Vaio TZ - SSD + hard drive - Pinout help & BIOS info?

Hi,

Does anyone have the pinout info for the original Samsung 32GB ssd fitted to a TZ-90?

Background: I'm trying to repair a TZ-90 for a relative.

From new it had a Samsung 32GB SSD plus a Toshiba 120GB HDD.

It died suddenly, the power light would come on for a second then off again & no other sign of life.

I got a scrap TZ31 (working but broken screen) as I got the impression the motherboard had died.

With the TZ31 board in, it did exactly the same thing...

The only real difference is the drive setup. Trying the cable & hdd/dvd combo, it works.

Trying the now proven working 1.8" drive on the TZ90 cable, it still refuses to work.

Trying the SATA drive only (no SSD), it will power up to the BIOS setup.

Unfortunately, the cable for the DVD adapter board is slightly different to the one for the SATA HDD connector board, so I can't use the TZ31 cable..

Does anyone have connection or compatibility info for the open frame SSD, or preferably a service manual that gives the full wiring for both types of drive?

Also, does anyone know what BIOS versions the TZ90 & 31 should be & if they have the same BIOS, or different ones for the different drive configs?

Thanks,
Robert.

 

^ It seems that both TZ90 / TZ31 have BIOS R0052N7..

 

bios TZ-31 R0091

if power on without SDD look for mee SSD make trouble

try another HDD 1.8'' 80-120 GB and will see

 

I have some manuals on the TZ, I used them to place WWAN in my TZ 90s and replace the SSD; plz check you PM

 

Hi all,
thanks for the replies.

I've made some progress on this.

It seems some problems were down to me being too careful with the 1.8" drive zif connector - it needs a lot of force to get the cable to seat far enough to connect properly.

The machine is now working perfectly with Win 7 pro, as far as the 1.8" C: drive goes - but it does not recognise the second HDD on the TZ90 cable, whether I use the original 2.5" Toshiba or another new Seagate drive.

Looking carefully at the two versions of the flat cable, I get the impression the TZ31 optical interface board screwed to the back of the drive is actually a USB adapter to a PATA DVD.

The TZ90 cable seems to have a direct SATA connection & the spare USB channel spurs off to the board carrying the extra USB connector.

Both motherboards are the same part number & both have the same Intel N8201GBM I/O controller which has one IDE and two SATA ports.

The problem appears to be that the SATA controller is not enabled on the TZ31 board.

I'm guessing that there is some config data in part of the BIOS Rom that is not overwritten by a normal flash, and that has things like the model & serial numbers, plus the machine hardware options.

So far, I don't have a clue how to fix this..

Edit - Working!

It's amazing what happens when you try to describe problems like this to others, it does weird things to your brain..

I realised that when there are multiple builds of a machine using the same board, they are not going to pre-configure every board for fixed options.

I went in to the BIOS setup & found the 'reset to defaults' option - it rebooted and Windows installed the drivers for the extra HDD interface...

It now has two fully working drives, the 120GB plus a Seagate 500GB Hybrid.
All I need now is a decent 1.8" ZIF SSD to replace the very slow 120gb.

 

See the ZIF SSDs link in my sig for the current options available. A Runcore ProIV Plus being the fastest but with a power consumption penalty due to using a sata-to-pata bridge. A EWS720-based unit like a SuperTalent ZT2 giving a good balance of performance and low power consumption but misses out on TRIM support.

 

hi, thanks for this helpful post. i've just bought a TZ240 off ebay and intend on configuring my laptop in the same way - 64gb ssd pata zif + an extra 2.5" hdd where the dvd tray originally goes.

The disassembly guide was useful but I have no idea how the ODD should be removed and replaced with a 2nd 2.5" hdd.

Thanks for any help rendered.

 

Which guide have you used..It is an old thread but u may get something out of it http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/186540-vaio-tz-swapping-dvd-drive-2-5-hard-drive.html