Alienware msata os installing

[lumenate88]

Got a question for anyone who can answer it really, I have an Alienware m17r5 (3rd quarter of 2013) it came with an 80gb mSata ssd and I was wondering if these are able to be used as an os drive and if so how exactly do I do so?  Right now it is set up as an accelerated ssd for my 1tb and 2tb hhds.

[exercutor5]

Erm, if you were to go into the BIOS, if I am not wrong you will see your drives set up in a RAID config, change that to AHCI and reinstall Windows and you're good to go.

 

EDIT: Oh yes, don't use a 80GB SSD for OS, it is like so tiny.

[done12many2]

11 minutes ago, lumenate88 said:

Got a question for anyone who can answer it really, I have an Alienware m17r5 (3rd quarter of 2013) it came with an 80gb mSata ssd and I was wondering if these are able to be used as an os drive and if so how exactly do I do so?  Right now it is set up as an accelerated ssd for my 1tb and 2tb hhds.

Yes, it can definitely be used as an OS drive.  What OS are you wanting to install on it?   I ask because once the OS is installed, depending on which one you pick there won't be a lot of room left over for software and daily use. 

 

Of course you can install the software onto other drives, but you're going to have to set all of that up manually. 

[lumenate88]

19 minutes ago, exercutor5 said:

Erm, if you were to go into the BIOS, if I am not wrong you will see your drives set up in a RAID config, change that to AHCI and reinstall Windows and you're good to go.

 

EDIT: Oh yes, don't use a 80GB SSD for OS, it is like so tiny.

no currently the 80gb msata does not show up at all in bios but in disk management i see 10gb of it.  Windows only requires 16gb of space so 80gb is plenty.

13 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

Yes, it can definitely be used as an OS drive.  What OS are you wanting to install on it?   I ask because once the OS is installed, depending on which one you pick there won't be a lot of room left over for software and daily use. 

 

Of course you can install the software onto other drives, but you're going to have to set all of that up manually. 

I have no issues changing where everything installs.  The only install media I currently have is the recovery disc with windows 8 on it that came with the laptop and the drivers disc (currently though I'm on windows 10)

[done12many2]

12 minutes ago, lumenate88 said:

no currently the 80gb msata does not show up at all in bios but in disk management i see 10gb of it.  Windows only requires 16gb of space so 80gb is plenty.

I have no issues changing where everything installs.  The only install media I currently have is the recovery disc with windows 8 on it that came with the laptop and the drivers disc (currently though I'm on windows 10)

Since you know what you're doing as far as redirecting software installations, you should definitely use the mSATA drive as an OS drive.  That configuration will net you a better overall performance return than using it as a caching drive for your spinning disks.

 

When installing Windows 8, the mSATA may automatically show up within your list of available drives.  If so your are set.  If not, you may have to go into BIOS and ensure that your controller is configured to AHCI.  Consider that the mSATA may also be on a separate controller.  A lot of motherboards and some laptop motherboards have more than one SATA controller on board.

[done12many2]

Also, should you ever decide to break that bad boy down to swap out your spinning disk for a faster and more durable SSD, here's a pretty decent guide that includes the main storage, RAM and mSATA replacement.

 

Good luck.

 

http://www.notebookreview.com/howto/alienware-17-r5-upgrade-guide/

[exercutor5]

7 hours ago, lumenate88 said:

Windows only requires 16gb of space so 80gb is plenty.

Yeah, but still once you install and start using, the temp folders and what not will fill up, and those applications you use which store those temp files don't clear them. You'll run out of space fast. But wait, what drive config is it shown in BIOS?

[lumenate88]

19 hours ago, done12many2 said:

Since you know what you're doing as far as redirecting software installations, you should definitely use the mSATA drive as an OS drive.  That configuration will net you a better overall performance return than using it as a caching drive for your spinning disks.

 

When installing Windows 8, the mSATA may automatically show up within your list of available drives.  If so your are set.  If not, you may have to go into BIOS and ensure that your controller is configured to AHCI.  Consider that the mSATA may also be on a separate controller.  A lot of motherboards and some laptop motherboards have more than one SATA controller on board.

have no clue where the AHCI option is the dell InsydeH20 bios is up to date but not very well made or user freindly...

11 hours ago, exercutor5 said:

Yeah, but still once you install and start using, the temp folders and what not will fill up, and those applications you use which store those temp files don't clear them. You'll run out of space fast. But wait, what drive config is it shown in BIOS?

Your probably right but I don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on a bigger mSATA SSD.  I should have been more specific I can see the drive in the BIOS but i have no clue on how to see it in the boot options ill try to get a image on the boot option setup soon.

[exercutor5]

1 hour ago, lumenate88 said:

snip

When you have the image ready, quote me or something, so I can get notified.

[lumenate88]

A Little update.

On 3/21/2016 at 8:22 AM, exercutor5 said:

When you have the image ready, quote me or something, so I can get notified.

I've disabled the SSD acceleration haven't seen any change in faster load ups of commonly used applications which is what Intel rapid Storage supposedly does, Thank you Linus, now the only thing to do is figure out the weird Alienware setup.  Will have an image of it right after I finish checking I got all the backups I will need...stay tuned. Almost forgot I found this nifty little windows 10 clean installer.

[lumenate88]

On 3/21/2016 at 8:22 AM, exercutor5 said:

When you have the image ready, quote me or something, so I can get notified.

got that image of the bios boot options its not the best bios in the world obviously...

 

[exercutor5]

14 minutes ago, lumenate88 said:

snip

What is within UEFI Boot?

[lumenate88]

5 hours ago, exercutor5 said:

What is within UEFI Boot?

this BIOS is my biggest issue with doing this move over to the SSD.

 

[exercutor5]

2 hours ago, lumenate88 said:

snip

Is there something called "SATA Operation" in one of the tabs?

[lumenate88]

1 minute ago, exercutor5 said:

Is there something called "SATA Operation" in one of the tabs?

none that i could find starting to think its impossible to set the msata in boot because this bios is so weird.

[exercutor5]

18 minutes ago, lumenate88 said:

none that i could find starting to think its impossible to set the msata in boot because this bios is so weird.

Okay, this is one weird BIOS, even in my Alienware 14 has that option for RAID / AHCI modes. Try updating the BIOS or something?

[lumenate88]

3 hours ago, exercutor5 said:

Okay, this is one weird BIOS, even in my Alienware 14 has that option for RAID / AHCI modes. Try updating the BIOS or something?

My bottom plate says June 4th 2014 and I've already updated to the most current BIOS from dells support using my Service Tag #.  I commented on Alienware Services Youtube page and got a vague response that I needed to switch to legacy mode under boot.  I have used legacy boot in the past but it takes longer to load up and doesn't look as streamlined during boot, no fancy animated "Splash" image.  I'm going to try this and install onto my SSD to see if it in fact works or not.

[lumenate88]

On 3/24/2016 at 0:37 AM, exercutor5 said:

Okay, this is one weird BIOS, even in my Alienware 14 has that option for RAID / AHCI modes. Try updating the BIOS or something?

So I've figured out how to get everything set-up.  What I did was I switched to ACHI from the advanced menu under InsydeH2O.  However I was able to use the default boot sequence set to windows fast boot and UEFI Boot.  When I set to legacy I get no boot options very weird... The UEFI boot works great though set up like the image I posted before and now that its on the SSD Windows boots in roughly 5-7 seconds.