Change HDD to SSD Lenovo Y510P

Hello,

I want to change my HDD to a SSD. My Y510P is on Windows 10 and has a small 24gb SSD already.

If I want to clone my HDD to my brand new Samsung Evo 850 500gb SSD it's not working, because there are Windows files in my small 24gb SSD.

In Disk Management it says there is 350 mb system reserverd.

Do I need to remove the small SSD if I want to clone my HDD to my SSD?

 

Do yourself a favor and forget cloning.

Go here and create a bootable USB Windows 10 install media for your version of Windows 10 (Home, Pro, x86, x64). Buy or use a USB 3.0 stick of 32GB or larger to create this installer on.

Make sure the latest BIOS is installed on your notebook from the O/S you're currently using now. Also check for any other BIOS/Firmware for any other devices too while you're at it from here.

From that last link above, download the latest Chipset driver and put in in a folder on the USB stick you used for the installer.

When you have created that installer, remove the AC power and the battery from your notebook. Remove the 24GB caching SSD. Remove the HDD. Physically install the new SSD.

Replace the battery, connect the AC power adaptor.

Go to the BIOS and disable any caching options (Smart Response technology or something similar...) and make sure you are in AHCI mode (not compatible or IDE).

Now, insert the USB installer you created into the notebook and hit Enter when the computer first boots up and select the USB key to boot from.

Choose Advanced Setup and choosing the new SSD, create a partition that is ~30% smaller than the actual capacity (in MB's) indicated. (This is called OP'ing (over provisioning) and will give you the fastest most consistent storage subsystem possible over time, almost no matter how you use your system. For the cost of a little bit of capacity (which you can 'expand' into at any time while in Windows proper, if needed in the future). Click 'Yes' to allow other partitions to be created for Windows to operate properly and when the installer asks for a Key Code, click skip. You'll skip this one more time during the install process but when you finally boot up into Windows and connect to the internet, your Windows 10 installation will be Activated automatically (as long as you installed the same version as you have currently installed now).

Do all the updates required, including any MS product updates too. Also check for any firmware updates on the new SSD you installed too (and don't let Magician run in the background. Actually, I recommend to uninstall it completely instead and DO NOT run any of the 'optimizations' it offers - if you do - repeat the above steps to get a clean and stable Windows install again...).

Now, go to the Lenovo Support page (second link above) and download any driver needed (you could also use from the files from the Drivers folder on the old C:\Drive too).

With all the drivers installed and no exclamations in Device Manager, I would continue to install any programs you need and want. With this part going smoothly, I would then copy back any data required.


Cloning? That is so 1990's. And a good way to have issues for the life of your system.

Do a clean install and grow old along with your system, gracefully.

Good luck.

 

Agree with tilleroftheearth compeletely. Fresh install is the way to go.

 

Agree with Tiller... definitely go with a clean install. Especially when you're changing boot devices. Because even if you clone correctly, you're guaranteed to have problems when trying to boot off of your newly cloned drive because the Windows bootloader will be trying to access the incorrect disk_id and partition_id.

As for the 350MB system reserved partition... that is a partition created by Windows to be used as the bootloader and boot configuration. Windows setup will (properly) re-create that partition when you choose install to a blank / unpartitioned disk. Let that happen. It's a good thing.



Three other notes for you:

1) Remove your 24GB mSATA SSD. It's absolutely useless at this point.

2) When you do a clean Windows install, be sure to remove all other storage devices from the system (including your mSATA SSD). The reason is because Windows setup will install the boot configuration on whatever drive it sees as the "first" drive in the system. And you don't have any control over where it puts that boot information, or what it thinks is the "first" drive. So do yourself a favor, and have only the 500GB SATA SSD in your system. That will force Windows setup to put all of the boot configuration info on that single drive, where it belongs.

3) Be sure to go into BIOS and disable Secure Boot, and set boot mode to Legacy Mode. You will need to do this if you want to boot to a bootable Windows Installer USB flash drive.

 

Subtle, and timeless advice

Imo, best way to do it would be to create an install-partition (...with something like nLite.. or copy an existing one, one of those "recovery" partitions some laptop makers create). And then "clone" that on to the new drive with some bootable dvd or some tool off a usb drive, and then run a fresh install, hopefully with the packages and drivers put in automagically. Then you will avoid all the potential issues with cloned setups, and still don't have to

But if you really wanted to, you could clone your partition setup and all the data, all the weird installs you have, the weird directory structure for Winamp you had in that compressed space and whatever, and so on and so on. You would just have to be aware of three things:

1. Partition software working on a lower level than the OS won't be aware of or care about quirky windows-addressing of blocks that happen to be placed in what could be mistaken for a random pattern. Neither does Windows once the information is cloned back, but helpfully adjusted to the new block-size on the new drive. This is the one major pain that cloning drives tend to cause. You can't really circumvent this problem if you initially had smaller block-sizes than what the new drive should likely use. But you can align your drive on beforehand, and cross your fingers afterwards. But the "science" on this one is more like qualified guesswork - it doesn't happen the same way every time, thanks to how fat and certain ntfs versions of the file-system cheat on the block-addressing. It shouldn't be (with weight on "shouldn't") an issue on the newer ntfs file-systems, though. I've had luck (and I think it may have been simply luck) with partitionmanager and partitionmagic, because they use some sort of high level copying that should account for problems like that at the time the files are copied. But again, no guarantee. And that leads us to point 2.
2. The boot-partitions and system partitions have different file-systems again. With UEFI, this has become easier to deal with, since you basically format the boot-partition in a reasonable format, and the boot-manager doesn't align things to specific sectors and so on. The addressing is also given as a label rather than a sector pointer. But if you have a windows boot-partition in fat (which you typically do), this will break into a tiny million pieces on the extract process. It can typically be recovered and replaced with a standard fixed one. And any sector 0 flags (that hopefully aren't used in 2015) can then be set later on if they're not automatically fixed at some point. But - what if the boot-partition holds the partition table? And that partition isn't recoverable? And the present partition information can't be inserted somehow? Then you just have misaligned and useless info. This shouldn't (again) be a problem if you use a partition manager of some sort to back up the partitions, and then extract them again. But that's something you have to know about. That windows may rely on a partition table that, even if the extraction on the new drive was done perfectly, may not be readable at the first boot. UEFI in general solves this, though (and it is a windows specific problem).
3. Windows quirks once you mirror the old system onto a new one. Example - precache information and/or system files/files that "core components" may access in some way with monitor-access (such as file indexing) in the previous boot may have been corrupted, or unreadable. And Windows starts to rebuild tables, use partially readable tables, create new user-directories, and any amount of sheer idiocy that you have to be paid a whole lot of money to assume won't happen and crash your entire system. In that case, even if all the drive-letters and so on actually were identical on the new drive, so that presumably all paths should be correct - the actual links Windows relied on won't be correct. This has apparently been improved in very significant ways since Win8, but I haven't dared to tempt fate and try it yet.

Outside of that, you may also get into problems such as that you need to validate your install on new hardware. And actually run into the problem that your previous setup holds your windows-license. And that your new setup with the new ssd doesn't have a valid key any longer. That you basically should have known on beforehand that you had to disable the key on your other boot. Then switch disks, clone, etc. And then register your new system setup on the .. new.. same boot, on old.. new hardware... something..

Bottom line - if you just do this once in a while anyway, you're going to save time by creating a fresh boot. Also, good opportunity to learn about UEFI, and why you should boot that install disc in UEFI mode when you install your OS next time.

 

seem like OP has already got his/her answer so if you don't mind, I might "borrow" this thread. My question is somewhat similar. I plan to install an SSD to my laptop soon (or not but eventually) and I'm currently using a HDD. So I heard that I should remove the HDD first then install OS on the SSD and then delete everything on the HDD partition with the old OS since if I install OS on the SSD while not having the HDD removed can cause some issue. But I do not know the actual details. My speech might be difficult to comprehend so I'll write this down.

1 - Initialize the SSD
2 - Remove HDD and install SSD
3 - Install OS and partition + OP the SSD
4 - Put the HDD back in

Now it's where I stuck. What would happen after I put the HDD back in? There is C: drive on the SSD for OS so what would happen to the C: drive on the HDD? Would it automatically change into something else? And what is the best way to clean the HDD partition with the old OS? Ctrl A + Shift Del?

 

Skip step 1, it shouldn't be needed.

After step 4, use F12 at the BIOS screen or whatever equivalent gets you to a boot device selection. Boot off the new SSD, then format the old hard drive.

 

..just remember to disable the windows license first, if you're going to use the same one on the new install.

 

Huh? That is not possible.

 

..oh, right. New paradigm with Win10? That the license follows the outlook-login, or something like that?

 

No, it has always been that way. The Windows license follows the hardware since at least XP on...

 

..hmm. Never figured out how that works... remember now - actually had to extract the key from the bios to get the key on my last boot, on my non-oem install, probably because I didn't use the default bootloader or the oem disk (which wasn't included in the package). I think I had to bypass the boot on the embedded ssd to get it to boot at all. ..I guess it depends on how the laptop-maker sets things up.

But got into a world of pain on Win7 on a different laptop a while back because of that. Registered Windows, tested things out. Bought an ssd, installed new OS. Wanted to register the key. And it was already in use on the other disk, that had been wiped earlier >_<. Had to call MS to explain my recklessness, assure them I wouldn't install any "new OSes", and beg for forgiveness to get the key disabled. ..seriously, though - support at MS and Asus both refused to help initially when I said I had opened the laptop and changed the disk.

But yes - that of course won't work (and won't be needed) if the key is embedded on a rom, a bios or a "hidden" ssd somewhere. I.. suppose it works without any problems if you don't use grub or rEFInd, or something like that? Or.. do we know the workings of this stuff enough to predict what sort of boot-sequence is necessary..? Because if you're really unlucky, I suppose it could be that you need a partition setup that the embedded disk will recognize, for the bootloader to chain the Windows boot..?

If so.. cloning the original disk might have some merit after all..

 

No! While all your concerns are valid, cloning is not the answer either. It is still new hardware after all and MS will still see that.

 

Windows 7 and below didn't need license deactivation or anything of the sort, the license isn't tied to the hard drive. Now, for Windows 8 and 10 native machines, I have never experienced it, so I don't really have a solid idea, but I don't think a deactivation would be needed. It should be activating itself if it's embedded in the BIOS.

 

I thought all new HDD/SSD needs initializing. So it's different now? I've never installed a HDD/SSD before.

 

They do, but the Windows installer will do that for you.

 

I got my machine with Win 7 on a hard drive. Put my SSD in, installed 8 with no problem.

Cloned to a new SSD, no issues activating.

Clean installed on that SSD a few months later. No issues activating.

Clean installed on the first SSD, no problems. Upgraded to ten, no problems. Clean installed ten, no problems.

Went back to 8 on the other SSD, still no issues.

FYI.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

oh nice, one less thing to do I guess.

 

Windows 10 activation uses a hardware fingerprint to determine if your installation is valid on your machine. It's the same method used by Windows 7 / 8 OEM licenses for the past 8 years or so. You should not need to manually enter a product key for a Windows 10 fresh install.

So, what about a situation where you upgrade some components in your computer (or get the laptop motherboard swapped out), thereby changing your hardware fingerprint? Well, Microsoft's policy on this has always been to ask you to do a phone activation in the event that an auto-activation fails. And I've never seen them give anyone trouble for a phone activation on Windows 7 / 8 OEM licenses. I highly doubt that they would change their policies on auto-activation for Windows 10.