SSD Quirkiness

[colonel juju]

Hi guys,

I've just completed my first build. I am trying to use a 64 gb M4 Crucial SSD and a 500 GB Western Digital Caviar Blue HDD(SSD for Boot and apps, HDD for storage). Everything seems to be in working order. But, I've encountered some strangeness that I'm not sure if I should leave alone or get fixed.

When I was first installing the OS (Windows 7) I accidentally installed into my HDD. The HDD had a 100GB system partition and 360GB partition. So, I unplugged the HDD and installed Windows 7 onto the SSD with the disc drive like I did with the HDD. I got all my drivers installed and everything is running blazing fast(7 second boot yeauh). So, thinking the OS installation was done, I tried formatting my HDD. Every thing was able to be wiped except for about 30GB of data on the system that can't be viewed when you look at the HDD. About the same amount of memory was used on the SSD for Windows 7, so I suspect its the OS.

Also, on the BIOS, the SSD doesn't show up on the boot order. It only shows my disc drive and HDD(HDD being first in the order). But, I know it is booting with the SSD because the computer boots up way faster than it did when i had the OS on just the HDD. But when I go to exit the BIOS I can force boot with the SSD. This makes no difference, it seems to boot with the SSD forced or not.

The computer seems to be running perfectly otherwise, but I don't want to just use it and find out that problems arise later. So. I need advice: Should I just leave it alone or is there another way to clear the weirdness? If it is possible, clearing the two drives to factory state seems to be the best route as far as I know. If so, how do I do that?

TLDR:
- about 30GB of mystery invisible data(probably OS files) used up on 100 GB HDD System Partition
-SSD not showing up on Boot Priority, but shows up as a force boot option.
-Booting with SSD anyways
-Wat do?

Some specs:
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H
CPU: i7-3770
Disc Drive: Asus DRW
Storage: 500GB WD Caviar Blue, 64GB SSD Crucial M4
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

Thanks!

 

[colonel juju]

I guess I'll just perform a complete reinstall and format both drives in the process. After looking it up that doesn't seem to difficult. Hopefully it clears things up.

Sorry for the making a question I could've answered myself. I'll blame it on my pc building noobiness.

 

[benji720]

From within Windows, use diskpart to delete the system partition on the 500gb hdd. Check the guide here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

Use 'list disk' to see which disk number your HDD is, then use the 'select disk' command to pick it. Use 'list partition' to see the partitions on the selected disk, then use 'select partition' to select the partition(s) that are left over. Finally, use 'delete partition' (you may need to use the force switch, I think it's OVERRIDE) to delete each partition. That should do it!

 

[colonel juju]

Oh, ok I'll give that a go. Thanks for the reply.

 

[smorizio]

make sure the firmware on the ssd is up to date. a lot of the drives may or may not be up to date.if it not up to date some of the firmware updates will wipe the data off the drive when the update programs run.

 

[colonel juju]

From within Windows, use diskpart to delete the system partition on the 500gb hdd. Check the guide here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

Use 'list disk' to see which disk number your HDD is, then use the 'select disk' command to pick it. Use 'list partition' to see the partitions on the selected disk, then use 'select partition' to select the partition(s) that are left over. Finally, use 'delete partition' (you may need to use the force switch, I think it's OVERRIDE) to delete each partition. That should do it!

I tried it, but whenever I typed in "delete partition [noerr] [override] it would say "The arguments specified for this command are not valid. For more information on the command type: HELP DELETE PARTITION" :/

 

[colonel juju]

make sure the firmware on the ssd is up to date. a lot of the drives may or may not be up to date.if it not up to date some of the firmware updates will wipe the data off the drive when the update programs run.

I'm trying to boot from my SSD. Wouldn clearing it remove the OS? I believe that the OS is still on the HDD, so I'm trying to remove it off of that drive.

 

[benji720]

From what you described, you are running Windows from the SSD, right? So if you delete the partition on the HDD, you shouldn't have any sort of problem because Windows is running from the SSD. Before we go any further, when you look at your C drive in Computer, how big is it in GB?

 

[colonel juju]

I couldn't remove the partition with the 30 gb of inaccessible data. Since I barely even had my comp set up yet, I just re-installed Windows 7 by booting through the disc drive. I completely formatted the drives that way and did a brand new OS install(properly this time). So, I got my 30+gb back. whooooo yaaaaaay

 

[benji720]

Well good job! Patient, heal thyself, I guess.

 

[colonel juju]

Best answer selected by colonel juju.