K53TA.. The best deal ever... could be!

[tijo]

Put the SSD in the main bay and the HDD into the optical.

[Downpresser]

So, is anyone using duo hard drives in their K53TA?

If so, where can I grab a caddy to hold the second hard drive in the optical drive tray?

Put the SSD in the main bay and the HDD into the optical.

I'm not sure why that would make a difference. The BIOS sees both drives fine and allows me to assign boot priority properly. When the SSD is set as the only boot device it gives typical 'no boot device' error.

[ehancock]

You probably imaged it improperly

[Voodooi]

So, I bought and installed a Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD into my optical bay. I bought this caddy off of eBay after doing a lot of research so I was certain I could install the optical drive bezel onto it:

NEW SATA 2nd HDD Hard Disk Drive Caddy Box Adapter 12.7mm Universal DV25A | eBay

However, I haven't had much luck with it yet. I confirmed firmware of SSD is up to date and was able to clone my boot partition to it using Acronis (actually did a back of the partition first then restored it to the SSD because you cant clone from partition to volume, only volume to volume). This seemed to go fine and the BIOS of the laptop sees the SSD but when I tell it to boot to it...no go.

I haven't tried a clean install yet, which I'm guessing would work fine...i just would rather not miss a beat.

Thanks for the reply. Both you and HTWingnut have helped me find the correct caddy for the K53 Without you guys' help, I would of most likely purchased a wrong one.

Now I have to learn how to clone the boot partition. Is it simple to explain or is there a guide you can link? I googled it and people seem to have various methods on how to clone.

@tijo
So I would have to place the 120GB SSD in the optical tray, clone the stock HD, remove the stock HD, move the SSD to primary and the 750GB 7200rpm drive to the optical tray? (I'm ditching the stock HD)

I'm so excited to own my first SSD. I've watched YT videos and read the SSD NBR forum section and I'm amazed by the difference in performance when compared to a mechanical drive. I can't stand the 5400rpm hard drive "snail" performance that the K53 came with lol.

[tijo]

I'm not sure why that would make a difference. The BIOS sees both drives fine and allows me to assign boot priority properly. When the SSD is set as the only boot device it gives typical 'no boot device' error.

I'm going from memory, but i seem to recall people who had issues with SSDs in their G73s if the drive wasn't in the main bay. It won't hurt to try it anyways unless there is some massive disassembly required.

A bad image is also possible, if you have an external drive, backup the image and try with a clean install if all else fails.

[Voodooi]

I'm going from memory, but i seem to recall people who had issues with SSDs in their G73s if the drive wasn't in the main bay. It won't hurt to try it anyways unless there is some massive disassembly required.

A bad image is also possible, if you have an external drive, backup the image and try with a clean install if all else fails.

Good idea using an external, I'll try that once I learn how to clone.

So this would be the simplest method?
1. Plug in external HD and clone the stock drive
2. Remove stock drive
3. Place SSD in primary hub
4. Place mechanical HD in secondary hub (optical)
5. Clone image from external HD to SSD
6. Voila?

Any recommended cloning guides? I'd greatly appreciate it.

Edit: Found this : http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/disk-copy.htm seems simple enough. Should I go this route?

[Downpresser]

I'm going from memory, but i seem to recall people who had issues with SSDs in their G73s if the drive wasn't in the main bay. It won't hurt to try it anyways unless there is some massive disassembly required.

A bad image is also possible, if you have an external drive, backup the image and try with a clean install if all else fails.

Now that you mention it... I keep thinking it IS a pain to swap the internal HD in this laptop, but it's not. ...just every other laptop I have

I might try that to start. I've heard of fairly low success rates with copying boot partitions cleaning to SSDs but I'm going to figure it out one way or the other. I'll report back soon.

[tijo]

Edit: Found this : Free Disk Copy or Clone Software for Windows Server 2008/2003/2000 and Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 - EaseUS Disk Copy: Free Disk Copy, Partition Copy Software seems simple enough. Should I go this route?

I have used easeus successfully and easily to clone my N50 from the 320GB HDD to a 500GB, but i haven't used it for a SSD. Your main concern is whether the SSD will be aligned or not which is something i'm not certain easeus will do when you'll clone the OS.

Depending on the SSD you got, you might be able to get a cloning tool on their website or one might come with it. I know some versions of the M4 come with the cloning software, but others don't. Intel has a migration tool, i think kingston will allow you to get a copy of Acronis from their site to be used with their drives, but again, not certain.

[cerealbox]

Has anyone played Starcraft 2 on this rig? I thought I saw someone earlier in this thread say they can play Ultra with 55 fps? totally not achieving that right now.

[bnn]

Do you guys think this is a good buy ?

Cooler Master NotePal U3 Notebook Cooler Review | Futurelooks

I want to buy somekind of coolpad for my K53 machine. Please advise.


LE : My old coolpad is this one http://www.thewindowsclub.com/micros...ng-base-review but it doesn't seem to make any difference.