mSata assistance m14x r2

Hi All, i am looking for a little assistance.

I am feeling daring now and i am planning to try to upgrade my machine as i am starting to notice some small lag in games where i did not before.

I want to try to install an mSata SSD and firstly i wanted opinion on which model would be best, i have just been doing a search and have seen this: Crucial 256 GB Internal SSD Serial ATA-600 mSATA M4 as an option however i have no idea when it comes to performance/reliability.

Secondly it has been a while since i actually did any sort of rebuild on a laptop/pc - with installing this what would then be the best way to get the OS onto the new drive? would you recommend installing from the partition on the provided HD and starting a fresh this way or would you suggest a total clean install from a win7 disc?

thanks in advance

 

Hi

I'm in the same boat tbh, in an ideal world we should do a fresh install of windows and then install the alienware stuff to get the alien feel back, but i'm going to try the following using the respawn back up i made on day one

I spoke to a good friend on these forums who told me to try the following,

You would need to change boot priority to the msata when you physically install it. Then access the one time boot menu (F12 at boot) and select to boot from your recovery media type. Probably best to remove the HDD whilst you do this so you don't have two OS drives (don't wipe the HDD until you have installed onto the msata regardless of how you end up doing that). Follow respawn instructions and if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it will throw you a message about drive capacity not being correct.

If it does that, to get the OS on the msata without a clean install, you would need to clone your HDD to the msata, or clean install.

Hope this helps, i've not done it yet as i'm waiting to get around to buying my mSata lol

Helbrass

 

Well the easiest way to insert an mSata and make it bootable was exactly what the previous poster said about going into the bios and change the boot order. However before that is done, assume you made your alienrespawn DVDs or USB, correct?

Without doing that first, it is feasible but will take longer.

Of course it will bring you back to a factory setting, but will be a clean and snappy install. So what you would need to do is: install the mSata SDD, hit F2 to enter the bios to change the boot order so the mSata drive is primary, reboot and then hit F12and boot into your DVD or USB alienrespawn drive (USB should be plugged in first I believe), then restore to your mSata drive.

Thereafter you should be good to go!

EDIT: on realized you did mention everything about the alienrespawn too. Dang shouldn't be replying on tapatalk!

 

Thanks for the replies all will attempt to make the alien respawn asap. I have a USB 1tb HD that i can use (can make sure i backup my swtor install haha) - just got to get the mSata drive next then

 

Let us know how that goes