switching to ssd

I am about to place my order for my m17x at the start of next week, just hanging to see what's up at E3.

ok, i have not been into computers for a hell of a long time and am pretty much at ground 0 technical wise. Now I am ordering my m17 with the normal 320g HDD, because I have my heart set on the in intel x25-m 160G. now what i need to know is.

*does alienware send you the windows disc
*does alienware send you all there drivers and programs on a disc

now i want to use the 320g for music,docs,etc as a secondary drive. And use the SSD for windows and games. so how do I go about this? do I "wipe" the 320 and start from scratch on the SSD with "windows disc and alienware drivers/programs" if they do give them to you. or will i have to "copy" all the files from the 320 to my SSD. Now i am aware that i need to disable "system recovery, blah, blah blah. I have read the first few pages on installing SSD BENCHMARK thread on setting them up once there in and running. It's getting it to run the part im unsure of?

the help is highly appreciated, i dont actually know anyone that is really into computers. so i only have you guys

 

Alienware/Dell does send you an OS disk. They also send you a utilities cd that contains all the drivers for your system but I would not use that when you reinstall Windows. It is usually a generic cd with drivers from the start of the year that ships with all systems. You are better off going to the Dell Support website and downloading the newest drivers for your system as those are what it ships out with.

I'd recommend making the recovery disks when you first receive it, however. This will ensure you also have a backup of what was on your system when you first got it - this is the recovery partition on your hard drive in case something goes wrong (something I deleted after installing the SSD). I ended up wiping the original hard drive during the windows install and merging the recovery partition back into one big drive - repartitioning it later to my liking.

A couple things to note when you reinstall - there is a guide somewhere here on which order to install the drivers onto your system. It is something I highly recommend following as your command center software will rely on it to function properly. Alienware doesn't ship with any bloatware and the only software included is the Command Center that controls your lighting and what-not.
Also, before you go swapping in the new SSD, make your your second HDD caddy has all the parts (caddy itself, 4 screws, and the interposer). I know they are supposed to ship with them now but my first M17x didn't come with everything but my second one did.

 

You will find that document on the Dell driver download page. I would print the page off and record the drivers on the page so as not to miss any.

Yes you will get the basic operating system but the drivers are as previously mentioned, out of date on disk. Use the call tag. You are in for a humungous headache as you must decide which drivers are for your hardware and which are not. If you place drives in the wrong order you may find certain hardware like sound card will not work. Also download and install one driver at a time. Windows will be hot at your heals trying to give you generic drivers throughout the process which can mess the whole process up.

I read that as of May 19'th all Dell SSD were shipping with the trim feature.

The limited hardware warranty does not cover problems that arrise by using accessories, parts, or compents not supplied by Dell. If I were you I would probably buy the 125 gig SSD from Dell and than wait a year for SSD prices to be half price. By that time you will have more knowledge and more familiarity with your system.

Waiting for E3 is a smart idea.

 

thanks for the insight, was exactly what i needed to know. I know it's gonna be a headache, so I might have to take a trip with it to my old mans place. his pretty up to date with his computers, lol suppose if he screw's it up I can just blame it on him.......lol