MSI 1762 HDD upgrade?

So my MSI 1762 gaming laptop has been running into certain "phases" where folders, music or pictures wouldn't open, or that loading bar in Windows Explorer would drag itself like a snail towards the X button, or more intense but not uncommon situations where it would just freeze and slow down so hard to the point where it needs to be reset by chokeout.

Every time this kind of thing happens, the LED on the front of the base of the laptop that has a cylinder icon above it turns solid blue. Other times it's just flashing or flickering which shows normal operation, but when it goes solid blue it probably means my laptop struggles to access certain sectors on the platters or something. Which basically means, I believe it's on the verge of failing - I verified this with CrystalDiskInfo and it shows a Bad health status in Sector 1 and a Caution in some other sector, but it's Bad overall.

I've already backed up and I'm happy to buy a new HDD with a bigger capacity (going from 1TB to 2TB) and sending the current one to the guillotine... or hammer in my case. I'm looking at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00MPWYLHO/ - would that work with my laptop?

My only other question is are there any software measures involved when upgrading the hard drive? Can I just swap out the old one and continue as normal? Format it before use? I'd like to hear some advice from people who've done it before, particularly for this model or similar if possible.

 

That link goes nowhere.

I would recommend a clean install of your O/S in addition to partitioning the HDD optimally (150 to 250GB for C:\Drive the rest for DATA - which I name as 'Z' drive).

 

All what you need to do is unscrew the bottom panel then replace your HDD with the new one and then bootup from the windows disk and follow the instructions which are pretty simple. There is no need for a format it is part of the Windows install and it is done automatically when you use a brand new drive. Good Luck!

 

Instead of that, unscrew the drive, take it apart, and harvest the platters and neodymium magnets.

 

Yeah, Windows (and probably every other O/S will create a partition it can boot from...), but what it doesn't do is the following.

And it is not automatic.

As I mentioned in my first post in this thread, the only thing I would change is the size of the C:\Drive today. 150GB or smaller (if you can get away with it... for the fastest and most responsive system) or up to ~250GB on a 2TB (nominal) HDD will give you a much more responsive system vs. a single (default) partition that will let the O/S write to anywhere on the platters.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...tachi-7k500-benchmark-setup-specifics.442289/

The other tip I can suggest: make sure only the new HDD is physically and electrically installed on the platform when you do a clean O/S install (otherwise, booting up from the new HDD (or even SSD...) will require the old HDD (or SSD...) to be available. If it isn't? You effectively have a dead notebook. Some will mention that you can fix this issue (and yeah; you could...). But better to do it right the first time (only have the O/S Drive in the platform you're re-installing the O/S on...).

 

Yep, MS is obsessed with small hidden boot partitions and will mark their territory on multiple drives, if you let them, making whole computer not bootup, even if non system drive fails and I don't know about other backup programs, but the one I use don't see hidden partitions, so if they're corrupted, restore from back up image won't do the trick and then need run Window repair, which may or may not recover it. I could never figure out wisdom behind some of the foxtrot things they do. BTW my drive has 7 partitions, 2 are mine, 1 is factory Win backup, remaining 4, no idea.

 

Ah yes, of course I forgot to mention my laptop uses both a 117GB (theoretically 128) SSD which houses Windows 10 and some program files and the HDD - the D: drive for Data and the Recovery partition which originally housed factory settings. I backed up the latter to an EHD and merged 50GB of E: drive into the D: drive since I had upgraded the laptop's GPU from a 670M to a 770M in the past. I'm assuming that if I can only see a capacity of 117GB for the SSD in Windows Explorer, the remaining 11GB is stored somewhere on the D: drive - those must be symlinks or things that Windows needs to boot from?

My only problem is that I don't have a Windows disk because my laptop came with Windows 7 and I upgraded to 10 a few months ago. Say I just swapped the hard drive now and booted the computer - would Windows take me through a startup repair process to order its symlinks or whatever for the new drive?

I never knew SSD / HDD capacities were proportional in drive setups. Does this mean I'd have to replace the SSD too? Wouldn't initially think it was necessary since being an SSD it has no issues to report. Though the laptop's already been factory reset a couple of times so it won't be the first.

I also fixed the link in the OP.

 

Are you sure you're not confusing advertised capacity with usable capacity?

http://www.techzonez.com/forums/showthread.php/7243-Drive-Capacity-explained


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To avoid MS to create the Recovery partitions on the secondary drive all what you have to do is make sure that when you physically install the drive in the laptop install it in slot #1 and the secondary drive in slot #2 and then after you install Windows you can still remove the secondary drive without having any boot issues. MS always creates the hidden partitions on the primary disk in the laptop.

 

With Slot1 and Slot2 being a logical definition in most MB's today, that may be a hard thing to achieve.

Many systems I've had for many years now will make Slot1 be the bay that contains the Windows install...

Still far easier to just install Windows with just the drive it is intended for.

 

I'm not sure if I follow.

My laptop is set to boot from the SSD - the C: drive. That is the first device it will try to boot from as dictated by simple settings in the BIOS. My laptop doesn't "boot" from the D: drive whatsoever as there is nothing but my data (games, pictures, music, programs etc.) on that drive.

If I removed the D: drive and put in a fresh 2TB HDD, what would happen? Would Windows take me through a process (like startup repair or whatever) to accustom itself to the new drive, or do I have to reinstall it?

OR, do I have to replace the SSD as well? Because if I have to buy a new SSD it then becomes a matter of how I'm going to reinstall Windows, because I don't have a Windows 7 disk or anything to reinstall from. The laptop came with Windows 7, and in October I upgraded it to Windows 10.

 

First of all, you'd be able to reinstall Win 10 directly, no need for a Win 7 disc.

Secondly, the PC should boot fine with the D: drive removed (or the new 2 TB drive installed) IF there are no windows boot files/partitions on the D: Drive. What do you see when you open disk management?

 

Looks good to me. How easy is the D: drive to actually get to? If you take it out of the machine, you can test it before buying the new drive.

 

It's been taken out and diskchecked on a separate computer and this laptop has had its GPU replaced - it's not even remotely difficult

 

And the machine boots into windows fine without it? Sounds like you're all set.


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I'm very happy to report that my new 2TB HDD is now up and running perfectly! Got a little scared at first when the OS didn't detect it at first, but the BIOS had it covered from the start. All I needed to do was run Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool, go into Disk Management and format the drive which took well over 4-5 hours - as expected of a big drive!

Also reinstalled Windows prior just to get a nice fresh registry and start in general. Feels like I'm using a new computer. Thanks for the support!

 

In future you can probably skip the memory diagnostic and go straight to disk management to initialize the disk. A quick format should work there too, saving you the 4-5 hours, just FYI.


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