installing on msata through recovery partition or acronis?

Good morning, i'm about to do to an install on my x220 on a 64gb msata disk for my OS partition.. I was wondering if you have any advice on going through the lenovo recovery disks or just going through acronis?

Does the lenovo recovery parition include all the lenovo software to include windows 7? i think thats my biggest question. I already created a bootable usb hard drive from it, but before i take out the harddrives, i wanna make sure im not going to make an obvious mistake.

THANKS!!!!

 

I would suggest doing a clean installation, using either a USB or DVD. Here are some simple steps:

1. Download a copy of Windows 7 iso:
- Home Premium (64 bit):
- Pro (64 bit)

2. Download this tool by Microsoft:
Bootable USB-DVD Tool
Information page

3. Download all drivers you need from Lenovo (display + network card drivers are a bare minimum, because you would need them to connect to system update later.)

4. Run the Microsoft tool (it will copy and unzip the iso file into your USB drive, which has to be >4gb)
5. Access BIOS by pressing F1 during thinkpad boot screen, and change boot order of USB drive to No. 1 under the 'startup/ boot' menu - this step may not be necessary

6. Follow instructions and Windows will install itself

7. Install drivers. The network card driver is most important. After that, if you wish to obtain all other drivers/ software from Lenovo you can use 'System Update' (search google).

8. You can activate the windows by typing in the serial number located on the sticker beneath the battery.

The advantage of doing a clean installation is that you can choose what drivers/ software you install, which saves up space on your (already quite small) mSATA disk. This also improves boot speeds.

 

I've got an 8gb flash drive, as well as a 500gb removable hard drive hat i can make bootable, i believe with the same tool provided by microsoft. so you suggest just doing the clean install?