The Definitive Guide to Clean Install OS on a mSSD Cache Equipped Laptop (dv6t-7000, dv7t-7000, Envy17-3200)

After owning my dv6-7000 and lurking the owner lounge here for two weeks, I realized there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding the mSSD (a.k.a mSATA SSD) and Intel Rapid Storage Technology. This guide is to debunk the myth that if you have configured a mSSD in a dv6t-7000 or dv7t-7000, you can’t reformat your drives or reinstall Windows without jumping through major hoops (like using linux or pulling the mSSD off the motherboard). This will help you solve the problem of Windows installation reporting “No drive is found” or only showing the second hard drive (if you have one installed). This guide will also help people who wish to upgrade the mSSD for bigger one for OS install or put in a new SSD in place of the hard drive. I gathered the information here by reading various threads and some personal experiment and I figure I will make a nice guide that people can follow. It is actually not necessary to enable/disable RAID configuration in BIOS, as it is being done in Intel Rapid Storage Technology software in Windows. So the entire process is very painless. Without further due, here are my steps:

1. Back up the SWSetup folder from your C:/ drive.
2. Type in Intel Rapid Storage Technology at the start menu to access it.
3. Under the “Accelerate” tab, select “Disable acceleration”. (see attached screenshot)
4. After step 3, you should see a new option “Make available” on the same tab. Click on that, now you have completely disassociated the mSSD from the cached drive. Restart computer.
5. (Optional) Reformat the mSSD in Windows’s Disk Management (type in Disk Management in start menu). When prompted, choose MBR as the initialization type. Now you can use the mSSD as a drive. (see attached screenshot)
6. From here, perform your upgrade. You can swap out the mSSD or the system hard drive, or simply proceed to the next step to reinstall Windows. For demonstration purposes, I am just going to swap in an old 160 GB drive I have around and clean install Window 8 Release Preview.
7. During POST screen, hit ESC and then select “Boot Device Options” and choose the device to boot from. I have the Windows image on a USB drive, so I am going to boot from that. If you want to perform a recovery with your recovery media. Go to the same place and boot from the recovery media. (see attached shot of the screen). Note that I have to use the USB 2.0 port for the USB drive to show up in BIOS.
8. Install Windows or perform recovery as usual. Attached screenshot shows that both the mSSD and my 160 GB drive being available for OS install. (see attached shot of the screen)
9. Install necessary drivers.
10. Go to Intel Rapid Storage Technology (you have to install this). Enable acceleration again under the “Accelerate” tab, if you need to. I wanted to show a picture of enabling SSD acceleration in Windows 8, but the NET Framework that is required for Intel Rapid Storage Technology doesn’t play nice under Windows 8. (see attached screenshot)

So here they are, ten easy steps to perform clean OS install or hard drive upgrade on a mSSD equipped HP laptop. That was not so hard, was that? The entire process took me less than an hour and I typed up this guide the process. In my opinion, if you are not upgrading your hard drive to an SSD in the immediate future, it is worth every penny to get the mSSD cache. It really provides near SSD performance while still allowing a large storage drive, for a low low cost. So please don’t shy away from it because you think you won’t be able to clean install OS or reformat your hard drive.
Additional information: There are two SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports on these Ivy Bridge laptops. On my dv6t-7000, it is the mSATA and the hard drive port. I know an Envy17-3200 has only one hard drive port that supports SATA 6.0 Gb/s (thanks to Jerohm). I therefore believe that the mSATA and the first hard drive port on the Envy17-3200, and by extension, the dv7t-7000, are SATA 6.0 Gb/s capable. If anyone has a dv7t-7000 want to verify this, let me know, I can show you the steps. This information is important for maximizing the performance of mSSD/SSD drive.

Please feel free to comment and provide additional insights and I will integrate them to the guide.

EDIT (08/04/2012): According to this thread, you'd need a Win 7 disk with SP1 for the mSATA driver so the install can go through. You can find digital river links to the Win 7 disks here:
How to Install Windows 7 Without the Disc | PCWorld

 

I have a very unfortunate error in that the computer crashed while disabling the mssd cache in windows 8. I cannot boot into windows, and the recovery and install disk can now not find my hard drive. Any idea what to do?

 

This issue has been fixed in another thread.

On to my question:

If I disable Intel RST, can I install Ubuntu to my main hard drive, and then re-activate Intel RST for Windows?

 

Theoretically, yes, but in these steps:
1. Disable acceleration
2. Select "Make available" to dissociate drive.
3. Enable acceleration but instead of choosing "Full Volume", you can choose to only use 18.6 GB. That's the only other option available for a 32 GB drive, you can't go down any more.
4. Format what's left in disk management.

Note, this still leaves the mSSD in RAID 0 with your harddrive, if you ever need to delete the RAID volume on the mSSD for some odd reason, I suppose your Linux installation would be gone too.

 

Sorry, misread your question that first time. I actually don't know about your scenario. What I describe before is for installing Ubuntu on the mSSD and have acceleration for Windows.

 

This thread was soooo helpful! Thank You! I was one of those folks you were talking about thinking that preforming a clean install with a mSATA SSD install was going to be a pain in the monkey's butt... +Rep

 

I've read through the maintenance manual and it looks as though getting to the mSSD requires nearly complete dismantling of the machine.

Remove the battery (see Battery on page 46), and then remove the following components:
a. Hard drive (see Hard drive on page 47)
b. Optical drive (see Optical drive on page 54)
c. Keyboard (see Keyboard on page 57)
d. Top cover (see Top cover on page 61

How long does this take and is there significant risk of damage (static or thin ribbon cables etc) ?

I have a Samsung 128GB ready to go, but loathe rebuilding the machine.

 

An update for you: I had the dv6 replaced by a dv7 with dual hdd. Using this process, I replaced the primary drive with a 128GB Samsung 830, loaded windows from a USB drive, then accelerated the secondary drive (rather than format, 32GB wasn't worth it). Process works perfectly.

 

Is it possible to run the mssd as another hard drive completely with out the cache tech from intel. To run your OS with trim and all programs. Because I want to install a Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD3 mSATA 256GB SATA III in place of the 32gb factory drive and use it for my OS and programs. So my other drives are just storage and upgrade my ram to 16gb of vengeance series.

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
3rd generation Intel i7-3610QM Processor (2.3 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M Graphics with 2GB GDDR5 memory
8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
1.5TB 7200 rpm Dual Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive
32GB mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache
6 cell + 9 cell Lithium Ion Battery
17.3-inch diagonal Full HD Anti-glare LED-backlit Display (1920 x 1080)
Blu-ray writer & SuperMulti DVD burner
HP TrueVision HD Webcam
Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth
Backlit Keyboard with numeric keypad

 

Anyone tested mSATA SSD with sizes bigger than 32GB?

 

I want to change my mssd to a 256gb mssd by crucial to use as a primary boot drive for my OS. Maybe even cache boost as well. Will this process work for that and is this drive to big. I have a DV7t-7000.

 

I got a BSOD while I was deactivating the acceleration. Now I am not able to boot. I tried to do a recovery operations, BSOD before the recovery screen loads.

Tried to a do a clean install over this and it cannot find drivers.

Thanks for any assistance.

Jim

 

I think it's a bit overkill to deactivate the acceleration. You simply need to load the drivers when installing Windows. Those who are familiar with installing an OS on a RAID or SCSI drive will be familiar with this; it's the 'Press F6 to load drivers' option in previous versions of Windows prior to Vista.

1. Download the driver Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver package from HP(for the dv7t-7000 it's here: Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver HP Pavilion dv7t-7000 CTO Quad Edition Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)).
3. Unpack it with an archive utility such as WinRAR
5. Copy the F6 directory to a thumb drive or another drive that Windows can see natively.
7. When you see the list of hard drives to install Windows to, click the 'load driver' button and point to your F6 directory.

You should now be able to see your HDD. This is the method I used to install Win8 onto my dv7t-7000. Be ware of the Windows 7 drivers though. Some are supposed to work but I found that the Rapid Storage Technology Driver and management application did not install properly and caused my machine to freeze periodically. I also believe this was the cause of my Win7 install freezing, causing me to upgrade to Win8. Not all devices are recognized by Win8 either. Will have to wait for HP to release Win8 Drivers.

Hope this helps.

 

That actually didn't work for me. I actually had to load Lubuntu onto my HDD and then partition from there. Then I was able to do a clean install of Windows.

 

Did anyone try to boot with ONLY the msata drive?
I can boot from msata using the EasyBCD mod if the original 2.5'' is in there, but if I take it out, it will not recognize the msata as a bootable device under bios

I have an OCZ Nocti 120GB (2.25 firmware) btw

Thanks!

 

Beastboy19891988:

Are you still using the 32GB mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache with the 16GB of system RAM? If so, how is the system running? I want to upgrade my DV6T-7000 to 16GB system RAM but HP told me that the 32GB mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache was incompatible with system memory greater than 8GB. Their reply was that I could not upgrade and use the Hard Drive Acceleration Cache, or upgrade the RAM and disable it. I was wondering if anyone has experience with this.

 

Actually I'm using a 256gb mssd by crucial as my boot drive and 16gb of ram. It all works great together however in order to boot from my mssd I have to keep a master boot file on one of my hard drives I just delete the os my os is stored on the mssd and it is set as my c/ drive and master boot. You just play a little trick on your bios.

 

Hi Beastboy19891988:

Just so I am clear on this - your DV6T-7000 came with the 32GB mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache but you replaced that with the Crucial CT256M4SSD3 to use as a system drive?

This sounds like a good way to go since at this point I have installed the 16GB of RAM and (according to HP even though they couldn't give me the technical reason) the drive acceleration is not useable. Thanks for the idea. Were there any configuration changes (besides the MBR thing) that you had to make to make the drive usable to the system? I am wondering about the RAID utility.

 

That is almost correct with the exception of I have a Dv7t-7000 quad edition. Also the master boot record has to be on the sata0 disc drive. I also followed the definitive guide also you can not delete the other os untill you set up a mbr.

 

I have a HP DV7t-7000 quad core cto. Because it is a 17.3" laptop it has more room for storage, it has 2 drive bays and the MSSD port. I originally configured it with a Hybrid drive from HP, when I looked at the drive it stated it was the Seagate Monumentus 750 Hybrid, but when I looked it up online on the Segate site, it states the drive is 6gb. But the one that comes with the HP is the same drive in every way only with 3Gb. I tested this on several controllers and indeed it is 3gb which may confuse some people into thinking the first drive bay is only 3Gb. Anyway, 2 ports are Sata 6Gb. The MSSD port is 6Gb and the port that belongs to the first drive bay is also 6gb. The port that is for the second drive bay is 1.5Gb, I believe this is connected to the same port as the DVD/Blueray drive port. For a total of 4 Sata ports, 2 6Gb and 2 1.5Gb ports. Fortunately the Intel RST can accelerate the 1.5Gb port as well according to the software (I have not tried this though) so if you have an old sata laptop drive laying around, you can install an OS on it and accelerate with a large mssd at 64gb. Which should rarely hit that hard drive for anything for the os and store everything else on faster storage.

 

I am making this post because the past 24 hr, I went through and hell trying to figure out how the hell I can clean install my Envy 4-1115dx with the mSSD in the way.
NOTE* The OP is right about disabling the acceleration and 'MAKE AVAILABLE"
Without doing those two steps, I was unable to see my drive partitions (mSSD and 500GB HDD) when I tried to used my CD to format them prior to W8 installation.

Follow this guide. The only step I left out if formatting the mSSD for use. I plan to enable acceleration when I get all my drivers installed again.
Thanks OP! SOOO MUCH! Life saver!

 

Hello Everyone,
I've read this post, and many other regarding replacing the 32GB msata caching drive with a large ssd, and doing a clean install and using ssd as a boot drive. I'm wondering if anyone on here has done thins in a HP Envy 4 series ultrabook. My concern is that I don't want to take it completely apart if there isn't going to be enough room for the new ssd. I have a Samsung 840 120GB, waiting to go in, but I'm not gonna take it apart if can't fit it in place of the mssd. Any one know if it will fit?

 

Intel RST acceleration was working fine on my dv6t 7000 with 32gb mSSD. A week ago, I clean installed Windows 8 by following the HP directions, disabling acceleration and resetting cache. The install was a non-UEFI , non Secure Boot type. After installing all the recommended drivers for IRST, the acceleration never worked. It kept on giving me error: "An error occurred and the selected disk or volume could not be accelerated. Please restart your computer and then try the operation again." Restart won't help. And I would keep getting the IRST Option Rom screen at boot every time.

Details here: Re: Intel RST acceleration stopped working after Windows 8 i... - HP Support Forum - 2438801

So after trying everything, including the Shrinking trick, Intel latest drivers, BIOS toggling, I was still not able to fix the problem. I finally decided to do a Factory Reset with my Recovery Disks and revert back to Windows 7. But even after that, and after installing all the recommended drivers, I am still facing the same problem. The laptop has gone considerably slow without the Acceleration. I am hating it. Please help someone. I am tired of posting for help everywhere without any solution.

 

It takes an hour or two, I went really slow. Apparently you have the PDF maintenance manual for a step by step.
The hard drive and cdrom are super easy.
Its a little scary pressing out the keyboard, its a snap fit, but go slow and slide a pen or something that size under it once you get it started.
The msata position is under the top cover by the usb' plugs. The top cover has lots of screws, the manual sorts them by size for you.
You will need an extra tiny mm 2.5 x 3.5 screw to hold down the msata ssd card, but you can use one from the many taken out of the case if you have none.

 

It will fit, if its standard. I just put in crucial. Get the pdf HP maintenance manual for step by step.
for dv6 its: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03591281.pdf
google if you have a different model.

 

Thanks for posting. I thought this would solve my issue. But I have dv6-7214 with windows 8 and hybrid drive.
I cant find Intel rapid storage technology on my system.

Initially the msata slot was empty. I installed a crucial 256gb. I'm pretty sure this setup should work, some laptop up-graders sell them on amazon.
Installed msata (required a lot of dis-assembly) Booted from hybrid.
disk management can NOT see the msata, says HDD is disk 0, which also has a recovery partition and a couple system partitions (same as other windows 8 systems).
The bios CAN see the crucial msata m4, says port 1, with hybrid hdd at port 0.

I'm baffled the bios can see it and windows cannot. Thought your I.R.S.T might explain it, but can't find it.
The BIOS says raid is not set up. Does that matter?
disk_management does NOT appear to show a separate partition for its hybrid ssd, I assume thats internal and invisible, but ???)

Thanks for any comments.

 

Hi peidekun,

Thanks for this helpful post! I've been racking my brains trying to figure out how to upgrade my machine. Am a long time reader, first time posting here...

I have an HP Envy 6 Ultrabook, intel i7-3517U with 32GB mSata SSD & 500GB HDD. I've been trying to upgrade the HDD to a Samsung 840 Pro 256 SSD, but still no luck. I ended up following the same process you describe above (although I only found this afterwards - I wish I had found this 4 days ago when I first starting thinking about this!).

- Disable Acceleration & make available
- Remove mSSD & HDD, install Samsung SSD.
- Boot to Windows 8 installation disk on USB DVD drive
- Still can't see any drives available?!

What am I missing / doing wrong?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, am pulling my hair out here. I bought this laptop with the intention of upgrading to SSD, if I had known this was going to be so painful I may have purchased a different machine already configured with full SSD

I'm also hoping to upgrade to 16GB RAM eventually if I ever crack this...

Thanks in advance to any help provided!!

Cheers,

 

When I found this guide (THANKS!) I thought it solved my invisible mSATA drive problem.
... By running rapid storage technology as author indicated.
Unfortunately, I did not have rapid storage technology loaded.
(presumably, because i did not have an mSATA cache on my system)
Loading the "rapid storage technology driver update" FROM HP FOR MY HP MODEL NUMBER, fails. HP? get it together.
Then I wasted lots of time, because i reasoned if it isn't loaded it cannot be hiding the physical disk. (wrong).

Anyway, go to intel.com, download the entire install package for Intel rapid storage technology, there is an English and international version.
DON"T just download the driver, it won't install.

All i had to do was install the package and reboot.
magically, the disk shows up in my disk management system program.

I suppose your system may vary, so you may need to also follow the author's steps below.

 

What is the purpose of doing this if you don't plan on using the SSD for the boot drive? I use a normal SSD in my desktop PCs totake advantage of the lightning fast access times which give me a 15 second boot time.

Someone else may have asked this in one of the other posts so I wil tak a look. If already asked and answered I will edit my post.

 

What if you do NOT order your laptop with the mSATA SSD? Do you still need to do the "disable acceleration" part?

And then what about activating Windows 8 after the clean install? Has anyone done this successfully and not had issues with the license part afterwards?

 

What if you've already broken the RAID array, formatted the drives and reloaded the OS; is there any way to re-enable the cache feature? (Reloading the OS is not a problem, so I just need to know how to reset my BIOS and RAID back to original factory config)

 

Guys help me over here!
I have a DV6-7014nr, it didn't came with a SSD, and I just bought a mSATA 128gb, but I can't seem to find any tutorials on how to install it on the laptop! I never disassembled any laptops before, so I'm a little afraid of damaging it!

 

this thread saved my . thank you for posting this!

 

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Hi all,

I have been racking my brain for the last 3 days with this problem. I have googled much and tried even more, now I give up in hope that some of you guys will be able to help me out.

Here is my disk setup. As you can see it has several partitions, the selected one is the SSD disc (disk 1).

In Intel Rapid Storage there is no Accelerate button as you can see in the following picture.

So far I have tried the following:

- Shrinking disk for 100MB

- Removing unused partitions (read somewhere that 4 partitons is max)

- Formatted SSD drive in all ways possible

- Initialized SSD drive as MBR

Now I have no idea what to do next, please someone give me an idea what to do. After reinstalling windows I did not touch any setting in BIOS. I only disabled acceleration in IRS and made the disk available. Then reinstalled Windows (all drivers are present, no exclamation marks in device management) and that's all. No Accelerate button..

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