Help! Installing an SSD on a R835-P56x

Soo I bought a Toshiba R835-P56x laptop and I'm planning on replacing the original HDD with an SSD (a Crucial M4 128GB). Then I'm going to replace the optical drive with the original HDD like nebody00 did here. I just have a couple questions. Any help would be appreciated!

How do I install Windows 7 on the SSD? The laptop manual mentions something about Recovery Media Creator. Is this just to restore a broken system, or will I be able to create a Windows 7 install disk or bootable flashdrive from this? This is a fresh laptop so I'm not concerned with copying over any files or anything. I just need to get Windows 7 onto the SSD. No DVDs were included with the package...so I'm a little confused how I'm going to get Windows 7 on the new SSD.

Then, how do I reformat the original HDD to be used as a secondary harddrive once I get it in the caddy and plugged in again?

 

First download the Windows ISO shown below and follow the directions:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/toshiba/571389-just-got-new-r835-p50x-10.html#post7555775

Then, follow these instructions:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/toshiba/571389-just-got-new-r835-p50x-10.html#post7556217

 

Why not simply clone your original hdd with one of those transfer kits. Some SSD drives come with them.

 

I've read it's better to do a fresh install when going from an HDD to SSD to be sure that Windows notices it's an SSD and takes advantage of all the superpowers that go along with that.

I just did as nebody00 suggested and everything's gone well so far. I powered up the original HDD to create recovery discs and backup the activation code using ABR, installed the SSD and Windows 7 using a USB bootable drive I made from that ISO file thread, restored the activation with ABR, and installed the drivers that adadrag listed in that other thread.

I only ran into two problems. First, the SSD I got (Crucial M4 128GB) is a REALLY tight fit in the space where the original HDD went. I really had to jam it in because of those four little rubber cushions at the corners of the caddy. It's just unnecessarily tight. The drive juts out a teensy bit because of that and is putting a slight pressure on the plastic panel that covers it. Not sure what I can do about it.

Then, I got a "PXE-E61 Media Test Failure" message when I first powered up after installing the SSD. That freaked me out until I realized it was just the computer going "what is this new thing I'm trying to boot into??" After some key mashing during I got to the boot order menu (F12) and pointed it to my USB Windows 7 install.

Tomorrow I'll replace the optical drive with the HDD and format it.

 

Okay, so I installed the original HDD in the ODD bay, formatted it, and deleted a 14GB volume that wasn't doing anything. D: is sitting at 594.70GB right now.

There's still a 1.46GB volume under the HDD called "Healthy (Active, Recovery Partition)" that it won't let me delete. When I right click on it I only get the "Help" option. What's the point of this? Is it a leftover from the original Windows 7 OEM install? I already created the Recovery disks. Why do I need this?

Edit: Nevermind! Went into diskpart in a cmd prompt, selected the HDD, did a "clean" command, then set it up from scratch in Disk Management.

 

Has anyone else had an issue with the physical fit of the Crucial m4 in the R835? Or anyone who has installed an OCZ Vertex 3 or Intel 510 been able to have an easy physical fit or was it very tight/not quite small enough as per Skeletron's post?

 

Don't worry about the fit. After taking it apart again to install the HDD caddy I was able to really take a good look at the SSD. It's tight, but it fits fine. The little cushions just keep it nice and snug. Not a problem at all.

I'm using a Crucial M4 128GB and this is what I've got at the moment:



I'm trying to figure out why the 4k read/write speeds are comparatively so low. While searching around I noticed this thread:

R835 - Limited to SATA II Transfer Rate (3 Gb/s) -... - Toshiba Forums

Apparently the R835 is currently limited to SATA II speeds? Anyone else care to comment?

 

Skeletron - before you'd indicated the drive juts out a bit from the laptop? Has it stopped doing that..?

Also, any luck in unlocking the power of SATA III? Perhaps try plugging the SSD into port 1 (if its in port 0 at the moment)?

 

I guess I was exaggerating 'cause once I opened it completely and got a better look into the drive bay, it's very tight but it's not sticking out or anything. If I wanted I could probably take off the little foam paddings to make the fit looser but it's fine as it is.

 

hey all

have installed the crucial m4 128GB on my R835-P55X and its very pleasantly fast. I've also installed 8GB (4Gb x2) of crucial RAM.

However, I have encountered a couple of instances where the machine freezes a bit (the blue wheel / modern version of hourglass) even when only having one app open like IE or an MS game (one of the basic ones part of Win7). The freeze is only ~30 secs but is definitely strange since Has anyone else encountered this and, if so, know how to remedy it..?

 

Yep, noticed I had the same intermittent hangs last week. Upgrade the Crucial drive to firmware 0002. Fixed it for me. Kind of annoying to do since I had already removed the ODD drive and you need to boot from a CD for the firmware update. There's probably a way to do it from a flashdrive but I ended up plugging the SSD into my desktop computer and updated it from there.

Crucial M4 0002 Firmware Update feedback Thread - Crucial Community

 

thanks Skeletron - firmware update has worked a charm! I even notice the machine running a little faster overall though this could just be my imagination

 

related question to the SSD one - I am not quite adventurous enough to install the HDD in the ODD bay but I am keen to convert the 640GB HDD into an external drive. Does anyone know whether it is possible to get speeds of USB 3.0 with a USB 3.0 enclosure/cable for this drive (the Hitachi 5K750)?

Best
P

 

The HDD itself will have a peak transfer rate of around 100MB/s. This is well within the actual performance range of USB 3.0 so you should get the full performance from the HDD (and somewhat faster than USB 2.0's 30MB/s).

John