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August 5th, 2014 19:00
Formatting the Hard Drive?
Hello,
I have an Inspiron 15z 5523.
I have formatted the hard drive about 10 times so far because I am trying out different versions of Windows 8.1 to see which is the stable one since 8.1 Enterprise has got problems with changing themes.
So does formatting the hard drive cause any damage or is it just OK?
Also, is the Samsung SSD drive sticking with the 500 GB hard drive or is it a separate drive?
When I need to replace the 500 GB WD drive, will the 32 GB SSD drive be removed with it as well?
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Philip_Yip
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August 6th, 2014 17:00
You shouldn't need to but you may need to load SATA drivers during the install. The Intel Rapid Storage Technology might however give you some improvements if you install it but it might not install if its just for the cache drive.
Philip_Yip
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August 6th, 2014 02:00
Its fine, I have probably formatted my main drive about 100 times. Its had Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Ubuntu and Fedora on it aswell as various VMs.
I also have used DBAN which is much more aggressive than a standard format.
The 500 GB WD will be a 2.5" HDD likely and the 32 GB SSD will likely be a separate mSATA drive.
You may want to change the mSATA drive to a 256 GB SSD mSATA, change the SATA operation to AHCI and install Windows 8.1 directly on it which will give you far superior performance to the cache drive.
AmgedIsmail
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August 6th, 2014 15:00
Thank you so much nat for this information.
Well, what if installed a larger size SSD drive and then installed Windows 8.1 directly on it, I wont need to install "Intel Rapid Storage Technology" and "Intel Rapid Start Technology" drivers anymore or will I still have to install them?