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    Fresh Install Win 7 on m11x... Need Help bad

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by Colpolite, Jul 17, 2011.

  1. Colpolite

    Colpolite Notebook Deity

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    Just bought a 60gb vertex 2 ssd and I want to get rid of the crappy 250gb 5400rpm.

    Here is the thing, I don't have an optical drive and no usb flash drive. I only have seagate freeagent go 500gb external hdd so will that work to load windows 7 and do a fresh install?
     
    Colpolite, Jul 17, 2011
    #1
  2. idlehand

    idlehand Notebook Consultant

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    idlehand, Jul 17, 2011
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  3. Colpolite

    Colpolite Notebook Deity

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    Wait why can't I use the USB external hdd when the flash drive itself is usb and my usb external hdd already has 500gb so that is huge when 4gb is only the required right?
     
    Colpolite, Jul 17, 2011
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  4. idlehand

    idlehand Notebook Consultant

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    idlehand, Jul 17, 2011
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  5. afgballa

    afgballa Notebook Guru

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    you actually need an 8 gb flash drive at least
     
    afgballa, Jul 17, 2011
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  6. hammadurb

    hammadurb Notebook Guru

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    I replaced the stock hdd to an ssd from my r2 and then swapped that to my new r3. I used a Thermaltake Blacx Docking Station and just cloned the drive using Acronis True Image. It saves the hassle of reinstalling the OS and all programs. The process is actually fairly quick and very simple.
     
    hammadurb, Jul 17, 2011
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  7. irishsumo

    irishsumo Notebook Consultant

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    Do you want to do a fresh install or just copy the existing build from the HDD to the SSD? If the former, then the link to installing via USB is what you need, but for the latter, then follow hammadurb's suggestion to clone using suitable software (I personally use Paragon rather than Acronis). Couple of things to remember - shrink the windows partition to under 60GB, and "sort" the hard drive, clearing down the pagefile, etc. as Windows has a habit of putting data in blocks towards the end of the drive data blocks.
     
    irishsumo, Jul 17, 2011
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  8. hammadurb

    hammadurb Notebook Guru

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    You also have to take into consideration the recovery partition which is about 7gb. You could just delete it and keep the original hdd intact just in case something happens. Then you can just put it in the original drive and just copy over to the ssd again.
     
    hammadurb, Jul 17, 2011
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