Things to do before installing SSD?

Hi everyone,

I just got my Crucial M4 256 GB SSD in the mail today. I should be getting my Lenovo Y580 early next week.

Do I need to download drivers or anything before installing the SSD onto my computer, so things like my trackpad are usable?

I'm probably going to have to create a Windows recovery disk, because I don't think the computer comes with disks, but will this work on it since it is a different hard drive?

I'm pretty excited, but I've never done a clean install on anything, so I don't know what to expect. If there is already something written on this, that I didn't see, please direct me towards it.

Thank you for your time.

 

Get the windows iso from here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-digitalriver-windows-7-sp1-13-languages.html. Make sure you pick the same version you have and you can use ABR to backup the windows authentication.

Download all the necessary drivers before hand, either form Lenovo's site or the component's manufacturer's website depending on what you want/what is suggested as best.

Install windows, move on to the drivers, your security software and then the rest of your programs. You can then enjoy a laptop running a clean install of windows 7. Once your clean install is done and you have migrated all your personal data, i suggest you make a backup of the windows install in case something goes wrong.

You can use one of these guides as a starting point on how to clean install, but skip the stuff specific to the notebooks they are based on:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...lk-through-doing-clean-windows-7-install.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...er-install-order-guide-alienware-systems.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...uide-clean-installing-windows-7-thinkpad.html

 

For a Lenovo, you'll need System Update. It provides a simple way to install all needed drivers and apps (and if you tick all the choises, lot of other stuff too).

Before you do anything else, at least download wlan/lan drivers for your laptop from Lenovo downloads page. You need internet access to download everything else and that computer is so new that Win7 probably doesn't include drivers for network devices.

Network drivers and Lenovo Update software should be all you need (A short version of that Lenovo install guide)

 

Thanks!

That information helped a lot. Seems strange you can't install straight from the recovery disks.

If I'm interpreting all of the information right, I download Windows 7 iso onto a DVD... run some funky thing to find my serial number, install windows, get drivers and other crap off the flash drive and I am good to go?

Thanks again.

 

Yes, you can install from a recovery disk set....just burn the full set as Lenovo recommends when you get you computer, swap the drives, boot up from the first recovery cd/dvd and it install the factory version of Win 7. No need to look for drivers or anything else There are two disadvantages to this however. The recovery DVD installation will create a recovery partition on the SSD and take up precious space. You will need to use Disk Management to delete the recovery partition and extend the main one in order to get the space back.

The second is that whatever bloatware comes from Lenovo will be on your ssd. You can always uninstall that. So, basically you will need to spend a little more time cleaning up after installing from factory recovery disks.