Update BeoMaster 5 HDD with SSD!

1. Why should I bother

·         The HDD in your BeoMaster 5 is maybe 5-6 years old and the risk for failure renders more and more to probability. Normal lifetime of a spinning disk is 5 years

·         Soundlevel goes down even though B&O has done a great job in minimising the sound.

·         Power consumption goes down

·         Most important is that your startup time and look and feel on Beosound 5 goes more smooth as you would always have wished it should.

2. Disclaimer

If you decide to use my guide as inspiration the risk is yours alone. I wil not be held responsible for any malfunction on your system. I can of course provide advice trough this forum as my time allows.

If you have not tried to change HDD in eg. a laptop or have a certain knowledge on IT the I suggest you seek advice from a friend that does.

This guide is only for inspiration as i made this guide on request from "Millemis" a couple of month after I did the actual conversion. Everything in here is to my best knowledge and memory of the process ;-)

Before dismounting BeoMaster 5 be sure the power cable is detached from the chassis as there are live voltage within the box

3. Preparation

Buy an SSD HD, preferable same size as the original HDD. Do you buy a smaller one then maybe the music files will no longer be able to fit locally on the BeoMaster 5. If you got you music files on a NAS an SSD size on 128 GB is fine.

SSD has to be with SATA interface, most are. I myself used a Crusial M4 128GB mSATA and a conversion kit to normal SATA due i got the SSD laying around.

Some may think OK I will upgrade memory at the same time, but forget that. The system has enough memory and with only one memory slot it not possible to go to 2 GB

Equipment to be used.

·         128 GB Samsung 840 Pro Series around 100 €. Can be bigger. I will not guarantee the Samsung will work as I have not tried but I am 90 % sure it will

·         Adapter 2,5" to 3,5" around 10 €

·         USB to SATA adapter, around 20 €

·         Empty USB stick >= 1GB

Then it will be needed for ease, external display, keyboard, mouse and an USB hub as BeoMaster 5 only has two USB ports and we need 3. The USB keyboard could be one with internal trackpad, then you will be fine

Download Hiren's toolboks and make an bootable USB stick. Google "Hiren's boot usb" lots of info here.

4. Virtuel memory and shut down

Attach mouse and keyboad.

Go to service menu. 

Select MODE, go to SETTINGS and press > < > < GO

Go to MAINTENANCE and select SERVICE MENU. Now XP embedded GUI is launched.

Go to control panel - system og advanced, settings and remove virtual memory

Now you can shut down XP as usual

Attach external display if you wish and connect you Hiren's Boot USB

5. Clean up the HDD

Cleanup is only necessary if the SSD is smaller than the original HDD

Power on BeoMaster 5 by pressing the reset button on the back.

Under boot press and hold "esc" on the attached keyboard until the boot menu appears. Select Hiren's Boot USB as boot device

Delete all music files under Music folder if you have it stored and use it from NAS

Defrag HDD with the buildin XP defrag. Most important partition is "Data" because we want to compress the data to be on the start of the partition so it will fit the smaller SSD

6. Cloning

Attach you new SSD disk via USB to SATA cable and check its recognized på Windows

Use cloning tool from Hiren's to clone each partition. There are four partitions and they have to be cloned 1to1 except "Data" as we now has the possibility to make that smaller or bigger to suite your SSD.

I used Partition Wizard Home Edition as it was has the least complex GUI. See http://www.partitionwizard.com/ for information of usage. Use the copy disk wizard and shrink/enlarge data partition if needed.

After cloning check that all partitions is primary and System partition is (Boot) partition. And Recovery is (System) partition

7. Test

Easy test that all is in order is to reboot BeoMaster 5 and select Boot menu and then SSD disk while still connected to USB. It's not always it will be recognized by B&O bios here so better to attach it directly instead of the old HDD.

8. Assembly and extra comments

Remove old HDD drive and the new SSD is mounted - now your BeoMaster has gained new life ;-)

Remember to set Virtual memory back to 1GB again i Service Menu

My BeoMaster did an total MOTS recalculation in around 4 hours with music files on NAS, before it took around 4 days with music files locally.

Updates from B&O works fine with the new SSD. I did write the same serial numbers on the various volumes as on the old HDD. But I don't think this is necessary. I did it because my BeoMaster would not recognize the new SSD. But it turned out that the two year old SSD needed en firmware upgrade in order to be used for boot device.

The serial number of main board and other boards are store on the HDD/SSD but not visa versa so I don't think it will be a problem at all. If you find out different use the Volume Serial Number Changer on you Hiren's USB. You need to get the original Serials from the old HDD.

Finally one, who did it 🤒

Thanks.

MM

Struggled for a while to get this done.

Just cloned an 1TB Samsung  Evo to my BM5.

The key I think to succeeding now and failing before (could not boot the drive) is to copy the volume serial number.

10

There is another way to get this done, which is much much easier to do even for the folks with NO experience with computer hardware & software:

1: Open the Beomaster 5 and remove the internal Harddisk

2: Buy a Harddisk of the same or larger size than the one installed in the Beomaster

3: Buy this:

Thanks for that tip!

- Will it work with every HDD and every filesystem? That would enable to clone disks from proprietary systems like my old Sony NAC-HD1e, too.
- do updates on your Beosound 5 still work? Afaik the serial numbers have to be written onto the harddisk, too.

And how about going from the 500GB HD to a bigger one?

Will the 'Clone Station' do that too?

MM

Millemissen wrote:

And how about going from the 500GB HD to a bigger one?

Will the 'Clone Station' do that too?

MM

According to this (german) Amazon review you have the problem that you'll have two partitions on a hdd if you clone your old hdd to a bigger one:
http://www.amazon.de/review/R1LCPFQGXOFKWV/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00FFYN5VW&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=340843031&store=computers

Afterwards you have to manually merge the partition with external computer software...

That is what I thought might be the result!

Great idea with the SSD 🤒

MM

I think that this station can just copy everyting you plug into it...give it a try, otherwise send it back to Amazon...

The clone function only woks without the computer, simply insert 2 HDDs, connect the mains and press a button.... 

Cloning to a smaller sized HDD doesnt work, you press the button and nothing happens.

I just wanted to show a quick and easy way, no need to copy any serial number, I've checked that, even the serial number gets copied :-)

Update function works on my Beosound.

Best regards

Stephan

ultraviolent wrote:

I just wanted to show a quick and easy way, .

Every BM5 owner should do that - at least for safety reasons --- so thanks!

MM