A few Problems with Clean Install of Win8 on mSATA SSD

maiki

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I hope someone can help.The computer--a new Lenovo Thinkpad X230 notebook, which came with Win8 Pro pre-installed on the 500GB HDD.I bought and installed a 256GB Micron mSATA SSD to the PCIe slot., with the intention of a clean install of Win 8 to the SSD as system drive, and use the HDD as a data drive.First of all, the Win 8 installation (from USB stick) would not accept the SSD as a drive to install Windows 8 to. On reading forums though, I tried removing the HDD from the laptop (fortunately, very easy to do on that model), and it worked, I successfully did a clean install of Win8 to the SSD. Very quick painless installation after that.A couple of problems remain though:1) I wanted to have the system reserve partitions with recovery options installed on the SSD too. Although one can do that from a USB stick, I find it good to have it built in to the system, the recovery options. (Not the manufacturer recovery partition. No interest in that.) Anyhow, from reading here I assumed that when one installs Win8 to a blank drive with nothing on it, that it will automatically create the necessary system recovery partitions. Anyhow, that did not happen. Why? In any case, how do I now after installation create those system recovery partitions on the SSD. (I have them on the HDD still, but I doubt it would work to copy them over somehow.)2) Before I re-attached the HDD, the system booted up fine from the SSD, with clean install of Win8 Pro. Certain problems arose though, after re-attaching the HDD. First of all, although I of course plan to format the HDD to use as a data drive, I have not yet done so. First I want to check if there are any files on it that I want to save. So it still is a bootable system drive as well. If the HDD is attached, the laptop will boot from the HDD, not the SSD. That is even true if I set the SSD to a higher boot priority in the BIOS, very surprising!There is one way I can get it to boot to the SSD, when the HDD is attached. That is, through pressing F12 at startup, which goes to boot manager, and choosing the SSD there. If I boot up that way to the SSD though, I notice something else strange. The HDD is now completely invisible, doesn't show up anywhere. Not only does it not appear under Computer, it also does not appear in Disk Management, nor does it appear in Device Manager. There is no indication anywhere that a HDD is connected to the computer, when I have booted up via the SSD. What could be causing that? How could I fix that? (For instance, I cannot even format the HDD, nor do anything to it, when it is so totally invisible when the system is booted from the SSD.) (And of course, I could not format the HDD if booted from the HDD.)Anyone understand what is going on? Solutions?
 
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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
A couple additional remarks: First of all, a problem I have with this board. In looking at my message above, the different questions ae not nearly as clear as in the message as I wrote it. I separated paragraphis with line breaks, so that there was an empty space between each paragraph. The different issues I brought up were separated and clear. As I see the message above though, all line breaks have been stripped out, so it is one long run-on paragraph, and not as clear as when I wrote it. Can anything be done in the settings for the board, to allow line breaks to remain?Regarding the first problem mentioned, the lack of system reserved partition, I realized that when I first did the install, although the SSD was empty, no files, one large partition, there was that one partition on it, one volume. While booted through the HDD, I deleted the volume on the SSD, turned off the system, removed the HDD, booted up through the USB stick install, and re-installed to the unallocated SSD, and now there is a system reserved partition on it as well. I still have questions about that, however, as there is only one system reserved partition there (I think about 350MB), while on the HDD there is about 3, not counting the Lenovo Recovery Partition. (I backed up the latter for safety's sake, but do not want to install it to the SSD. However, i do want all the Windows recovery options, and wonder why there were a few such partitions on the HDD, and only one on the re-installed SSD? (I don't have the info in front of me at the moment, regarding the names and sizes of the different recovery partitions on the HDD. I can post that later. I do recall one is called WinRE.)And of course, I still would like to solve the HDD booting problem. (See original post.) Thank you.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
See this tutorial: Clean Install - Windows 8. It should answer your questions about the system reserved partition. Doing a clean install will not produce the same partitions as on your HDD--which contains and OEM preinstallation of Win8. You will not be able to use them on your SSD. You now, given the 350 MB partition, have all the standard recovery options provided by Win8. Still thinking about your other issues. Here is a quote from the tutorial.

"If you want to have (recommended) the 350 MB System Reserved partition in addition to the Windows 8 C: partition on a HDD or SSD after installation, then you would need to make sure that all partitions on the drive have been deleted until it is only unallocated space. Next, select the unallocated drive to install Windows 8 on. If there are no partitions on the disk, you will get the 350 MB System Reserved."
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7 Ult on DIY; Win8 Pro on MBP/Parallels; Win7 Ult on MBP/Boot Camp; Win7 Ult/Win8 Pro on HP
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    DIY Rig; MacBook Pro (MBP)/Parallels/Boot Camp; HP Pavilion dv6500t Laptop
    CPU
    Intel i7-2600K (sometimes OC'd to 4.8 GHz)
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Rev B3
    Memory
    16 GB Corsair Vengeance
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA 570 SC
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Gateway
    Hard Drives
    Dual Boot:
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on OCZ Revo x2 and
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on Caviar Black SATA 3's
    PSU
    Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
    Case
    Cooler Master 932 HAF
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS9900MAX-B CPU Fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Mouse
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Internet Speed
    20 Mbps Download/2+ Mbps Upload
    Other Info
    Pioneer Blu-ray Burner/DVD Burner
Certain problems arose though, after re-attaching the HDD. First of all, although I of course plan to format the HDD to use as a data drive, I have not yet done so. First I want to check if there are any files on it that I want to save. So it still is a bootable system drive as well. If the HDD is attached, the laptop will boot from the HDD, not the SSD. That is even true if I set the SSD to a higher boot priority in the BIOS, very surprising!There is one way I can get it to boot to the SSD, when the HDD is attached. That is, through pressing F12 at startup, which goes to boot manager, and choosing the SSD there. If I boot up that way to the SSD though, I notice something else strange. The HDD is now completely invisible, doesn't show up anywhere. Not only does it not appear under Computer, it also does not appear in Disk Management, nor does it appear in Device Manager. There is no indication anywhere that a HDD is connected to the computer, when I have booted up via the SSD. What could be causing that? How could I fix that?
Boot to the HDD and back your files up off computer. Take the SSD out. Use your install medium to clean/optimize your HDD, etc.: SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation. Put the SSD back in.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7 Ult on DIY; Win8 Pro on MBP/Parallels; Win7 Ult on MBP/Boot Camp; Win7 Ult/Win8 Pro on HP
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    DIY Rig; MacBook Pro (MBP)/Parallels/Boot Camp; HP Pavilion dv6500t Laptop
    CPU
    Intel i7-2600K (sometimes OC'd to 4.8 GHz)
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Rev B3
    Memory
    16 GB Corsair Vengeance
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA 570 SC
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Gateway
    Hard Drives
    Dual Boot:
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on OCZ Revo x2 and
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on Caviar Black SATA 3's
    PSU
    Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
    Case
    Cooler Master 932 HAF
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS9900MAX-B CPU Fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Mouse
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Internet Speed
    20 Mbps Download/2+ Mbps Upload
    Other Info
    Pioneer Blu-ray Burner/DVD Burner
Thank you for the replies.

I have solved most of the described problems, yet one serious one remains.

Yes, I have discovered that the reason I only had one system reserved partition rather than the multiple ones of the HDD installation, was that the HDD installation was UEFI, and the SSD installation was not UEFI. So I folowed the instructions, re-installed again on the SSD following the UEFI tutorial, and now Win 8 Pro is installed UEFI on the SSD, and has the multiple system partitions like on the HDD.

Also, the system now boots to the SSD by default.

However, there is still the problem, that booted to the SSD, the HDD is now still completely invisible--does not even show up in Disk Management or Device Manager. I don't know how I can use the HDD at all, if I cannot make it visible? Any suggestions to that?

-------------

Unrelated-- I see in your post, theog, there is a blank line between two lines of text. As I wrote, I write that way, with blank lines between paragraphs, but after posting, it all appears as one run-on paragraph. How did you get that blank line there, theog?

Thanks to all for your responses.


----------------------

Edit--after posting this message, I see this time the blank lines I intended, not the run-on of my OP. Was it a bug in the system, that got fixed after I reported it yesterday? Or was it the space I put this time at the end of a paragraph, before the two carriage returns?
 
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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
By the way, the HDD problem seems to be solved, although I don't know why or how. The computer always boots to the SSD now, and the HDD shows up as a drive on the system. (Haven't yet formatted it. Will do so soon.) One thing that surprises me though, is that although both the HDD and SSD Win8 Pro installations now are definitely GPT-UEFI, and both have more than one system partition for recovery, they are not exactly the same. I will report how they look in Acronis 2013 Plus Pack, booted from the Acronis CD- HDD- has a 10GB Lenovo recovery partition, but that isn't part of the comparison, as I don't want that on the SSDOther partitions on it, besides the main one: WINRE_DRV almost 1 GB in size (0.977 GB), 299.7 MB used , NTFS System-DRV 260MB capacity, 55.28 MB used FAT32 SSD: (besides main partition) Recovery 300MB capacity, 216.9 MB used, NTFS (unlabeled) 100 MB, 28.11 MB used, FAT32 So, not counting the Lenovo recovery partition on the HDD, both Win 8 Pro UEFI-GPT installations have two recovery partitions on them, besides the main partition. However, they have different disk labels, and more importantly, different sizes and different amounts of data in them.What accounts for the differences? And why in general is the size of these recovery partitions much larger than the amount of data in them? More data won't be added to them later, or will it? Thanks for your input. Hey, the bug in this forum stripping out carriage returns seems to be happening again, at least with me. This time putting a space before the carriage return doesn't fix it. It makes my post above almost unreadable. How can this be fixed?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
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