EFI Protected Partitons W8.1

In the screen shot I had to unplug the ribbon cable in order to install Windows 7. I am only taking a guess here, but I think that ribbon cable connects to a small capacity SSD so W8.1 will boot faster with the stock 1TB hard drive only running at 5400 RPM.
I ordered my Alienware 18 with just the 1TB hard drive and I plan to install my own SSD running W7.

I would like to make use of that small SSD, but the connection on the MoBo is not a standard SATA connection. I know I have to remove the drive, connect it up to another computer and use DiskPart to remove the protected partitions.
Here are my questions: assuming that ribbon cable in the photo is attached to a SSD, is the connection to the SSD a standard SATA connection or is it just the other end of the ribbon cable plugged into it ?

Once the protected partitions are removed will W7 even make use of the SSD once the hard drive has been formatted or is it only meant to be used in W8/8.1 to boot faster if a slow 5400 RPM hard drive is used.

I looked in the manual and I couldn't find any info on what that cable is connected to and if it connected to a SSD, it doesn't discuss how to remove the drive _ although it looks like the top cover would have to be removed to even begin to get at.

Thanks for looking !

 

I figured out what was wrong, first off, that cable in the photo is just the LED keyboard cable _ disconnecting it had nothing to do with W7 loading. It wouldn't load or rather the computer wouldn't see the drive because I was using the wrong SATA cable _ I had to use the original dual cable that came with the computer. Disconnecting the cable and using the duel SATA cable at the same time just made it appear that disconnecting the cable was the solution.