Lenovo Y580 clean-install guide

Okay, so here is a simple step-by-step guide to doing a clean install of Windows on a new SSD (or with the pre-installed SSD if yours came with one) and keeping the One Key Recovery working.

1. Make sure you have backed up any data you want to backup to an external disk. Also make sure to back up the drivers on the Lenovo partition.

2. Run 'RapidTool.exe' located on the Lenovo partition in the 'drivers\RapidDrive\Tools\' folder. (you need to do this if your system came pre-installed with an mSATA. This tool will separate your mSATA SSD from your HDD so that they will be seen as two separate disks)

3. Turn off notebook, open bottom cover by removing the two screws and sliding out the cover.

4. Remove mSATA SSD by unscrewing the single screw and pulling out the card. (this of course only applies if your notebook came with a pre-installed mSATA, as mine did).

5. Install new mSATA and make sure to put in back the single screw after you have plugged in the card.

6. Put back the bottom cover by sliding it back in and replacing the two screws.

7. Turn on notebook and go straight into BIOS (use F2 on Lenovo logo screen).

8. Once in the BIOS, go to the Boot menu and disable UEFI.

9. Save settings in BIOS and reboot.

10. When the Lenovo logo screen re-appears, press F12 to go into boot selection menu.

11. Make sure your Windows 7 installation disk is in the optical drive. (if you are using a USB stick, make sure you have that inserted before you go into the boot selection menu. If it doesn't show up, power down the laptop, insert USB stick, power back on and F12 on the logo screen. You should see it there.)

12. Make the appropriate selection and the system should boot into Windows setup.

13. When you get to the screen where you have to choose on which drive to install Windows, you should see the SSD you plugged in. You should also see the other drives, such as the HDD with three partitions on it (the original Windows partition, the Lenovo partition and the hidden partition used by One Key Recovery).

14. Whatever you do, make sure that you DO NOT delete the hidden partition, or else One Key Recovery will stop working. I would recommend to keep the Lenovo partition as that's where all the drivers are. You can delete the original Windows partition and reformat it.

15. Choose the SSD disk to install Windows in (assuming that's what you want).

16. Follow the onscreen instructions to get you through the Windows setup process.

17. After Windows is finished installing, it's time to install all the drivers from the Lenovo partition (or wherever you backed up the drivers). This link should help you with which order to install the drivers in: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ideapad-essential/680517-y580-driver-install-guide.html

You're now all set. Make sure to create a new backup image using One Key Recovery (after you've installed the One Key Recovery software of course). The One Key Recovery button should keep working now. It definitely works on my end. And when I press the button when the notebook is switched off, it reboots straight into recovery mode.

If you have any additional questions, let me know.

 

so you installed a bigger msata ssd.
maybe that's why OKR didn't throw a fit.

did you try to do an actual restore using OKR button?

when I was testing OKR and resizing, OKR button worked, but as soon as I tried to restore, it errored and complained about the partition.
I don't have ssd though, yet.



similar instructions were given by lenovo here-
Introduction to reinstalling Windows on the machines built with Rapid Drive

seems like they removed the actual page, but google still has it in cache

 

I am trying to simply use the OKR to re-install the system to my new, bigger SSD. I don't have a separate Windows 7 installation disc. I have been thinking of just going on NewEgg & buying 7 Pro and just forgetting about OKR. It would be an improvement over the included Home Premium, but if I can get it working with OKR then I'd like to do it that way and save $100+, at least for the time being.

My new SSD just came in today. I guess I can pop it in and experiment with OKR. If I end up breaking everything, then I might just have to go out & buy a copy of 7 Pro.

Any ideas? Thanks again!

EDIT: Also, if I DO manage to get OKR working on my new drive, I don't know if it'll end up automatically merging the two drives again with RapidDrive. I'd prefer to have the two drives completely separate.

 

Before you go run out to buy yourself a copy of Windows 7, look on the bottom of your notebook. There should be a Windows 7 Home Premium sticker there with a license key on it.

Then go here: Official Windows 7 SP1 ISO Image Downloads

Download the Windows 7 Home Premium x64 SP1 ISO. Those are all official download links to all the different versions. There is nothing illegal about it, just as long as you have a legitimate license key I happened to have a Win 7 Pro license key laying around somewhere, so I downloaded Win 7 Pro from there.

Burn that ISO to a blank DVD and you're set. Or better yet, burn it to a USB stick (google ISO to USB) and the installation process will go a lot faster (for me it took me less than 10 minutes to get Windows re-installed using a USB stick).

The improvements over Win 7 Home Premium with Professional are not that much. It's more necessary if you need to join your company domain and such stuff. If it's for home use, Home Premium is all you need.

 

I haven't tried to restore a backup image yet. I'll give it a try tonight.

 

wow, this couldn't come at a better time. My SSD just came n today, and this is EXACTLY what I needed. bravo!!!

 

If I am just replacing the main laptop HDD with a Samsung 830 SSD, and not messing around with anything msata related, do I still need to tinker around with things in the bios after I install it?

 

no. 2.5" ssd should be plug n play

 

I'm up and running! :thumbsup: I was able to download the Home Premium ISO, "burn" it onto a USB stick, and set up Windows on my new SSD. This thing is lightning fast! Boot time is around 15 seconds from button press to desktop. All buttons work, too!

A few things to note:
1. Windows must be activated over the phone.
2. For models with both an HDD and SSD combined with RapidDrive, it appears that the large partition of the HDD becomes unreadable after the RapidDrive tool seperates the two drives. You must use Windows' Diskpart utility to delete the corrupted partition and re-create it: How to delete OEM Partition | Jared Heinrichs (This is what happened with mine, it might not be required for everyone)

I backed up the Application and Drivers folders from the Lenovo D: drive, and this made me think of maybe just deleting that partition (Drive D: - NOT the hidden OKR partition) and just combining that space with the large primary partition. What do you guys think? I'm not sure if the OKR uses that D: partition for anything, as all the restore data is kept in that 3rd hidden partition. This would keep things neater, and leave you with just a C: (system - SSD) and an X: (storage - HDD) drives.

Also, I'm not able to install the Bluetooth driver for whatever reason. I get "No appropriate Driver to be installed". Apparently the bluetooth card/chip is not being detected, and it refuses to install drivers. I've looked in the BIOS for anything Bluetooth-related, but found nothing. Device manager shows no Bluetooth device. If anyone has any ideas on this please let me know.

Huge thanks to starfly and link626 for all their help! I'm sure this will help many others out there who are looking to upgrade their drives and help them get the most out of their y580.

 

Glad to be of help And you're right, the C: partition does get corrupted after you run the RapidDrive tool. That's because the SSD and HDD are in a sort of RAID 0 configuration and when you separate them (as with a normal RAID 0 config), the data becomes corrupted.

What you could've also done though is just delete that C: partition during the Windows install process. At the start of it you're asked where you want to install Windows. That is also where you have the option of managing all available partitions, including deleting/creating partitions and formatting them. That's where I did my formatting.

But yeah, you can also do it after installation has completed of course

I was able to just activate my Windows online, but then I used a Win7 Pro license, so maybe that's why.

As for the Bluetooth drivers, I ran into the same problem, but there is an easy solution. First you have to enable Bluetooth by pressing on Fn+F5, where you get the Wireless devices pop-up. Here you can enable/disable Bluetooth and WiFi. When you enable Bluetooth here, you will see that Windows found a new device.

You can install the drivers now from the Bluetooth folder, it should work fine now

 

so now that i have installed a Mushkin 240GB Atlas SSD and clean installed Win7Pro (Great thread BTW), I'm wondering, do I need the Intel Rapid Storage Drivers if I'm not using SSD caching? I have the 240GB as my boot/apps drive, and I have the 1 TB that I'll use as my data storage drive.

Do I need the Intel RST drivers? I wouldn't think so.

 

Yes you do, as it should increase the performance of your SSD. Doesn't matter if you don't use it as a caching drive anymore.

 

I am interested in doing what Mr. King proposed to do -- deleting the D partition so there's only the C and hidden partitions. So far I have read the posts on OKR 7 engineering to preserve OKR function after a clean install, driver installation guide, and the more generic Y580 owner's thread. I more or less follow what the guides are saying except I fail to find out whether the D:/drivers folder is important at all. When I try to install the drivers after a clean windows 7 install, the computer keep asking if I want to replace certain files in my C:/drivers (it would be the D drive if I had not deleted it). I am concerned that replacing any of the files may have an adverse effect on hardware function. If I choose not to replace the files, I get the driver not installed properly prompt. I am new to this so I am sorry if this is a rudimentary question. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

What about Lenovo Rapid Drive?

Also, can't seem to figure out what the BluRay player software is the Y580 had. Can't seem to locate it on the Lenovo partition.

 

No need for rapid drive with your os on the mSATA. You're confusing rapid drive with the intel rapid storage drivers.

And that's because it's not in there. Someone posted a link to the Lenovo powerDVD in a couple of these threads if you search.

 

ah, excellent Lenovo PowerDVD. I'll start searching, thanks!

EDIT - found it.

good stuff. Maybe add this to the "Clean install FAQ"?

 

Here's rapiddrive. It's the same version for all rapiddrive laptops, wherever you look-

RapidDrive for Microsoft Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit) - IdeaPad Y470, Y570

here's the install guide again-

Introduction to reinstalling Windows on the machines built with Rapid Drive

 

I was so anxious to get everything up and running that I completely read over this in step 14 of your guide

I knew there was some easy trick to this! I enabled Bluetooth in the popup after hitting Fn+F5, and Windows quickly saw the device and installed the drivers for it. Awesome!

---

As for the deleting of the D: partition, I took the risk and went ahead and deleted it after backing up the applications and drivers folders that were in it. I then deleted the large storage partition I had set up before, and combined all of that space back into a drive D:. So far I have not encountered any errors of any kind. OKR still works, at least up to the point where its ready to start the restore operation (I didn't actually attempt a restore). It seems like that D: drive is just for the storage of the drivers and of any custom OKR restore images that one might have made. I don't think it's critical for the operation of OKR. All of that restore data is nestled away in the hidden partition. So, this is how my disk configuration now looks:

Again, I didn't attempt a restore, so it's possible that this could very well break OKR, as some people have said that it's finicky about restoring to partitions/drives that have changed in size.

This is what worked for me, and I don't find it a huge deal if OKR is indeed broken (you can get your system up and running almost exactly like an OKR restore anyway if you follow starfly's guide at the beginning of this thread) . If anyone else finds it convenient to also delete the D: drive in order to have a single storage drive, it seems safe to do so, but do so at your own risk and if you dont' mind the possibility of a broken OKR.

If anyone has any other info or warnings/risks regarding this procedure please post them. I don't want to give anybody bad instructions that could negatively affect their system

 

This is a great thread !
I have a new Y580 and need to install windows 7 professional on it. I have some questions regarding this (before I follow the protocol; as pros I am sure u will have some info, I am not that great at notebooks)

Background: I currently have a y580 with a 500GB HDD and no SSD. I plan to install Windows and important software on a new 128GB SSD i got (Crucial)

1. I want to keep the SSD and HDD separate when I install windows (use the HDD purely for installing not important programs and data) cause I read somewhere that having the windows installed only on the SSD is better than the combined SSD+HDD thing. Is this correct ?

2. Since I install Windows 7 prof and not Home, will the OKR still work for Windows 7 Prof ?

3. What partitions are better left untouched when i format the C on the HDD to get rid of windows ?

Thanks a lot guys !

 

1. if your ssd is big enough, i think caching is redundant.

2. okr works with any windows OS version

3. probably shouldn't touch the 20gb oem partition unless you have other restore software you like to use.
But even if you do, there's an OKR setup disc linked somewhere here that will make the oem partition again

 

you can activate the windows online as well, worked for me

infact each time i tried the win7 key it failed, but then when windows completed its install, it validated itself
happened to my alienware as well

 

Thanks for the response. I am utterly confused as to how to make the best of my 128GB SSD. I want to install only OS and large programs (CS5, Corel, Blender, Maya) on that SSD. and then use the HDD to install other programs.

I read that the cache thign only works with 64GB and below. So how do I make the best of the 128GB i have. So I use the SSD as a separate drive or use the combined SSD+HDD option ! Please advice ! Thanks

 

I installed a 30gb msata ssd, installed RapidDrive, successfully made the cache work.
When I tried to separate the drives with the rapidtool, it wouldn't separate the drives. It said "success", but Windows didn't show them as separated.

I tested OKR restore after running the rapidtool, and it went through the restore process, then bootup failed.

I can't make OKR work with rapiddrive installed, so I consider it 'dangerous'.

If I don't install rapiddrive, and leave the ssd and hdd separated, I can restore using OKR.

My 580 didn't come with an ssd, so I don't know how the restore was setup for those who got ssd from factory.


Has anyone tried to use OKR on a factory ssd+hdd package?



could someone zip and upload the rapiddrive drivers folder ? maybe the one i have is outdated.

Although i'm playing with rapiddrive for testing purposes, I wouldn't use it on a daily basis. It's a software-based raid, unlike HP's dv6t hardware raid. There are already a few cases where the the rapiddrive gets corrupt, and is a big pain to fix.

with 128gb, you don't even need a cache. just run all your programs straight.

 

Here are the RapidDrive drivers that came with my laptop.

I had to rename the files a bit due to filesize and extension limitations on this site.

Rename RapidDrive01.zip and RapidDrive02.zip to RapidDrive.z01 and *.z02 respectively.

Also, did you reboot after fusing the drives?

And yeah, I personally don't want to use Rapiddrive. I just wanted to have a separate drive, that's why i got the 256gb ssd. Is a simpler setup and probably works faster too as it doesn't need to access the slower HDD that often (only use that for storage now).

If it's within your budget, it'd be worth it to get a 128gb/256gb msata ssd.

Cheers!

 

My advice:

Use the SSD as a separate drive for your OS and all your apps (don't know how much space those apps you mentioned will take up, but I doubt it'll use the whole drive). Then use the HDD for storage.

Fastest is always separate SSD/HDD. If you combine them (i.e. turn SSD into a cache) it's slower, as it will depend on the HDD sometimes for accessing apps.

 

my winrar can see the zip file contents, but can't extract them. 7zip command line wasn't able to extract either.
However it shows the crc info, and confirms it's exactly the same as the rapiddrive installer I downloaded from lenovo. I did have the most updated version after all.


yeah, i rebooted multiple times after fusing. I got rapiddrive to work just fine.

Separating the drives was the problem.

after running the rapiddrivetool, I expected windows explorer to show the ssd and unallocated space separately. But it still showed my ssd fused with the hdd even after multiple reboots.

so then i booted into OKR WinPE and ran the rapiddrivetool again, it said "run success!", and I tried to restore my OKR backup image. The restore completed, but the bootup was corrupted. I got the Intel PXE error message.

anyway, I'm not going to mess with rapiddrive anymore. It's buggy proprietary lenovo software, and any mishap can cause it not to boot or become corrupted. Keeping the ssd and hdd separate is much much safer.

Using the instructions in my other thread, OKR successfully backed up my ssd to the hdd while keeping both drives separate. That's all I wanted to see.

 

Yeah, when I finished installing Windows with all the appropriate drivers, I created an image with OKR and with Windows Backup, so I have two images I can use in case something bad happens, or I when I have to reinstall Windows in case it gets kinda slow.

I have to say though, Windows 7 is the first Windows version that doesn't need to be reinstalled after a year or so They're finally getting it there at Microsoft. Too bad they're screwing it up again with Windows 8. In terms of UI, Win8 is a disaster for people using mouse and keyboard (it's excellent for touchscreens though).

Otherwise, weird that you couldn't extract the files. I created them using Winrar. I wasn't sure if you had something that could extract .rar files, so that's why I created the zip files. If you want me to try again with rar, let me know.

 

Hello thanks for this great thread,
i am also interesting to buy a new msata ssd for my y580. but there is a couple thing i want know bevore to buying msata ssd. could you please tell me msata bay sata technology? are you able to run your crucial msata in "sata III mode" or its sata II there is one more thing i want to see as well, if its not interrupts you it would be good to see your msata benchmarks on a Caps? crystaldiskmark would be a great example to see full information about msata spesifications.
Thanks for reply.
(sorry for my bad english)

 

Yep, it's SataIII. Runs at 6Gb/s interface. See screenshots and benchmark:

 

Thank you for your kind and fast answer. now i have got all of my informations.

 

are your drives set as mbr or gpt?

I think the whole lenovo cache and OKR work when your set up it is with GPT disk.

 

@starfly

Hello again, i am reading that the newest crucial firmware update is little problematic. for those who 010G update flashed, they are complaining about some issues. what about your msata status? have you already flashed through newest version of firmware or staying with 000F? many thanks.

By the way i have ordered 128gb m4 msata already. firstly i want to do, flash my msata with the newest firmware and after than that by using OKR fresh install my OS. then i will share my experiences.

 

@starfly

I am curious if it was possible for you to set SATA PCH to RAID in BIOS options since you had a SSD drive pre installed in your Lenovo Y580. If not this would mean that the Y580 is not able to use Hardware Raid, but only uses Software Raid via RapidDrive.

 

I haven't looked at updating my ssd firmware and am not planning on doing so either. It works fine out of the box and it's very fast as far as I'm concerned. Don't fix something if it's not broken

 

Yup, only softraid. There is not raid feature in the BIOS. Maybe with a custom BIOS you could get it to work. But I personally have no desire to put my SSD in raid with a slow HDD

 

i will go further anyway for the update. lets see what will be changed

 

guys i have forget to disable uefi in bootsequence. does it give any harm to my operation system? by the way right now i am doing a clean install. should i make a new clean install with 'uefi boot disabled'mode? And what is that uefi boot exactly ? thanks for help.

 

Ok I have a unique problem I just bought a Y580 and of course I was eligible for the Widows 8 upgrade so I figured why not give it a shot on the notebook first and see if I like it before I put it on my main rig, Huge Huge mistake! I went through all of Microsoft's stuff made the USB drive and ran the upgrade, it failed and rebooted (got a screen with a frowning smiley on it but flashed to quick to read it), got the dual boot screen and chose Win 7 it booted back like I'd done nothing. Tried it again and got the same result only it wouldn't boot back into Win 7, so I tried a Clean install which it where it all went really south. Whatever happened it did something to the 1TB hard drive and the only way that I could get anything done was to delete all the partitions and start over. First off I never would have used the One key restore anyway so I'm not worried about that, but Windows 8 is running about half the speed as the Win 7 HP was before. I have the Intel drive caching turned on but seems to make no difference. Any advice on what you all think I should do would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

I have the same question about uefi, what does it does and why we should turn it off??

 

First of all, for UEFI, go here: https://www.google.com/search?q=uefi

I installed Windows with UEFI disabled, because I read somewhere some people having issues with the msata drive not being detected properly (windows wouldn't cold-boot from the msata) when they clean-installed Windows. If you already installed it with UEFI enabled and you haven't had any issues so far, leave it that way as there's nothing broken that needs to be fixed

As for your Windows 8 issues, I'm not sure how to help you there, I'm not running Windows 8 anymore. Gave it a shot but I find that Metro UI too annoying. Back to Windows 7 now.

 

Hello again,
after that clean install (with uefi disabled mode), i have recieved many times no operation system errors by m4 msata. as you guys know there is no fw option to downgrade this ssd. and actually my ssd is factory updated. (01mg) About performance levels i am totally happy but it would be good to see no os annoying message. coz every time when i open my computer i am afraiding to get this annoying message.

Best regards.

 

HALP! I am on the 'where do you want to instal windows' screen, and it gives me a 'setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing partition.' error. I have tried to clean my brand new crucial ssd with diskpart, but keep getting the same error. Am I missing a step?

edit: I can get past the error if I boot and try to install from a disk, but I get error 0x80070017 from the disk...PLEASE HELP ME....

edit 2: The MS error was due to a scratched dvd-r. I was able to install Win7 from a disk.

BUT, I was unable to do so from a usb drive. Anybody have any thoughts (that might help others in my situation)?

 

Hello,
My OKR delivred by Lenovo (Y580) didn't work from start. Anyway, I didn't like how my OS and HDD were organsed, so I erased ALL hard-drives. Following instructions about clean install "Y580 Driver Install Guide", I repaired everything (many thanks :thumbsup: ). So far so good.
BUT !
I split my 1TB hdd on 2 partitions, assigned letters C&E. After Rapidtool, I god my SSD drive with assigned letter D, SINGLE PARTITION only. I wonder if it is OK? Win7 is installed on C partition of my hdd.
Besides, how can I check if my new installed Win7 really use SSD for swap (page) file? I adjusted in Virtual memory settings to use SSD drive ONLY, but...anybody tried this before?
OKR I didn't test. I prefer to use Acronis tool, it alsways work.

 

Try "burning" the Windows ISO to your USB drive using this program: ISO to USB. It's what I used for my y580 Windows install and it worked flawlessly. You might also try a different USB drive.

Windows ISO download page here in case you need it: Official Windows 7 SP1 ISO Image Downloads

 

Can someone tell me if the Y580 from Lenovo that comes with the standard 1 TB HDD and no SSD allows us to add SSD and also keep the HDD? I tried contacting the support and I get contradicting answers.

I would rather get the 1TB HDD version and add extra SSD and have both instead of buying the 1 TB + 32GB SSD and buy another bigger SSD.

Thanks a lot for your response.

 

Yes, you can install an SSD later. ;-)

I got the same configured laptop as you.
1TB with no ssd, so there is no problem to add thessd later, 'cause every case of the y580's are build identical and so your Y580 had this "empty" port for the ssd too. ;-)

Hope that i could help you.

With greetz,
Markus

 

Thank you, Markus. So the laptop will have a slot for SSD and we can also have the normal HDD that comes with it.

 

No problem. ;-)
Yes it's so like you say.

My/your Laptop had installed a hdd and the msata slot is free "waiting" for an upgrade. ^^

 

Has anyone done a clean Win 8 install and gotten a working OKR? I've clean installed Win 8 (it came with Win 7) but not yet gotten OKR.

EDIT: Win 8's Refresh and Restore functionality might be better than OKR? Comments?

See http://arstechnica.com/information-...uide-to-reinstalling-windows-8-on-a-new-pc/2/

 

Greetings and Happy Holidays to all,

I have just installed a crucial m4 128gig mSSD into my Y580 (did not come with one pre-installed). I have not touched this laptop much because I am not liking windows 8 so far. I am looking to install my copy of windows 7 onto the mSSD and use the 1TB for storage. I am having trouble figuring which partitions are safe to delete and which are not based on the install guide. ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting is what I see, not sure if you can help based on this? I only want to keep the necessities and wipe the rest.

I also do not understand why my laptop did not come with a windows 8 key on the bottom. I have never see that before, any ideas?

If there is any other advice you can give to make my install smoother I would appreciate it very much! Thanks!