Just purchased a new laptop + an M4 SSD

So I just finished ordering my brand new envy 17t-3200, a crucial M4 512GB drive, and a 2nd drive bay caddy from newmodeus.com.

When the computer arrives, I am going to be pretty clueless. Despite being a computer science major, I really know nothing when it comes to hardware.

1. How will I be able to set it up so that my computer boots off of the SSD instead of the 1TB hard drive it came with? I am planning to use the 1TB drive as added storage.

2. I assume I will have to somehow clone my 1TB drive since it comes with photoshop installed, it would be nice to hang on to it.

3. If I set up a dual boot with windows 7 and Ubuntu, will both operating systems automatically utilize the speed of the SSD?

4. I'd like to keep a backup image of the hard drive in its factory state (or maybe the state of the SSD once I get everything working), so that I can reformat it and get it back to that whenever I start getting annoyed by the creepy programs living in my computer. Can I do that on a blueray disc, or on a flash drive, or on the 2nd hard drive, or what? Can I set it up so that I can boot up off of either HD if I choose to?

BTW if this isn't where I'm going to find the answers to all these questions, let me know.

 

1. This is a BIOS setting. I'm not familiar with the Envy's bios, but you should be able to change the boot preference order, assuming you can access the bios..

2. Maybe. A fresh install is always the best. If you have install media for Photoshop and can transfer the key to the new install that would solve your problem. Ask Adobe for help since they probably have to deal with this (it's not like people don't reformat their computers).

3. Yes. Pretty much any modern OS will know what to do with an SSD. Even those that don't will just see a really fast hard drive. One thing to check is that the OS isn't make unnecessary writes to the SSD, e.g. defragging the disk.

4. I don't have a complete answer, but there's a lot of good GPL disk cloning software out there. You can also certainly select which drive to boot in BIOS.

 

Cowpig,

I am looking at ordering the same setup, except with the 750gb hybrid HDD instead of the 1tb HDD. Also my Envy will be 3d version.

Have you received your Envy, SSD, caddy yet?
Everything fit and work together ok?

 

I've had so many problems with HP in just trying to order the thing that I've decided it's probably in my best interest to avoid that company altogether. This is after spending about $100 on an extra battery and hard drive caddy as well. I think I'm going to get a Sony S series 15''.

 

Why is a fresh install of the operating system best? How would that work? Note that I'm now getting a Sony Viao S Series now, and I will only have the 512GB SSD in it. Would I just remove the hard drive it ships with, put the M4 in, and then boot off a flash drive? Everything should theoretically work that way? Sounds too easy! I'll have a million driver issues and stuff won't I?

 

for your SONY VAIO S, it's better to head over to the Owners' Thread and read the very first post. it has all you need clearly written in detail.

for Photoshop and other Adobe applications, i'm afraid that Adobe will not help you transfer them and will not give you the serial numbers for the aleady-yours and already-installed applications on your machine. I talked to an Adobe customer service rep and was told that "due to security" measures, they will not help me and that i should contact SONY for that. being fed up with it, i decided to recover the applications from the recovery partition. see the HOW TO guide in my signature if you would like to go that route.

 

Thanks for your help! I won't actually need to recover anything since photoshop came with the Envy and not the Sony Vaio.