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Merlin Messaging Hard Drive Replacement

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Tim8582539

Tim8582539

Technical User
Feb 16, 2019
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Hello....has anybody out there ever replaced their Merlin Messaging Hard Drive with a Solid State or Flash Hard Drive? I was thinking I would pull the current drive, clone it to a new solid state drive and install the new drive to the board. This sounds simple but is this something that will work or can be done? If so, any suggestions on a good Solid State Drive? Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
 
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I've never done it, but I know it will work. Many years ago, a friend had his Partner Messaging HD replaced with an SSD.

And I know it's still working today. (They are virtually the same Voice Mail, so I know the HW is the same.)

At the time, there weren't a lot of good Cloning Programs out there, but I'm sure it will be easy to find some these days.

I may see if I have a suitable SSD and try that myself.

 
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I have discovered a slight problem. The hard drives of the Messaging Units are 44 Pin IDE/PATA interface.

I intend to use my PC to do the Cloning function.

Problem is, I have no Computers with the 44 Pin Interface.

However, I have equipped my PC's with "Removable" Sata Drive Bays that allow me to use an Adapter Box (Same size as a 3 1/2 "Regular HD") to accommodate the SSD Drives.

That means I will be purchasing an adapter to connect the SSD (and the Old Merlin Messaging HD) to the SATA Box/Interface. (Amazon, of course)

Not a big problem, but one I wanted to make sure you knew about.



 
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Thanks merlinman!

I have been looking around and noticed 44 Pin Drives are not very common. I purchased some back-up/spare equipment on ebay since the system is getting old...I did get another Messaging card just because of my current noisy hard drive. My card had a blank white label, nothing to identify it. The Ebay card had manufacturer's name and model number, so I was able to get some information. It looks like these drives have a size of only 20GB?

I've also been able to determine, there are not too many 44 Pin Sold State Hard Drives out there. I've seen some 44 Pin to Flash Card and Micro SD cards for sale. If the drive only needs 20GB, that would be a a decent solution.
 
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My release 4 Messaging is 40gb.

I will be replacing it with a 64gb SSD.

Adapters and the SSD are still on their way.

I'll keep you posted once I get this done.

I thought about going that route as well, but I just decided to stay with an SSD design.

My concern would have been the speed of the device, but that's probably not an issue.

 
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A while back, I purchased a few SSD's for the Avaya Merlin Messaging in my Church's Magix. The existing hard drive has been working flawlessly, so, the drives are still sitting untouched. I'm hoping that, when the day comes that the hard drive gives up, I'll be able to grab one of the SSDs, swap out the failed drive and be off to the races again. [bigsmile]

I [love2] "FEATURE 00"
 
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FYI - I seem to be having a problem getting the original Messaging Hard Drive being "seen" by my PC thru my SATA to IDE/PATA adapter.

Will continue to explore.

Once I have it all figured out, I will post my results.





 
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I have in the past imaged a 4.0 version hard drive to upgrade earlier versions to 4.0. Admittedly it was with an XP machine, which might suppport way older file systems. What version of windows? I would bet the Merlin used FAT16 or FAT32 that probably won't be recognized beyond XP.

Dermis and feline can be divorced by manifold methods.*
*(Disclaimer for all advise given)--'Version Dependent'
 
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Over the years I've made dozens of flash drives for the Merlin Messaging, Partner Messaging, Partner Mail VS and 007 MLM. I generally use SanDisk 2GB Extreme or Ultra compact flash cards in a CF to laptop IDE adapter. I keep an old XP machine around to make these drives. I use an external USB to SATA/IDE hard drive dock. All but the 007 MLM are FAT-16 format. The 007 MLM uses the old concurrent DOS OS and I use a bit-for-bit hard drive copier to make these flash drives.

Brian Cox
Georgia Telephone
 
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My attempt involves trying to do this on a Windows 10 Machine with a bunch of new Hardware. The machine I intend to use has Swappable Hard Drive Bays, so I'm attempting to get adapters to be able to use this Hardware with the "odd-ball" IDE/PATA 44 Pin Hard Drive the Messaging has.

I knew the MLM-007 had that old Concurrent Dos on it, as well as the old Merlin Mails "in a box" ones. I used to clone them as well.

If push comes to shove, I will break out one of my old Laptops to make this happen. But I'd rather be able to do it with the latest HW.

We'll see.




 
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An UPDATE on my PROGRESS so far.

I have been able to CLONE the Original Merlin Messaging Hard Drive to an SSD Drive.

I used a simple USB to IDE/PATA Adapter that I have had for a long time (after buying several others) with great success.

This is one just like it available on eBay:



For Software, I decided to use the FREE HDD RAW COPY TOOL provided by HDDGURU here:


I figured I really didn't need to free up any more space on the SSD, so a BIT by BIT copy was the best, after all, for the way the Voice Mail is designed, 40 GB is more than enough. (The smallest SDD I could get was 64 MB)

The one thing I found that had to be done was to STRAP the "SWITCH" Pins on the ORIGINAL Drive to "turn it on" when it was connected to the USB Adapter.

This shows how to do that:




Well, now that I know that works, I will now experiment with using a MICRO SD (or a regular SD Card) in place of the SSD I have in use right now.

More updates will follow.







 
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The LAST UPDATE on this PROJECT:

Yes, I was able to "CLONE" the Merlin Messaging Hard Drive to both an SD Card and a MICRO SD Card.

I used the USB Adapter I mentioned above and another device called:

HI-Speed SD SDHC SDXC MMC Memory Card to IDE 2.5" 44Pin Male Adapter Converter (Presently available on eBay)

I also used the same SOFTWARE (HD RAW COPY TOOL) and I was very impressed with how easy it was to use.

(Available at hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/)

I highly recommend this software for cloning Hard Drives.

One side note, the FIRST Voice Mail I used in this project was just one I had in my Lab that apparently had been refurbished somewhere, sometime thus it was a 40 GB drive. The SECOND one I used was the one in my System that was factory original and as such, only had a 5GB Hard drive.

That being said, something much smaller than the 64GB devices that I used should be quite sufficient.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me through my WEBSITE.








 
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