Need advice, installed SSD, need to know how to put the original in as secondary

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by Nicholas440, Jan 30, 2016.

  1. Nicholas440

    Nicholas440 MDL Novice

    Oct 4, 2008
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    Hello guys,

    I installed a Samsung SSD 250 gig drive as my primary boot drive for Windows 8, I removed the original after doing the cloning etc and it works very well it boots up in a few seconds as opposed to a whole minute with my factory HDD that I had in the HP ENVY DV7T laptop. My question is, I'd like to put the original drive into the secondary drive bay, I purchased a caddy and cable kit so I'm ready but, I know if I put it in the Laptop wont know where to boot from.

    I've researched on HP forums and thats no help. In my Bios only one drive shows at this time, the SSD for Windows as the Boot drive. Now if I put the other drive in that also would want boot will there be a provision in my BIOS such as Primary 0 drive or something? Will I be able to deactivate the secondary drive from trying to boot ? I didn't want to format it, as I could keep it as is with Windows 8 already on it and if need be if the SSD failed I'd just put it back into the Primary bay again.

    If you put an SSD into your Laptop which is smaller than the HDD you have originally you cannot use the Recovery Disks that HP gave you. I found that out, by trying to do a clean install off of the Recovery Disks, it will fail every time so I used the Samsung Cloning software and that worked great. Just hook the SSD up to the USB adapter and clone your HDD and then remove it and put in the SSD and boy is it fast.

    Now I'd like to put the 750 GB HDD back in as Secondary and need some of your advice and help. If any of you have a HP ENVY laptop or are familiar with my BIOS settings. I really appreciate it , I feel more confident getting the advice here rather than just slapping in the second drive and finding out the Laptop wont boot.

    Thanks for you time in advance, I'm using an HP ENVY DV7T, with Windows 8. I had Windows 10 and it crashed 3 times so I went back to Windows 8 and it's working just fine for me.
     
  2. Flipp3r

    Flipp3r MDL Expert

    Feb 11, 2009
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    #2 Flipp3r, Jan 30, 2016
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2016
    I would just install it into the secondary bay, boot into windows, wipe and re-format it as a data drive.
    Your boot order should not change. You could choose which to boot from from the bios boot menu (is it F10 for HP?).

    or

    Boot into windows, use the usb adapter to plug in your hdd & wipe it.
    I would use diskpart from an admin command prompt to wipe the drive as disk manager won't remove all the uefi partitions.
    from diskpart:
    lis dis (this will list all your drives)
    sel dis 1 (I'm assuming disk 0 is your ssd & disk 1 is your hdd)
    cle (clean the disk. this will wipe it.)
    cre par pri
    for fs=ntfs label=Data quick
    assign
    exit
    exit

    Done.
     
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  3. Nicholas440

    Nicholas440 MDL Novice

    Oct 4, 2008
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    Thank you I think I may end up doing that. The reason I installed an SSD was every so often when I'd boot up I'd get a message saying " Please wait while we repair your disk errors" ... so I ran hard disk diagnostics and found no issues but was not comfortable with that so I bought the SSD.

    I believe it is F10 for the BIOS menu yes.... I think I should make a backup of Windows just in case though... I'm wondering if I wipe the original drive and install as secondary or use the USB adapter if I can do a backup to that drive and still use it for storage of files....
     
  4. Bat.1

    Bat.1 MDL Expert

    Oct 18, 2014
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    I believe it'll be the Esc key that You need to press during boot to enter the BIOS. Most newer UEFI Rigs will be either Esc or Delete. There You can change the first boot order to which drive You want to boot from. I multi-boot Win 8.1, 10, etc. on My Lenovo G780 using different 120GB SSDs in a "Caddy" that takes the place of the DVD drive. Since 8.1 Core is My Daily Driver I used Casper to Clone the drive onto the stock mechanical drive and I update just the C: partition Clone every few Days. After that I partitioned the mechanical drive for storage. I use the storage partition for downloads, documents etc. and most importantly My VMWare images. That way no matter what OS I'm running I have access to My pics, VMs and everything else. The "Novo" button sure make entering BIOS a breeze and it's a shame it's been removed on the new Models :(
     
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  5. piercekalton

    piercekalton MDL Senior Member

    Apr 2, 2010
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    #5 piercekalton, Feb 6, 2016
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2016
    "disk errors" might be fatal. might sound stupid but try listening to it with a stethoscope for any clicks. and put it in IDE mode for an MHDD scan. most hard drive problems are mechanical failure or a pcb in which case, buy a new one.

    also don't touch it while it's on and with laptops take out the battery and hold down the power button for at least 30 seconds. and get some compressed air to clean out the contacts. don't use a magnetic screwdriver. wash your hands, wear a anti-static bracelet or at least put shoes on especially if you are standing on a carpet. if it does start working check the SMART stats if has over 5 years of running hours you might be s**t out of luck.
     
  6. LatinMcG

    LatinMcG Bios Borker

    Feb 27, 2011
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    the easiest way to slow down a fast ssd pc.. leave old hdd with bad sectors installed!!... explorer not responding ahead! :tasty:

    update bios .. then retry 10
     
  7. Nicholas440

    Nicholas440 MDL Novice

    Oct 4, 2008
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    Thanks for the replies... I got it running with both drives, the SSD of course as primary and the HDD as secondary or Disk 1.... After 2 or 3 days it did an update to Windows 8.1 , and it crashed a day later. The only way I could do anything was to unplug the Secondary Drive, and it booted, prior to that I couldn't even get into the bios all i had was the blue screen telling me I need to run a recovery, and no matter what I pressed all I got was that blue screen politely telling me the pc has run into a problem and I need to use Recovery disks which I have but you can do anything if you can't get into the bios to change the boot drive.

    So after unplugging the secondary or Disk 1, it booted into Windows, and I went to the HP site and downloaded the BIOS update, and Chipset drivers. I installed those and hooked the secondary drive back up and the laptop recognized it and booted into Windows again. I thought I was home free and in business until the Laptop went to sleep mode due to my leaving it for a while, when I bring it out of sleep, I get a blue screen telling me the pc ran into a problem and needs to be restarted, which it does and I'm up and running again until it falls asleep and I wake it up then it's blue screen time and it reboots again and all is ok for a while.

    The error is Driver not equal error and lists iaStoreAV.sys as the culprit. I looked it up and it's the Intel Rapid Start Storage driver. I have an HP ENVY laptop and from what I read somewhere HP has put a small SSD for Rapid Startup, and this is causing a problem. I have no clue how to fix it, as I'd like to upgrade to Windows 10 again as I once had, but how can I do a clean install of Windows 10 if I have an SSD as Primary and the original HDD as secondary drives, I think it's going to look at Intel Rapid Start and give me the same errors.

    Is there any way I can do a clean install of Windows to my SSD, without having a problem with Intel Rapid Start? Has Microsoft fixed the Rapid Start issues for those that install an SSD as the main OS drive as did ? Or am I out of luck unless I can disable Rapid Start somehow?

    Any ideas would be appreciated. If it crashes now my Recovery disks are useless and my USB repair is also useless if it wont let me into BIOS again. Anyone familiar with this Rapid Start thing, ? I'd like to install and have my sleep and hybernate modes working again without crashing....

    Thanks in advance,
     
  8. LatinMcG

    LatinMcG Bios Borker

    Feb 27, 2011
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    #8 LatinMcG, Feb 10, 2016
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2016
    the fact intelastore is crashing with second hdd says a lot.. but dont heed my warning in prior post.. keep trying and eventually youll get it.
    do a smart diag check on that hdd.

    take battery and power out and press power 30 secs to drain power to reset EC.

    make windows 10 usb and install in ssd with hdd not plugged in and put it to sleep and wake it.

    worked ??