my first Crucial 64gb M4 ssd, what now?

I got my FIRST ssd ever! The Crucial M4 64gb as per this forum's recommendations.

Now what? Any tips before installing this thing and reformatting?

 

How are you planning on installing Windows?

I haven't received my T420s yet, but it should be here on Thursday and I'll be in a similar situation as you. I bought the 128GB SSD btw.

From what I've been reading so far, we have three (3) options:

1. -- Install Windows onto SSD via (generated) recovery media disc
Power up your new laptop, run through all the setup wizards and then create a Windows (recovery) installation disc with the Lenovo recovery media generator. I've heard that you can only do this once...

2. -- Install Windows onto SSD by cloning the original Lenovo HDD
As the title states, this one seems to be the easiest and the quickest. Remove the original Lenovo HDD and stick into another computer, along with your new SSD. Then, you can buy/download a copy for Acronis True Image Home 2011 and use it to clone the HDD.

3. -- Install Windows the old fashion way and then use drivers found in the SWTOOLS folder/Lenovo website to get your machine up and running...

**Important**

Make sure to update your M4 to the newest firmware from Crucial (0009).
You can find it here: http://www.crucial.com/firmware/m4/0009/Crucialm4_0009.zip

1. Unzip the contents (it's an ISO) and use UNEBOOT ( UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads) to create a bootable USB drive based on the Crucial ISO.

2. Reboot your machine and enter the BIOS and switch your SATA mode from AHCI to IDE

3. Then boot to the USB drive and install the firmware. When it finishes, turn off your machine, and pull out the USB drive.

4. Boot back into BIOS and switch your SATA mode back to AHCI from IDE

5. Done!

Full instructions, direct from Crucial: http://www.crucial.com/firmware/m4/0009/ProductFlyer-letter_m4-firmware0009_08-11.pdf

 

I think CloneZilla Live would do the same and it's free:
Clonezilla - About

 

True Image can be had free too...

In addition to Clonezilla, I've also heard very good things about Parted Magic: Parted Magic thought I've never tried it myself.

 

Thanks, but I've had my T420 for 5 months now. I'm planning on doing a fresh clean install of Win7.

 

Finished doing a fresh install of Win7 + updates + few major apps. Free space 35gb out 60gb... yikes! I still have Adobe C5 to install and Virtual pc. Hope it doesn't get disastrous.

I also want to install windows 8 developer, should I partition the ssd or install it on ultraby hdd?

 

at least i tried via a partition after having win7 and had no success. for win8 to work with me, i had to delete the entire disk then install win8 as the sole OS didn't like it too much though and am now back to win7 lol

also keep in mind, the advertised speeds of the m4 i think are from 256mb and up (you'll still notice a huge performance increase from hdd, but not as fast as it could be!)

 

Check out if you have a hibernation file still, and then your page file size.

 

I already disabled hibernation, page file and system restore.

 

Can't you just use the Lenovo ThinkVantage System Update for drivers and other preloaded software? Does running the System Update after a Clean install of Windows make the SSD like it came from Lenovo?

 

I used system update after a clean install and it worked great..the updated fingerprint driver slowed my login big time though. Good thing I imaged my drive before I installed it.. ^.^

 

So using this method seem to be best. You get windows 7 to recognize the SSD during fresh installation and make appropriate setting. And Running System Update gets you back to a factory install sate.

How much slower is the new driver? I have my updated before I set up the fingerprint, so I do not know how fast it should be. But right now the login speed seem fine to me.

 

If I do a fresh install of windows 7 and run system update, do I loose the ThinkVantage Blue button function? Will it work during boot up? How about when you are in windows?

 

There's not much reason to do a fresh install these days. I can tell you that by not performing a fresh install, you can preserve the blue-button functionality. Right now in fact I have an mSATA drive holding my ported-over Lenovo factory load, but the blue button launches Rescue and Recovery off of the old original recovery partition on my mechanical/data disk, to save space on my mSATA boot drive.

 

The purpose of a fresh install is to get windows to make setting for SSD instead of a HDD. I guess I will give up the blue button.

 

What "setting"? The R&R method will align things correctly. You can easily verify that such things as indexing etc. are turned off-- it certainly takes less time than installing a bunch of Lenovo-specific drivers after a clean install. Is there a good reason for a clean install that I'm missing?

 

I think windows 7 is set to recognize a SSD and make setting changes such as turning off auto defrag, turning on TRIM, and other stuff.

Also there is not very much you have to do for the drivers after a fresh install, you can install System Update and it will run and install everything for you.

I think you are right, I can just run restore. Because Intel SSD come with their tool box, which I think will check those setting for me.

I think the only good reason for a fresh install is to not have the recovery partition copy over. This is useful if you have a small SSD.

 

After doing a clean install, I installed the drivers via Lenovo support and picked the drivers manually.

I found something strange that happens. When my laptop's screen turns off (after being idle) and I move the cursor to turn it back on, the colors seem to be messed up and then gradually becomes normal. What might be the problem here, is that normal?

 

I am having these issues also after updating to the latest display driver using the update function. Strange!

 

Doing a Factory recovery will do the same thing,but what ever bloat you deleted when new will have to be deleted again. for me that was no big deal maybe another 15 min work of messing around.