Y580 Owners Thread

How can I install Windows 7 on the SSD? The SSD is caching the 1TB HDD but I want to split those two things and install W7 on the SSD. Intel Rapid Store isn't much of help.
When I'm trying to install W7, I remove the biggest partition, in my case around 980GB, but then the installer throws an error saying it can't find or create a new system partition.
I'm wondering if it is even possible to install W7 on only the SSD. That guide for the Y570 doesn't work for me.

 

I want to know this too, no one seems to be answering my question about this. I also want to know if you can keep One Key on the HDD.

 

I ran into trouble with that too. I think with Lenovo's rapidstorage drivers, we're screwed until someone writes software that "disconnects" the msata from the sata. as far as the machine is concerned, they're one and the same.

Not a big deal to me anyways since the boot times with rapidstorage are almost as fast as with a regular SSD.

 

What ssd are you trying to install windows on?

 

I am going to switch the hard drive out for an SSD and put the 1TB in an enclosure. When I install my own windows 7, how do I install the drivers? Do I just connect the external drive and use the Lenovo partition that has the drivers? Will everything still work fine?

 

The one that came with the Lenovo, in my case the Samsung mSATA 64GB one.

 

Ahhh I see. I think mine comes with the 32GB one. I'm planning on swapping it for a completely new mSATA. Have you tried asking the Lenovo support forum? I posted one there hoping for answers.

If anything since I have a new mSATA I'm going to try for a clean wipe off the HDD then do a clean install of the OS on the new SSD once my Y580 comes in.

Have you tried a clean wipe off all disks? I'd do this if you're just aiming to install from scratch. Here's a guide I found. I just searched on google "wiping hard drive clean to install windows 7". Here's another guide too for good measure.

The second guide seems to be what you tried to do. The first guide looks like a different way to wipe the disk.Be careful, if you do this then One Key probably won't work anymore so do this if you're sure you just want to wipe everything and do a clean install. Make sure you ask around about this too, I don't want to mess up your machine by giving bad advice, it's just a suggestion.

 

i hope someone can unlock the bios soon, like they did for the y570.


Has anyone been able to clean install Windows 7 and keep one-key-recovery working?

 

I have W7 Ultimate on a Crucial m4 128 msata ssd working smooth.
and for the one-key-recovery, I could care less for one.
I use acronis and back up an image once a week.. it's faster and it's your working image,
not a recovery..
I use a WD 500 7200rpm as my HHD..
I also kept the original Lenovo HHD in case the laptop goes back,
if it does, I will strip the msata and the new HHD and put the original Lenovo HHD
all the drivers are on the support website. or the "D" partitions on your HHD.

 

Ah so you started fresh with blank drives?

 

Yes I did.
I installed the blank ssd msata alone then I used a USB boot disc with a program called "paragon"
in paragon I formatted the msata as a primary ntfs partition. then shutdown and put a usb boot disc
with W7 in it, booted and installed W7 then drivers then ... customize your laptop to your need..
then used another usb boot disc with "acronis" in it and saved an image of my msata partition to my network as recovery.


here is a guide from Aonarch all credit to him not me...

BUT > they will a new folder labeled c:\drivers make sure you empty that folder every time after a new driver install

I did swap #01 to #08 position to my liking.

 

Ah, I see! This is very helpful, exactly the kind of answer I need. I might just do this and then worry about deleting partitions from the 1TB HDD later to use as storage. The HDD will be the big issue since it will have previously shared a virtual drive with the old 32GB SSD.

I'm curious, how much fiddling did you have to do to remove the HDD before instering the mSATA SSD alone? Was it easy or hard? I'm kind of nervous when it comes to new machines.

 

it's really easy, took me 5 Mn top...
to remove and put all the hardware inside.

 

Hi, sorry but what do you mean with that? What's the purpose? Thanks!

Sent from my GT-S5830L using Tapatalk 2

 

when you install new drivers.. lenovo default the installation
to this folder c:\drivers.
so if you want a really clean install do this loop:
install a driver > reboot > delete all files in c:\drivers > and continue
with the next driver ....... until you done

if you don't do this then a corrupt installation may occur..
try it and see for yourself. some of the setup file might duplicate
and give you problem.. be on the safe side.

 

I see, I never thought about that. Thanks a lot buddy. :thumbup:

Sent from my GT-S5830L using Tapatalk 2

 

Have you tried this? How to seprate HDD from SSD.

I gave you advice earlier on the wipes but I think this might solve your deleting partitions problem if you separate the virtual drive first.

 

Well guys, I've been researching for a new Laptop on the 1200 bucks price range. After reading some of topic, I still got some doubts..

Bottom of line, did you owners regret buying it? Or is it really the best bang for the buck?

I highly appreciate your comments.

 

It's a solid laptop. I've tried a handful of laptops with similar hardware spec and price (sub $1000 range) and so far the Lenovo is my favorite. The HP DV6T had a terrible keyboard and was uncomfortably hot and started to randomly shut down on me...plus its screen had terrible glare and its metal shell was very easy to ding and scratch. The Asus came loaded with virus-like bloatware and again, a bad, apple-ripoff keyboard but it was a decent machine, though it was weaker in the graphics department. I did like the matte screen though. The Lenovo is by far the heaviest, thickest, and bulkiest of the 3 but in my opinion the best built. And keeps the coolest in my experience. Its display is not as reflective as the DV6 but not as good as the Asus.

I have another 60 days of "take it back no questions asked" at costco so I will take it back and get something else if it catches my eye, or if the Lenovo starts freaking out on me like the HP did.

 

I was actually even considering buying some MSI GT70 or Ibuypower Valkyrie. But since the video card is not my top priority (and I think the GTX660 will be more than enough, since I barely play FPS), I would spend something around 200 and get a 128gb ssd and 16gb of ram (anyway is it worth?)
Unless one of those two get cheaper in within the next 45 days.

 

i'm going to get a msata ssd, probably a crucial m4 128gb

it's possible to take out the hdd, install the msata ssd and W7 with a usb and then reinstall the hdd just like this?

or the only way to put the OS in the msata ssd is what mhp32 explanied above?

 

Can the Y580 support three monitors (two external plus the internal)?

 

nope. only 2 monitors at a time.

 

This is not a $1200 value laptop, no matter how you deck it out.

the y580 shell is also easy to scratch.
When I was disassembling it, I had it upside down, i spun the lid on a paperback book a few times, and then it got circular scratches. I tried to polish it out a little with toothpaste, and it's a little better, and you can only see it under the right angle of light. But still, I expected better. Even plastic won't scratch that easily.

You thought the Asus (i'm assuming the macbook look-alike n56) is worse built than the Y580 ???
You have to admit, the Y580 is built very cheaply. My screen bezel creaks and pops like crazy when I just flex it a little opening/closing the lid.

 

Hmm I think for the Asus he was just referring to the keyboard rather than how the build is.

 

The asus was fairly nice but it also creaked. It just didn't have the GPU its competitors did for the same price so I returned it. All laptops with plastic hinges will probably creak a bit.The only laptop i have that doesnt creak is my MacBook Pro that my work gave to me.

As for these "chic" metal shells, they look nice but in my experience thats about all they're good for. HP's was especially bad and had its paint flaking off, little chunks missing here and there and it had never even moved from my coffee table, no abuse etc. Just a factory turd from HP.

As for the Lenovo, it has the hardware to back the price. $1200 laptop no, but sub 1000? Sure.

 

I actually tested the same 2 laptops (N56 and DV6T) as you before finally settling on the Y580. IMO, the Y580 was also the better build of the bunch. I didn't like the keyboards or screens as much as I did on the Lenovo. I tried gaming with the these laptops, and got the best temperatures with the Y580.

I also passed on a really good deal for the Sony Vaio S15 (which i ended up buying for my sister) because the Y580 provided the best value for the price after doing some research. I played around with her S15, and I still felt that the Y580 build was better even with Sony's magnesium alloy material.

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2

 

agreed.

i didn't polish the scratches too much on the y580 for fear of destroying the paint. Some of the paint actually rubbed off a little on the cloth, so I stopped.

i hope this doesn't peel as you say the dv6t did.

 

Oh, as for my main gripes with this laptop:

- can't customize with dual band WiFi adapter, although there will probably be a way to manually upgrade the card soon
- no hard drive light indicator
- caps lock and num lock indicators are in a bad place
- Lenovo customer service for their consumer products suck

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2

 

So for 1200 what would say is the better option?

 

My Y580 is on order so take what I say with a grain of salt. I have Nvidia 3D Vision on my main computer. If I remember correctly there was some requirement that you needed to have the 3D vision emitter plugged in for the system to work. I think some guys with 3D projectors (that had their own glasses) found out that was Nvidia's way to make you purchase the $100 kit that included the emitter + glasses (that you don't need of course). There was some work around that was developed to trick the Nvidia software. When I get my Y580 later this week I will plug it into my Alienware 3D monitor and see if I can get 3D to work.

 

managed to install windows on my factory 64gb msata ssd. Had to use the RapidStorage tool that someone posted a page back, and then proceeded to format all my partitions. I backed up the factory drivers etc and just installed them manually. Now i just use my 750gb as storage. No more one key restore, but not a big deal to me since it didnt take me longer than half an hour anyway, most of it waiting for programs to install.

In terms of boot times, theres not a dramatic difference... in fact the RapidStorage tech is great with boot times and very impressive. But opening programs and of course writing data, the difference is huge.

 

So basically, when you got it with the 64gb SSD windows 7 isn't on it?

 

No, it's partitioned so that it's on both the HDD and SSD using Lenovo Rapid Drive.

It's explained how they Lenovo installs the files on these machines in this pdf.

 

nevermind.

 

No, the Y series doesn't support Intel RST that's why Lenovo made Rapid Drive.

 

mine had the intel rst driver installed from factory, although i don't have msata ssd

 

Yea the RST software is on there but I've looked up to see if it's implemented and from what I've seen it doesn't work. Unless I'm wrong and someone's got it to work.

It doesn't work though I believe because there is no RAID on the intel chip installed on the laptops. No RAID, no RST caching.

 

Bingo. This issue has been discussed in the thread before and you are right on the mark.

 

Anyone experiencing high fan volume? I think it's hitting something. Kind of annoying me, especially while gaming. I don't want to go through the hassle of exchanging my whole rig, so I figured I'd ask about either fixing the current fan, or recommendations for exchanging the fan for another one. Any ideas?

 

so lenovo installed a useless software on our machines?

i'm about to clean install windows. I'll leave that rst software out

 

I thought RapidDrive was simply Lenovo's marketing division's name for RapidStorage?

I dont think it was useless, the SSD was just acting as a cache for the big drive. It has to work, as the boot time from installing my OS on the SSD is not that much faster than factory setup. I just simply want more control over the whole process and more consistency.

That said, i left out the rapidstorage and rapid drive drivers from my new install, dont need em. The only issue I've run into is i cant install Lenovo's boot optimizer, forget what its called, but it wont install. Its a common malady but dunno if theres a solution as of yet.. nor do i know if the boot optimizer is even needed on such relatively powerful machine.

 

So, again, for 1000/1200 would guys think is the best choice?

 

Lenovo Rapid Drive is their alternative to RST since RST isn't possible with their intel chip. Both cache though. Rapid Drive boots as fast since the OS boot files are on the SSD cache but overall reading and writing data will be slower than having an SSD since you're opening apps from the HDD rather than an SSD.

It depends, what kind of machine are you looking for? If you're looking for a cheap machine with the GTX 660m then yes. Any other machine usually starts around 1200 for this card whereas the Y580 can go as low as 850 with this GTX 660m.

If you don't care as much you can get cheaper machines with the same i7 processor but it's just the GPU will probably be weaker. It really depends on what you'll be doing.

Y580 has one of the higher price to performance ratios though making it a good deal at this range for the performance.

 

I'll take that as a rhetorical question.

 

for 1000, this is would be the only candidate i think, if you don't mind the cheap case.
for that price, it would also have to include fullhd and msata cache and bluray

 

I wish the people at bios-mod would unlock this crippled bios soon, I really need basic function as WOL, network available
when you boot from a usb drive ...

 

Hi Guys,

Newbie here, just registered as a result of reading this thread.

I've just ordered a Y580 with a 64gb SSD and I'm a bit confused, I'm finding the 150 page thread a little daunting, so I wonder if you nice people could help me out please...

Could someone please give me a dummies guide as to the pros & cons of messing around with a clean software install? (a clean Win 7 install on the SSD). I'm semi-technical and I'm not sure if the effort / risk is worth it and what is the performance gain? Similarly, I don't want to spend £1000 on a laptop that is handicapped by a poor factory set up. One of the reasons I went for this model is because I love the SSD performance in my desktop. (My main use for the machine is Photoshop & moderate gaming -Torchlight 2 when it comes out!)

Thanks in advance,

Fuzzy.

 

If what you want to do is clean install, then you have to separate the partitions since the SSD and HDD are merged into a virtual drive. It is explained here.

Using the tool you can separate the drives and then resize the partitions. Make you back these partitions up (in case something happens) and have recovery disks on hand. If you're set then you can do a clean install which is described probably around page 146 or 147 by another user.

 

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond, but what I was asking was 'What are the pros / cons of doing a clean install on the SSD?' ie. Will I notice a significant difference in performance?

Thanks again,

Fuzzy.