Y500: How do I get a win 8 ISO for mSATA SSD?

I know this topic has been beat to death and I've spent the past few days (week) trying to put together a solution, however, still no luck.

Just got my Y500 in the mail. I have a 256GB mSATA Crucial SSD that I want to use as a primary. I'd like to keep the 1TB as storage.

Here's my issue: I can't seem to figure out where to get an OEM version of windows 8 so I can clean install it on the SSD...can't believe this has been so difficult.

Are there any alternatives to the OEM version of Win 8? i.e. can I buy the Windows 8 Upgrade product from Microsoft's online store and boot that ISO from a USB and install it on my Y500's SSD drive?

I tried using the Windows 8 installer however I'm currently SOL cuz the windows 8 installer "can't connect to the internet", hence I can't download the ISO via that installer. I've tried using the generic Win 8 key, I've used Belarc Advisor to find my own product key and I've input that into the Windows 8 installer but have gotten the "this product key isn't for retail blah blah" and I've found a few retail keys online and tried those, ALL keys lead to windows 8 installer not being able to connect to the stinking internet...frustratingggg!!!!!

I've looked at the Y500 Owners section on these forums and have come to the conclusion that my current issue is that I need to figure out how to get a Windows 8 ISO that is compatible with the Y500.

Anyone have any success obtaining a compatible Windows 8 ISO? How'd you do it? What am I missing? Am I retarded? Thanks.

Bueller...Bueller...

 

Originally it was my intention too doing a fresh install, but i stomped into the same problem of finding the right installation media.

At the time i was able to figure out that you can't use the UÈFI-embedded license to activate any installations for which one would be able to find the media from the free web.

That's why i decided to clone my installation to the Crucial M4 mSata SSD with Paragon 12, and that went so smooth i was actually surprised.

According to my knowledge there's no easy way of doing a clean install, unless you purchase a separate Windows 8 license & media..

 

Thorne,

Thanks for your reply. I guess my fears are justified and the struggle is real...very real. I had a feeling that cloning would be the last case scenario and I guess I'll be going this route.

A few questions though: Are there any real downsides to cloning the HDD to the SSD? I've done some research on cloning HDDs to SSDs and there are differing perspectives...some say it's totally fine (i'm leaning towards this side) and others say that cloning doesn't optimize the SSD and can cause too many unnecessary writes to the SSD (unsure if this is actually true at all). Do you reckon the performance of the SSD will still be first class even if it is a cloned version of my HDD?

Also, is Paragon 12 free? (i guess i could research this, most likely will, but I figured I'd ask you since you already have experience with it) I was thinking about using EaseUS Todo Backup Free. Are there any striking differences that would make Paragon better than EaseUS or vice versa?

Further, just to make this clear to myself and to any other unfortunate soul who may come across this issue/thread, by "purchase a separate windows 8 license & media" you are referring to purchasing an OEM version of Windows 8, correct? NOT the Windows 8 Upgrade that Microsoft is currently selling for $119 on it's website(?)

Lastly, does anyone (online or retail store) still even sell OEM versions of Windows 8? A little tiny part of me is still open to the option of buying a fresh OEM license of Windows 8 and doing the clean install (perhaps some time down the line when I've saved up enough to needlessly throw money at Microsoft)?

Sorry for the string of questions, I just want to get everything clear, both for myself and for other Y500 users in the future.

Thanks again, my friend.

 

I'm not too shure if cloning really causes any problems in a long time scope (not shure if this is the right way to say it), things might be a bit better with Win 8, since even the defragmenter tool which is built into the system can automatically recognize the SSD and instead of defragmenting the drive it does a TRIM operation..

I suppose there might some risks, but so far, so good. Paragon 12 is the only software which fully supports Windows 8 cloning, that's the reason i did the operation with it. It's not entirely free: Paragon Software for Home - partition manager, backup&recovery, hard disk manager for PC

I'm pretty shure that "Upgrade"-version won't work, since it always requires an installed & activated Windows OS. The retail store I work for in Finland sells Win 8 OEM's, but i'm not shure what's the scenario abroad. They might use another title instead of "OEM", could be "System builder edition" etc if my memory serves me right.

 

Thanks for all of your help on this Thorne. Just to wrap this post up (for now), I decided against going for the windows 8 option, instead, found an old windows 7 usb drive laying around in my room. I put the SSD in and installed windows 7 on it. So, I currently have a 1TB HDD with windows 8 and a 256GB SSD with Windows 7. Unsure if I'm going to update my windows 7 to windows 8, I still really don't like the lack of a Start button option in windows 8. Gonna wait for updates and hopefully they re-add the Start button...

That being said, the Y500 is BLAZING fast with the SSD. Windows 7 loads up in less than 10 seconds. Currently installing the drivers from Lenovo's website. But man, SSD is the way to go.

Thanks everyone for your help!

 

I use acronis for cloning. Its very easy and all that you have to do is boot from the usb acronis disk, have both the hdd + ssd installed in the system and do a clone (by clicking on the clone button). It takes about 10 minutes and then you are good to go. However the restore system does not work on the clone mode, eventually you will have to remove that partition from the drive.

I have also tried the windows restore system on a usb stick (while you are in windows 8, open control panel and type restore; you will have an option to copy the windows backup on a usb bootable disk - it will created by itself, all you need is an 16GB USB stick), but it does not work to restore the system from the USB stick. I do not know if anybody tried to have this figured out.

 

Be very careful with using Acronis for cloning to an SSD.

To my kwnoeldge, Acronis does not do 4K cluster alignment, which is critical when your target device is an SSD. Over time, this will lead to performance degradation of up to 40%.

The only ways to avoid the 4K alignment problems are:
1) Do a fresh install; or
2) Use a drive cloning tool that 4K cluster alignment aware, like Clonezilla (free).

 

So would a fresh windows 7 install on the replacement MSATA just solve all these problems? After I install onto the msata, I can mvoe the drivers over from the existing HDD and then wipe the HDD correct?

 

Correct. A fresh / clean install where you let the Windows installer create the parittions for you (using unpartitioned space) will avoid any kind of cluster alignmet issues.

 

Tried to do this with my brother Y400. Clone Windows 8 to the msata with acronis. Coundn't get it to boot up using the msata. ended up finding an extra copy of windows 7 laying around and just clean installed that. Still wondering what I did wrong with the clone...

 

It's because moving your windows install onto a different drive that connects via a different port changed the disk id where your windows installation could be found. So when the windows boot loader tried looking for your windows on its old location (disk id and partition id), it choked and failed.

The good news is that it's easy to fix. Boot into a windows 8 setup through a dvd / usb stick, and choose to repair an existing installation. Windows setup will detect the corrupt bootloader information, and rebuild it.

 

Ahhhh ok. That makes sense! Should have tried that. Bummer. Oh well, that extra windows 7 I had was a lifesaver and my last option.

 

I am also trying to clone Windoes 8 to the mSATA drive. I completed the cloning step, but how do I boot from the SSD now? I can't find any way to boot to it.

 

Read my post 2 posts ago:
"Boot into a windows 8 setup through a dvd / usb stick, and choose to repair an existing installation. Windows setup will detect the corrupt bootloader information, and rebuild it."

Also, be sure that whatever tool that you used to clone specifically supports cluster alignment for SSDs. If you just use any typical disk cloning tool, then it will probably not do cluster alignment for SSDs, and it will drop your SSD performance by 25% - 40% over the course of a few months.

 

Thanks for the response, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to align with a cloning tool, particularly Macrium Reflect. Do you know of any good way to do this? There was a post about Clonezilla earlier, is that the way to go?

Also, where can I get an iso for Windows 8 setup?

 

Hmm. Interesting. I've never heard of Macrium Reflect, but it looks like they know their stuff when it comes to cloning drive images.

Here's the info I found on SSD cluster alignment in Macrium Reflect:
* Forum Post on HDD --> SSD cloning using Macrium ( link)
* Macrium support article on converting HDD --> SSD image: ( link)

If you already have Macrium and are familiar with using it, I say just stick with it. The additional steps they ask you to perform are nearly trivial (manually create partitions on SSD using command-line tool), especially given the fact that you're technically proficient enough to use cloning tools.

 

Okay, now I have a bootable Windows setup USB and proper alignment, but when I try automatic repair it fails every time. I also tried bootrec /rebuildbcd but that doesn't work. What am I missing here?

 

Reinstall Windows 8 from scratch using your Windows 8 USB flash drive (seriously).

There comes a time in any drive imaging process, where it makes more sense to just give up and re-install Windows, than it does to try and fix whatever went wrong. This is especially true if you haven't done a clean install of Windows 8 on this laptop yet, since you'll also be getting the performance benefits of cleaning out the bloatware that Lenovo (and every other manufacturer) pre-loads from the factory.

 

After I posted that, EasyBCD actually started changing the boot drive like it was supposed to, and I just did a successful boot off of my mSATA SSD. If I was able to boot successfully, does that mean that I can now delete the hard drive partitions without breaking my system? How can I verify that everything is, in fact, being run off of the SSD and not off of the hard drive? Windows also appears to have re-assigned the drive letters when I booted from the SSD - the SSD windows partition is now C and the SSD Lenovo partition is now D, whereas they used to be H and I, respectively.