest using Ghost to image your HDD before removing it, so you can just copy it over to the new CF card. I have a separate video on Ghost

@@jasonnovak2121 Thanks for getting back to me, I appreciate it. I also used the restore from Internet Archive. I am imaging the original hdd to keep the media software safe. It would be fascinating to hear how things go. Good fortune.

@@jasonnovak2121 The manual says to do a restore of the Media player first, then restore windows. I have done a windows 98 restore of the U100 (before I knew about the media player function) It didn't wipe the media software, something implied by the restore instructions.

@@bikeforever2016 sure, I suspect the recovery disks I have are a dead end, I checked the original hard drive that came in it, which I believe was reformatted by the previous owner with the same recovery disks, didn't have any special partitions. I'd be curious if you can confirm there actually is a hidden partition? If you're able at some point maybe if you could upload the disk, or image just the partition. I'll keep a lookout for the official install disk.

@@jasonnovak2121 Hi, I cannot find another partition, I've been looking at it with a linux live CD. The only way it shows at the moment is pressing the left button on the DVD dock when the system is switched off. Not sure where it is hiding. And thank you for engaging with me. I appreciate it.

Thanks for the detailed review and suggestions. I do like making these videos, it started with the Libretto W100 video I made on a whim since it's fairly rare and I couldn't find anything anywhere on it. Initially it was just a teardown with no audio, but I added the voice over and additional details and decided to cover all these little PCs. Things do get a bit dry in the cold winter months. I record the teardowns without any audio and then do the voice over afterwards where I have a better audio setup with some notes but not really a script, just doing multiple takes where needed. But it probably would be better to plan the I/O parts since it's a lot of details to try to sync up after the fact without a time to play with

Sure, yeah I haven't really used SD based adapters much, but considering how cheap the media itself could be pretty good especially for bigger sizes. Makes me wonder if SD adapters appear as fixed disks or removable.

@@jasonnovak2121 I really cant remember, i believe that device was listed in that taskbar icon to remove/eject removables. It was unreliable anyway, until one day completely refused to read SD card. I didnt use it as a system disk, just trying to store some music there but even that was too much to ask for.

Sure, that may be the case - I assumed balancing would be part of the laptop charging, I've worked with lots of RC lipo batteries and pretty much is standard to have balancing leads on all packs

Thanks, I'll have to take another look - the 50 pin adapters are a little more hard to come by, lots of 2.5" 44 pin mSata solutions