New XPS 15z

[RaMMiT]

Originally Posted by me_prince

Hi Rammi,

That is scary. If we can't able to use the recovery dvds to copy to new hard disc or SSD then what is the use of them ?.
Do you think cloning hard disc to SSD also have issues?

Thanks

In a nutshell, here are the options:

If you were lucky enough (or smart enough) to have purchased the DVD Software kit (I think it's a $20 option on a new purchase) with your order, then that's by far the best method. Just so everyone's clear, the DVD Software kit consists of 6-7 black DVD's which together provide all of the software included with a new purchase. Dell overnighted me the entire set because I made a big enough fuss that they finally relented and sent them to me for free. But I think they finally agreed to this (which was my original request of them) only after one of their techs took control of my computer, downloaded and installed Dell Local DataSafe (which was never included with my computer) - then we created a USB recovery drive (8GB minimum needed) and he assured me I'd have the option to recover to the SSD AND have drive control options, like the ability to format and create/manage/delete partitions, which I needed the ability to do because I was running windows from the 2nd bay drive at the time - so that needed to be formatted during the upgrade process of recovering and restoring to the SSD. THIS DID NOT TURN OUT TO BE THE CASE.

Dell's recovery is almost a completely automated process, and you have very few options. He told me I didn't need to worry that windows was already installed on the 2nd bay (which I correctly assumed would cause confusion for the recovery determining which hard drive I wanted to recover to).

So after going through the process, I immediately knew it was installing to the 2nd bay because I could hear it spinning, and of course, there's no way to stop it. After it concluded, I booted from the green Windows 7 DVD so that I could adjust the partitions, and format/delete them myself. Initially I deleted all partitions, then I recreated 1 partition on the SSD and 1 on the HDD. Figuring that now there wasn't any version of windows to interfere, I retried the recovery. Again it installed to the 2nd bay.

So after finishing again, I booted with the Windows 7 DVD and I again deleted all partitions, and this time I just created a partition on the SSD leaving the HDD as unallocated space. Tried recovery again. Same result: "No operating system found." After this happened, I booted with Windows 7 DVD again so that I could see what was going on with the partitions and I discovered that the HDD still remained as unallocated space, and there were two paritions on the SSD, one labeled OS and the other Recovery. So the USB drive did recover to the SSD, but I still was getting the No OS error. It was time to call Dell (AGAIN). And btw, yes of course I properly arranged the boot order in the BIOS.

So it was on this phone call that I finally learned that the recovery will ONLY restore to the hard drive from which it was made. Actually they explained that it would only restore to the factory harddrive, because my natural inclination was to just get a completely stipped copy of windows ON the SSD, then install Local DataSafe, again create the USB recovery, and vai la ..it would be recovering to the drive from which it was made. The techs told me no dice on that, and that they didn't even understand how Dell managed to deliberately prevent that from working, but bottom line is ..it wouldn't. It was at this point that I pretty much flipped on em, and demanded to know how they expected people to upgrade their harddrives and still be able to have all of the software the computer comes with. Their solution was to overnight me the DVD software set.

So there's most of the story. But if you're an astute reader you might be asking how I was using the DVD's after I'd replaced my optical drive with the 2nd bay caddy. And the answer to that is I bought a USB 3.0 optical drive enclosure, which wound up saving me even more hours of frustration. So if I were you, I would definitely be adding the optical enclosure to your list of required components for this upgrade. You're going to need it anyway, because there will be that time when you absolutely have to use a CD or DVD, so it's worth the investment.

Ok, I hope I've answered most of the questions. If you don't have the recovery set, which I assume most of you don't, then pretty much you're only option is to convert your Windows 7 DVD into a bootable USB drive so that you can access the drive utilities you need, and install windows on the partition you create. But believe me - you are starting from scratch with this method. EVERYTHING will need to be installed.

And you might say, well why don't I just make a windows backup of the current windows partition im running and restore that to the SSD. I think someone should definitely try that, because it will probably work, but I knew I wanted to start fresh. Hope this helps. I have a tendency to over explain though .

[RaMMiT]

Originally Posted by BlueCreek

Well, I wasn't really planning on using a recovery image or any of the Dell software. I have an MSDN subscription, so am going to go with a fresh install. My plan was to:

1) Replace the HDD with the SSD
2) Fresh install of Win7 Ultimate (already ready to install from my USB flash drive)
3) Update Bios and SDD firmware.
4) Install dell drivers (already downloaded and ready to go)
5) Install the caddy & 750GB drive as slave.

I'll definitely check back later to see if you post the guide, but even if it's not ready, don't worry about it. I really appreciate the information you've already provided in your posts!

That's probably the best approach. Only issue with that is having to take the laptop apart twice, and so much of my frustration was rooted in the fact that I was trying to find a solution without having to first replace the HDD with the SSD (without installed the slave) - recover and get up and running - then take it apart again to install the slave. I knew that would be the path of least resistance in terms of 2nd bay conflicts, but like I explained, I was lead to believe that the USB recovery would perform exactly as I wanted.

The method you describe is absolutely that "path of least resistance," and I had done that the night I got the SSD. After the first recovery fail, I installed windows from the green DVD and I was up and running in no time - with the 2nd bay drive - all working exactly as expected. But it was my pursuit of streamlining the process so that you wouldn't have to go through the nagging task of starting at square 1 with a stripped version of windows. I just wanted to be able to factory restore to the SSD, and get a "factory result" as if the computer had been shipped in this configuration. Sadly, due to Dell's strict recovery drive options, it just didn't work out that way.

[BlueCreek]

Originally Posted by RaMMiT

That's probably the best approach. Only issue with that is having to take the laptop apart twice, and so much of my frustration was rooted in the fact that I was trying to find a solution without having to first replace the HDD with the SSD (without installed the slave) - recover and get up and running - then take it apart again to install the slave. I knew that would be the path of least resistance in terms of 2nd bay conflicts, but like I explained, I was lead to believe that the USB recovery would perform exactly as I wanted.

The method you describe is absolutely that "path of least resistance," and I had done that the night I got the SSD. After the first recovery fail, I installed windows from the green DVD and I was up and running in no time - with the 2nd bay drive - all working exactly as expected. But it was my pursuit of streamlining the process so that you wouldn't have to go through the nagging task of starting at square 1 with a stripped version of windows. I just wanted to be able to factory restore to the SSD, and get a "factory result" as if the computer had been shipped in this configuration. Sadly, due to Dell's strict recovery drive options, it just didn't work out that way.

With a fresh install and not using recovery disks, you could still do this with only pulling the machine apart once, couldn't you? Install both drives, then in BIOS, set the drive order as USB, SSD, HDD. Install a fresh copy of win7 from the USB device onto the SSD and you can boot from the SSD Win7 and format the HDD.

[RaMMiT]

Originally Posted by BlueCreek

With a fresh install and not using recovery disks, you could still do this with only pulling the machine apart once, couldn't you? Install both drives, then in BIOS, set the drive order as USB, SSD, HDD. Install a fresh copy of win7 from the USB device onto the SSD and you can boot from the SSD Win7 and format the HDD.

Yeah - you got the gist of it. Here's a quick step by step:

1. Go and print the sections of the Service Manual for the 15z that you'll need. The sections you'll need are: Before You Begin, Removing the Base Cover, Removing the Battery, Removing the Coin Cell Battery, Removing the Hard Drive and finally Removing the Optical Drive. Don't catch an ego , follow the instructions.
2. Make your bootable USB drive from the Win7 DVD image, and I would test it before you take everything apart and make sure you can successfully boot into Windows 7 Setup from it. Make sure you're plugging all bootable USB drives into the USB 2.0/eSATA port! The USB 3.0 ports need drivers to operate and you won't be able to successfully install windows from either USB 3.0 port
3. If you successfully make it into Windows 7 Setup from the USB drive test, I'd go ahead and format the HDD while you're in there and delete the partitions. This isn't completely necessary cuz you'll have the option to do this after you've installed the SSD too, but it's just better to start with both drives wiped to bar any conflicts from the existing windows install. Got me? For those that don't know how to get to the drive setup, once you're in the Win7 install, go ahead and click "Install" and then make sure you click "Custom." That will bring you to the drive utility section which allows you to choose where to install windows. Choose advanced down at the bottom, and delete both partitions (system and recovery)
4. After you delete the partitions, I'd just leave the drive as unallocated space. You'll fix that once you've got the SSD in. So after the HDD is unallocated space, cancel out of windows setup and exit, which will restart the computer, but just press the power button once the computer shuts down and before it starts to boot back up.
5. Go ahead with the installation - remove the primary hdd, remove the optical, install the hdd into the caddy, install the caddy, install the SSD into the (now vacant) primary position, and close 'er back up making sure to follow the reverse instructions that each section you printed includes.
6. Then just start at step 2 again by booting from the USB drive (I'm assuming from step 2 you know how to change boot order), get into setup, click install, click custom, and now you'll have drive 0 (which is your SSD because it's in the primary position) and you'll have drive 1 (which is your secondary). Both drives should be unallocated space. Create a partition on the SSD first because Windows will treat the first partition as the installation source and also set up a small 100mb partition that it needs for temporary system files and drivers. After you've got your SSD partition made, go ahead and allocate the 2ndary drive into its own partition. Once the 2ndary partition is made, I'd go ahead and click format on it. That step probably isn't mandatory but formatting is very quick, and it just ensures there won't be any problems with windows recognizing it.
7. Install windows onto the primary SSD partition, and you're pretty much done. Should be the fastest installation of windows you've ever seen .

And one last thing, after windows installs itself make sure and change the boot order on the first restart because if it boots from the USB drive again after its already installed windows onto the SSD, you'll go through setup alll over again, which ya don't want. That's why for me personally, I don't change the boot order, I just use F12 when I start up to access the boot menu, but by default, my primary is the first boot choice.

Once you're up and running in windows, you're going to need either the ethernet controller driver or the centrino wifi driver (i recommend ethernet initially). Otherwise you will not be able to connect to the internet to download them. So make sure you have the driver beforehand.

Ok that's it I think. Lemmi know if you got questions.

[BlueCreek]

All right, thanks so much for all the details. The laptop was just delivered, so I'm going to print everything up and kick off for home a couple hours early to get started!

Once again, thanks for all the help you've provided!

[BlueCreek]

Ok, didn't get a chance to start working on it until later than I intended and I'm a little frustrated at the moment. Performing an initial format of the HDD went fine, adding the SSD as primary and moving the HDD to the optical slot all went great. Did everything in about 30 minutes. Could probably do again in half that time now that I've done it once. Really not that difficult.

I booted from the USB, formatted the SSD and started installing windows. It copies over the files and expands them, reboots itself to start installing the windows features and then does nothing. It just has a blinking cursor in the top left and cranks away with the fan on high, but never does anything. Tried three times now with the same results each time. Everything looks like it is going well up until the point windows is supposed to start installing the features.

[RaMMiT]

Originally Posted by BlueCreek

Ok, didn't get a chance to start working on it until later than I intended and I'm a little frustrated at the moment. Performing an initial format of the HDD went fine, adding the SSD as primary and moving the HDD to the optical slot all went great. Did everything in about 30 minutes. Could probably do again in half that time now that I've done it once. Really not that difficult.

I booted from the USB, formatted the SSD and started installing windows. It copies over the files and expands them, reboots itself to start installing the windows features and then does nothing. It just has a blinking cursor in the top left and cranks away with the fan on high, but never does anything. Tried three times now with the same results each time. Everything looks like it is going well up until the point windows is supposed to start installing the features.

Did you change the boot order and/or remove the USB drive after the initial install of windows? Honestly it sounds like it's trying to boot from somewhere else than the primary (SSD).

I'm sure a lot of people scoffed when I talked about the software part of this being a lot more difficult than I expected. But this is definitely not a beginner's mod.

Try and give more details. What DVD did u make your boot drive from - what SSD are you using, did you reset the partitions, etc. I'll do my best to offer assistance.

[BlueCreek]

Originally Posted by RaMMiT

Try and give more details. What DVD did u make your boot drive from - what SSD are you using, did you reset the partitions, etc. I'll do my best to offer assistance.

I have an MSDN account, so I used an ISO file for Win7 Ultimate.

When I go into the bios, the only HD showing is the SSD (Crucial M4 128).
But when I run the Win7 install from the USB, both do show. The SSD comes up as Disc 0 and the regular HDD comes up as Disc 1. I deleted both then created a new partition for the SSD on Disc 0. (I left the HDD on Disc 1 unformatted.)

Like I said, it goes through copying the files and unpacks them, then reboots to start the windows installation and at that point kind of hangs. I let the last time run for about 45 minutes just in case, but it never did anything.

If I do run the install again, the SSD still shows up as Disc 0, but the HDD is split into two, Disc 1 Recovery and Disc 1 Unallocated.

What I think I am going to do is crack open the case and take out the 750 GB HDD so that there is only HDD and then re-try the install. But probably tomorrow morning since it's getting late now.

[BlueCreek]

Ok, decided to try it out tonight after all and that did it! Leaving the HDD disconnected allowed me to successfully install Win7 on the SSD. I'll hook up the HDD in the morning.

[lancorp]

I think Rammit was on the right track...did you check the boot order? Even better, when your 15z reboots after stage 1 of the Windows 7 install, press (actually repeatedly) the F12 key to direct you to the boot menu, then make sure you choose the SSD to boot from.

You can also just remove the USB stick during the first reboot, too, as the Windows 7 install doesn't need it (you can plug it back in once the SSD starts booting, if you feel like it).

Since I don't have two "HDDs" in my 15z, I can't say, for sure, how the system treats the HDD connected to the DVD connector, make sure in the boot options in the BIOS that the hard drive sequence is correct. You want your SSD to be the first hard drive in the HDD sequence.

Set your boot sequence however you want, and use F12 to manually choose the boot device during Windows 7 install.

Good luck!