- Dec 27, 2011
- 3
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- 18,510
I recently purchased a new HP Envy laptop online along with an SSD I planned to install myself because none of the HP laptops came with the option to have the SSD installed as the primary drive. My intent is to use the 120GB SSD simply as the main boot/system drive for Windows 8 and use the 1TB drive that originally came with the laptop as the drive for all my storage. The 1TB drive came with Windows 8 installed on it and it is a hybrid SSHD drive. The laptop has storage space for 2 drives and I have the kit needed to install the second drive. I've built my own PC twice before without problems, but I'm new to modifying laptops.
The 1TB drive is partitioned into two drives, the main C: Drive and a D: Recovery Drive. I tried cloning the 1TB drive to the 120GB SSD following the instructions in the HP manual. I must have made an error because it installed the C: Drive correctly but not the Recovery Drive. It tried to create the Recovery partition in proportional size to the SSD and the amount of used memory on the original Recovery partition exceeded the amount of total space created on the new SSD Recovery partition.
Attempting to boot from the SSD loads directly to an HP recovery menu. Unfortunately, every option it provides within the menus is a repair option and clicking on any of these options brings up a prompt instructing the user to install the original Windows 8 installation disc.
For whatever reason, HP does not ship an installation disc with their laptops, so I have no disc I can use to restore the faulty clone attempt.
I'd like to be able to securely erase the two partitions on the SSD to restore it to the condition it was in right out of the box and then try again. Unfortunately, as I have no Win8 install disc, I can only install it onto the SSD by cloning it.
If I must clone it again, it will surely attempt to clone the entire drive as it is currently partitioned. I've read that SSD's should not be wiped or fully formatted, so I want to make sure I do things properly without messing up the SSD.
I've tried following some tutorials on forums and on YouTube but some of the information did not apply to my system. For instance, the tutorials said that I could use the Secure Erase function from within the Security section of BIOS, but when I enter BIOS, I only have two options available and they both only relate to setting passwords, there is no secure erase option.
I only use the laptop for school, so there isn't a tremendous amount of information currently on the original hard drive. If I go about manually setting the new Recovery partition on the SSD to the same size as it is on the drive the laptop shipped with, then I shouldn't have any storage problems.
Is it advisable for me to attempt to restore the SSD to factory condition and remove the current bad partitions? Is it possible for me to try to clone the original partitioned drive a second time without restoring the SSD to factory condition? In other words, can I clone it and have it overwrite and create a larger Restore partition over the partition that is currently too small to store all the Restore information? What would be the best route to follow in order to have my 120GB SSD become the new primary system drive and the original system drive become a secondary storage drive?
The 1TB drive is partitioned into two drives, the main C: Drive and a D: Recovery Drive. I tried cloning the 1TB drive to the 120GB SSD following the instructions in the HP manual. I must have made an error because it installed the C: Drive correctly but not the Recovery Drive. It tried to create the Recovery partition in proportional size to the SSD and the amount of used memory on the original Recovery partition exceeded the amount of total space created on the new SSD Recovery partition.
Attempting to boot from the SSD loads directly to an HP recovery menu. Unfortunately, every option it provides within the menus is a repair option and clicking on any of these options brings up a prompt instructing the user to install the original Windows 8 installation disc.
For whatever reason, HP does not ship an installation disc with their laptops, so I have no disc I can use to restore the faulty clone attempt.
I'd like to be able to securely erase the two partitions on the SSD to restore it to the condition it was in right out of the box and then try again. Unfortunately, as I have no Win8 install disc, I can only install it onto the SSD by cloning it.
If I must clone it again, it will surely attempt to clone the entire drive as it is currently partitioned. I've read that SSD's should not be wiped or fully formatted, so I want to make sure I do things properly without messing up the SSD.
I've tried following some tutorials on forums and on YouTube but some of the information did not apply to my system. For instance, the tutorials said that I could use the Secure Erase function from within the Security section of BIOS, but when I enter BIOS, I only have two options available and they both only relate to setting passwords, there is no secure erase option.
I only use the laptop for school, so there isn't a tremendous amount of information currently on the original hard drive. If I go about manually setting the new Recovery partition on the SSD to the same size as it is on the drive the laptop shipped with, then I shouldn't have any storage problems.
Is it advisable for me to attempt to restore the SSD to factory condition and remove the current bad partitions? Is it possible for me to try to clone the original partitioned drive a second time without restoring the SSD to factory condition? In other words, can I clone it and have it overwrite and create a larger Restore partition over the partition that is currently too small to store all the Restore information? What would be the best route to follow in order to have my 120GB SSD become the new primary system drive and the original system drive become a secondary storage drive?
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