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Nogara · ‎06-07-2012

Hello all, new to the forums here, just have a couple questions about switching my hard drive to an SSD. I recently purchased a G75VW-TS71(TigerDirect model) and a Corsair 240GB Force Series 3 to install into it, however I've never actually done this before.

I've been reading through the forums as of late, so I have read the threads about it and I to plan to follow one of the guides thats post here. I just have a couple things I'd like to get cleared up before I begin repacing them.

First off, when I started my new Laptop for the first time, the first thing it prompted me to do was burn recovery DVDs, so I did so, it took 4 DVDs total. On these DVDs, are all the drivers I will need included? Or do I still need to DL them and burn them onto a different DVD?

Secondly, in one thread I seen it suggested that first I should install the SSD into the 2nd bay first, and update the drivers on it before moving it into the first bay and installing the OS onto it, is this wise and recommended?

Thirdly, What should I do with my drive that will be moved into the second bay? I've seen some people say that they keep windows on it in case their SSD goes down, just to have as a back up, and I've seen some say they just format it. I like the idea of keeping a copy of windows on it as back up, but is there anything special I would need to do in order to do this? Would it confilct with my other drive upon turning my laptop on and loading up?

Thank you in advance to any replies and help! Much appreciated!

john_from_ohio · ‎06-08-2012

#1) If you burned the recovery disks BEFORE updating to the latest asus recovery utility software they will work to restore to an SSD with. They will NOT work as is to restore to a 1 TB drive however.

You can however do this ( since you probably cannot update your existing system right now and burn a different/2nd set of recovery disks ... some restriction lets you only do this one ). You can use the 1st set of disks to recover your system to an SSD ... and then use that recovered system ... update the recovery utility ... then burn an updated set of recovery disks from that SSD based system. ( Yeah yeah kind of ugly ).

Yes the recovered SSD has all the asus drivers on it ... it IS the factory shipped system complete with a recovery partition. ( The sizes of the partitions may need to be adjusted I would recommend MiniTool Partition Wizard free version if doing that ).

#2) No you don't need to do anything like that if using the recovery disks. That recommendation probably comes if doing a fresh Win 7 install ( versus a system recovery ) ... if doing a fresh win 7 install download all the asus stuff to a flash drive.

#3) The SSD should work ok in either bay just make sure you pull the original out if doing the recovery of the SSD.

Afterwards depends on how comfortable you are ... since you have a set of recovery DVDs that can make any drive ( well depends if 1 TB bug still present on your set of DVDs ) into a factory supplied system you should be good to go and can use your factory drive as a data drive.

If you want to stick your old drive back in there wipe it first ( again minitool maybe ) and delete all the partitions before putting back in to avoid any kind of drive signature issues.

Nogara · ‎06-08-2012

Thanks for the response, very helpful. I actually found out there was 2 small HDs in the system instead of being 1 500GB one like I had originally thought, so I'll just stick the SSD in the first bay, and keep the drive that was in there with the OS on it somewhere safe since the HD in the second bay is empty and has no data saved on it as of now.

And yes I burned the DVDs before doing an update, I had read a lot of threads on here and so I didn't update anything on the original drive yet and just deleted all the bloatware.

Thank you for the help!

john_from_ohio · ‎06-08-2012

Nogara wrote:
Thanks for the response, very helpful. I actually found out there was 2 small HDs in the system instead of being 1 500GB one like I had originally thought, so I'll just stick the SSD in the first bay, and keep the drive that was in there with the OS on it somewhere safe since the HD in the second bay is empty and has no data saved on it as of now.

I have not tested like this with 2 drives in the system doing a DVD restore. I would recommend ( with limited knowledge just a pessimistic guess ) pulling out the 2nd "blank drive" while doing the SSD restore process and then putting it back in afterwards.

The DVD restore process does a whole bunch of disk manipulation commands and ( who knows ) having a 2nd drive in there might cause some hiccups that we know will not occur with just a single drive in the machine.

Nogara · ‎06-08-2012

Ok, will do that then, thanks for the reply!

Nogara · ‎06-10-2012

Ok did everything following the guide that was posted in these forums, just 1 small question now.

My SSD I purchased is 240GB, widows is inly recognizing it as 198GB. I understand that generally they aren't exactly as advertied, but thats a huge difference, so am I missing something? Could it just be I need a new driver for my SSD?

john_from_ohio · ‎06-10-2012

Nogara wrote:
Ok did everything following the guide that was posted in these forums, just 1 small question now.

My SSD I purchased is 240GB, widows is inly recognizing it as 198GB. I understand that generally they aren't exactly as advertied, but thats a huge difference, so am I missing something? Could it just be I need a new driver for my SSD?

Probably the recovery partition is there taking up space ( along with the overhead that you always lose ).

Something like MiniTool Partition Wizard 7 will show you hidden partitions. I decided to keep my recovery partition ( but shrink it down ) but not sure why exactly I want it since I do have other backup/restore options.

By the default partitioning done when recovering your recovery part is probably pretty big ...

G75 HDD to SSD Questions