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    M14x r1 upgrade to SSD & remove Optical Drive

    Discussion in 'Alienware 14 and M14x' started by BerettaJay, May 29, 2012.

  1. BerettaJay

    BerettaJay Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey guys, sorry if this has been asked before, but I've looked around the forums to try and find something on how to do this and I can't seem to get an exact answer for this particular problem.

    I am swapping out my HDD (750 gb) for an SSD (256 crucial m4), and I bought an HD caddy to swap the optical drive with the original HDD (the 750 gb one).

    My question is, how do I get windows on there if I am removing the optical disk drive for an HDD? Do I have to install the SSD first, load windows, then take out the optical drive after?

    Do I have to backup and wipe HDD (750 gb)? I have a lot of files on there (music, etc) and I was wondering if I can just leave it as is and still be able to access everything once it's installed as a secondary drive?

    And one more thing, to get the settings back to how they are currently, do I make a backup of my current system with alien-back up or whatever it's called? can I save the image to the secondary drive, and then load it from there as well once the SSD is installed? again, this confuses me because I don't know where to access media from anymore with the optical drive being taken out.

    Thanks for all the help, it is much appreciated. Hopefully I can learn how to do this once and for all.
     
    BerettaJay, May 29, 2012
    #1
  2. tetsussaiga

    tetsussaiga Notebook Evangelist

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    You don't have to install windows to the SSD first. After you do all the hardware swapping, you can create a bootable USB to install windows to the SSD. Here is the software and instructions from Microsoft:

    http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

    After Windows installs it should automatically detect your secondary drive in the optical bay and all your data should be left exactly as is. Nevertheless it's probably a good idea to do a full backup beforehand.
     
    tetsussaiga, May 29, 2012
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  3. saurey

    saurey Notebook Guru

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    I just removed my Optical drive from my brand new M14X r2 because it's heavy, consumes power, and I will NEVER use it. I installed via USB also.

    DIE OPTICAL DIE!
     
    saurey, Jun 1, 2012
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  4. khumprp

    khumprp Notebook Enthusiast

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    On the R2, you can remove the optical and replace w/ a HDD? What connector do you use, or am I totally misunderstanding this?

    I just remove my 500GB HDD on my R2 and put in the M4 SSD.... But now I have the HDD and I'm not doing anything with it.
     
    khumprp, Jun 1, 2012
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  5. tetsussaiga

    tetsussaiga Notebook Evangelist

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    Same SATA connector that was connected to the optical. You need to buy a caddy for your HDD though. Alternatively you could just buy a 3.0 enclosure and make it an external :)
     
    tetsussaiga, Jun 2, 2012
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  6. mark_taba85

    mark_taba85 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hope this helps, but I just received my R2 and installed a SSD and removed the optical drive and placed the original 500gb drive in a caddy. i am currently using the beast right now.

    I bought the crucial m4 upgrade kit that comes with the transfer cable. What you do is leave the computer as it is, plug the SSD to the cable and run the disk to start transfer. Then you install the SSD and prepare your OS and bios to boot the SSD!

    Was CAKE!

    Mine was a fresh laptop so not much files to transfer but OS running so far with no issues
     
    mark_taba85, Jun 2, 2012
    #6