ThinkPads and SSDs Part 2: Hard Drive Swapping and Windows 7 Installation

This is part two of a guide I’m creating that is designed to help users get the best performance out of their ThinkPads using Solid State Drives. The guide is split up into three parts. This is part two.

Disclaimer: I am not liable for any damage or problems that come about as a result of following this guide. I highly doubt anything negative will result, but I like to have my legal bases covered.

Part 1: Preparation
Part 2: Hard Drive Swapping and Windows 7 Installation
Part 3: Windows 7 Config and Power Settings

Abbreviation Guide:

• SSD = Solid-State Drive
• HDD = Hard Disk Drive
• OS = Operating System
• OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer

UPDATE (7/13/11) – Added more details about deleting ProgramData. Typo fixed in the command-line arguments to create a junction.

Your laptop has finally arrived! Here’s a rough outline of what I’ll be covering in this part of the guide:

SECTION A: Before Removal of Stock Hard Drive

SECTION B: Hard Drive Swapping

SECTION C: Windows 7 Installation

SECTION A: Before Removing Stock Hard Drive

Hardware Check

1. Boot the computer and run through the Windows 7 “first-time user” configuration that appears.
2. After getting to the desktop, open the Lenovo Toolbox by either pressing the blue ThinkVantage button or clicking the blue icon in the taskbar.
3. Go to the Diagnostics section and run a “Quick Hardware Check” in the System Tests sub-section. If anything fails, contact Lenovo support. Otherwise, continue with the guide.

Backup Activation

OEM installations are pre-activated. Fortunately, it is possible to transfer this activation certificate to a new installation of the same Windows 7 type, e.g. Windows 7 Pro 64-bit –> Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. This means you can activate your copy of Windows without being online or dealing with a call Microsoft. Here’s how to do it:

1. Visit ABR (Activation Backup and Restore) and download ABRbeta.exe from the page. This standalone program allows for a quick and easy way to backup/restore your Windows 7 product key and activation certificate.
2. Run activation_backup.exe. After it finishes, your backup certificate and your product key should show up in the same directory as the ABR program.
3. Copy the entire ABR folder to a flash drive or external hard drive.

Create a Recovery Disc [optional]

1. Open the Lenovo Toolbox.
2. Click on the System Health icon.
3. Choose an option under the “Enhanced Backup & Restore” heading and follow the prompts. A Rescue & Recovery disc will probably be the easiest to set up.

SECTION B: Hard Drive Swapping

Assemble Required Tools

• Philips head screwdriver (smallest one you have)
• The new SSD/HDD. The one I’m using in place of the stock HDD is a 120GB Vertex 3 Max IOPS.

Swap the hard drives

1. Remove the battery.
2. Unscrew the hard drive cover and remove it.
   Image may be NSFW.
   Clik here to view.
3. Take off the rubber side casings and put them aside.
4. Remove the hard drive caddy from the hard drive after unscrewing the screws on the bottom.
5. Put the caddy on the new SSD/HDD. NOTE: If using a Vertex 3, it might be the slightest bit bigger than the caddy. This is what mine looked like: Image may be NSFW.
   Clik here to view.
   TweakTown reports that Vertex 3 owners will be able to send their current drive back to OCZ in exchange for one with a casing that will fit inside Lenovo notebooks. In light of this information, Vertex 3 owners might want to postpone their Windows 7 installation until the new drive casings are ready, since you’ll need a new drive entirely. Thanks go to Devhack for sharing this info on the Lenovo forums, and I’ll keep you posted when OCZ is ready with the new casings.
6. Screw the screws back on the caddy. NOTE: My current Vertex 3 won’t fit inside the case without warping the cover if I use the screws. You can omit the screws if you have a SSD, because there are no moving parts. My drive is so snug that it is very unlikely that the caddy will shake loose.
7. Put the drive in the notebook and carefully slide it towards the back until you feel the drive connectors are firmly in place.Image may be NSFW.
   Clik here to view.
8. Screw the cover back on. As you can see from the picture below, it is very possible to fit the Vertex 3 inside a Lenovo notebook.Image may be NSFW.
   Clik here to view.
9. Put the battery back into the laptop and flip the laptop over.

SECTION C: Windows 7 Installation

Prepare your Installation Media

1. If you have an installation disc already, go to the next sub-section. Otherwise, go to ThinkPads and SSDs Part 1 for ways to download a Windows 7 image/contact Lenovo for a recovery disc. I also go over burning a Windows 7 ISO image to DVD and creating a Bootable USB Flash Drive in Part 1.

Installation Process

If you are planning on having a secondary hard drive, I recommend putting your Users folder on that drive instead of your Boot drive. Solid-state drives have a set number of program-erase cycles before wear begins to deteriorate the integrity of the storage, and moving your Users folder to secondary storage removes potentially tens of thousands of writes over the course of the drive’s life. With this kind of a setup, the files that programs need in order to run will be installed to your fast SSD (by default), while the user files and settings will default to your secondary drive. NOTE: I would recommend going the USB installation route because it takes significantly less time than a DVD to install windows 7, and you may have to do it this way, if replacing your optical drive with a secondary hard drive. If you’re working from an ISO image, I recommend going this route because it’ll be faster.

Windows  7 Installation

1. Install the Intel Matrix Storage Technology driver to a separate flash drive. If you don’t have this driver, you probably won’t be able to install Windows. Here’s the link for the 64-bit RST drivers. If you have a USB 3.0 flash drive, install the USB 3.0 driver to your flash drive as well.
2. Put the flash drive into one of the USB 2.0 ports. For the Lenovo W520, there’s a USB 2/eSata combo port on the left side and a powered USB 2 port in the back. If using a USB 3.0 drive, put it in one of the blue USB 3.0 ports on the left side.
3. Start up your computer and hit F12 a few times to get to the Boot screen.
4. Select your DVD drive (for disc installation) or USB drive (for USB installation)  in the list using the arrow keys and press Enter to boot from it.
5. Go through the first couple screens of the Windows 7 setup until you get to this screen:Image may be NSFW.
   Clik here to view.
6. Click Load Driver and navigate to where you put the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers:Image may be NSFW.
   Clik here to view.
7. Select the only entry that appears in the box and hit Next. You’ll get the following warning box: Image may be NSFW.
   Clik here to view.
   Disregard this error! For whatever reason, Lenovo forgot to sign their device drivers. Contrary to the ominous warning text, the disc does indeed use the Rapid Storage Technology drivers that you pointed to.
8. NOTE: This is the last step before the install begins. Click the drive you want to install Windows on and click Next.
9. After Windows finishes installing and restarts a couple times, you’ll get to the screen asking you to assign your computer a name. If you are not moving your Users folder as discussed above, complete installation by following the prompts and you’re finished with this section. Otherwise, continue on to step 10.
10. Follow steps 1-7 of the tutorial in the original post of this Windows Answers thread. I was able to move the Users folder to my secondary hard drive successfully by following that tutorial.
11. Delete the ProgramData folder by booting to a Linux distribution or another Operating System. Here’s the way I used:
1. Download UNetBootin and run it.
2. Select Parted Magic from the Distribution drop-down and select a FAT32 formatted flash drive to install it on and click “Ok”.
3. Restart the computer, booting from your flash drive. Hit ENTER when you get to the Parted Magic splash screen (default config).
4. Click the icon in the taskbar that says “Mount Devices” on mouseover.
5. Click your system hard drive in the left pane and delete the ProgramData folder.
6. Reboot into Windows!
12. Hit Start, type “cmd” and hit Enter to launch the Command Prompt.
13. Assuming D is your secondary storage drive, make junctions from the C drive to the D drive by typing the following:
    • mklink /J C:\Users D:\Users
    • mklink /J C:\ProgramData D:\ProgramData

    We do this so that any future program that installs user information to C:\Users or C:\ProgramData will automatically save it to D:\Users or D:\ProgramData instead.

Let me know if there’s anything I missed. Feedback is always appreciated!

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.