The Definitive Guide to Clean Install OS on a mSSD Cache Equipped Laptop (dv6t-7000, dv7t-7000, Envy17-3200)

After owning my dv6-7000 and lurking the owner lounge here for two weeks, I realized there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding the mSSD (a.k.a mSATA SSD) and Intel Rapid Storage Technology. This guide is to debunk the myth that if you have configured a mSSD in a dv6t-7000 or dv7t-7000, you can’t reformat your drives or reinstall Windows without jumping through major hoops (like using linux or pulling the mSSD off the motherboard). This will help you solve the problem of Windows installation reporting “No drive is found” or only showing the second hard drive (if you have one installed). This guide will also help people who wish to upgrade the mSSD for bigger one for OS install or put in a new SSD in place of the hard drive. I gathered the information here by reading various threads and some personal experiment and I figure I will make a nice guide that people can follow. It is actually not necessary to enable/disable RAID configuration in BIOS, as it is being done in Intel Rapid Storage Technology software in Windows. So the entire process is very painless. Without further due, here are my steps:

1. Back up the SWSetup folder from your C:/ drive.
2. Type in Intel Rapid Storage Technology at the start menu to access it.
3. Under the “Accelerate” tab, select “Disable acceleration”. (see attached screenshot)
4. After step 3, you should see a new option “Make available” on the same tab. Click on that, now you have completely disassociated the mSSD from the cached drive. Restart computer.
5. (Optional) Reformat the mSSD in Windows’s Disk Management (type in Disk Management in start menu). When prompted, choose MBR as the initialization type. Now you can use the mSSD as a drive. (see attached screenshot)
6. From here, perform your upgrade. You can swap out the mSSD or the system hard drive, or simply proceed to the next step to reinstall Windows. For demonstration purposes, I am just going to swap in an old 160 GB drive I have around and clean install Window 8 Release Preview.
7. During POST screen, hit ESC and then select “Boot Device Options” and choose the device to boot from. I have the Windows image on a USB drive, so I am going to boot from that. If you want to perform a recovery with your recovery media. Go to the same place and boot from the recovery media. (see attached shot of the screen). Note that I have to use the USB 2.0 port for the USB drive to show up in BIOS.
8. Install Windows or perform recovery as usual. Attached screenshot shows that both the mSSD and my 160 GB drive being available for OS install. (see attached shot of the screen)
9. Install necessary drivers.
10. Go to Intel Rapid Storage Technology (you have to install this). Enable acceleration again under the “Accelerate” tab, if you need to. I wanted to show a picture of enabling SSD acceleration in Windows 8, but the NET Framework that is required for Intel Rapid Storage Technology doesn’t play nice under Windows 8. (see attached screenshot)

So here they are, ten easy steps to perform clean OS install or hard drive upgrade on a mSSD equipped HP laptop. That was not so hard, was that? The entire process took me less than an hour and I typed up this guide the process. In my opinion, if you are not upgrading your hard drive to an SSD in the immediate future, it is worth every penny to get the mSSD cache. It really provides near SSD performance while still allowing a large storage drive, for a low low cost. So please don’t shy away from it because you think you won’t be able to clean install OS or reformat your hard drive.
Additional information: There are two SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports on these Ivy Bridge laptops. On my dv6t-7000, it is the mSATA and the hard drive port. I know an Envy17-3200 has only one hard drive port that supports SATA 6.0 Gb/s (thanks to Jerohm). I therefore believe that the mSATA and the first hard drive port on the Envy17-3200, and by extension, the dv7t-7000, are SATA 6.0 Gb/s capable. If anyone has a dv7t-7000 want to verify this, let me know, I can show you the steps. This information is important for maximizing the performance of mSSD/SSD drive.

Please feel free to comment and provide additional insights and I will integrate them to the guide.

EDIT (08/04/2012): According to this thread, you'd need a Win 7 disk with SP1 for the mSATA driver so the install can go through. You can find digital river links to the Win 7 disks here:
How to Install Windows 7 Without the Disc | PCWorld

 

I have a very unfortunate error in that the computer crashed while disabling the mssd cache in windows 8. I cannot boot into windows, and the recovery and install disk can now not find my hard drive. Any idea what to do?

 

This issue has been fixed in another thread.

On to my question:

If I disable Intel RST, can I install Ubuntu to my main hard drive, and then re-activate Intel RST for Windows?

 

Theoretically, yes, but in these steps:
1. Disable acceleration
2. Select "Make available" to dissociate drive.
3. Enable acceleration but instead of choosing "Full Volume", you can choose to only use 18.6 GB. That's the only other option available for a 32 GB drive, you can't go down any more.
4. Format what's left in disk management.

Note, this still leaves the mSSD in RAID 0 with your harddrive, if you ever need to delete the RAID volume on the mSSD for some odd reason, I suppose your Linux installation would be gone too.

 

Sorry, misread your question that first time. I actually don't know about your scenario. What I describe before is for installing Ubuntu on the mSSD and have acceleration for Windows.

 

This thread was soooo helpful! Thank You! I was one of those folks you were talking about thinking that preforming a clean install with a mSATA SSD install was going to be a pain in the monkey's butt... +Rep

 

I've read through the maintenance manual and it looks as though getting to the mSSD requires nearly complete dismantling of the machine.

Remove the battery (see Battery on page 46), and then remove the following components:
a. Hard drive (see Hard drive on page 47)
b. Optical drive (see Optical drive on page 54)
c. Keyboard (see Keyboard on page 57)
d. Top cover (see Top cover on page 61

How long does this take and is there significant risk of damage (static or thin ribbon cables etc) ?

I have a Samsung 128GB ready to go, but loathe rebuilding the machine.

 

An update for you: I had the dv6 replaced by a dv7 with dual hdd. Using this process, I replaced the primary drive with a 128GB Samsung 830, loaded windows from a USB drive, then accelerated the secondary drive (rather than format, 32GB wasn't worth it). Process works perfectly.

 

Is it possible to run the mssd as another hard drive completely with out the cache tech from intel. To run your OS with trim and all programs. Because I want to install a Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD3 mSATA 256GB SATA III in place of the 32gb factory drive and use it for my OS and programs. So my other drives are just storage and upgrade my ram to 16gb of vengeance series.

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
3rd generation Intel i7-3610QM Processor (2.3 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M Graphics with 2GB GDDR5 memory
8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
1.5TB 7200 rpm Dual Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive
32GB mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache
6 cell + 9 cell Lithium Ion Battery
17.3-inch diagonal Full HD Anti-glare LED-backlit Display (1920 x 1080)
Blu-ray writer & SuperMulti DVD burner
HP TrueVision HD Webcam
Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth
Backlit Keyboard with numeric keypad

 

Anyone tested mSATA SSD with sizes bigger than 32GB?