Removing Smart Response cache, use large SSD boot drive

Hi Philip,

Did you see this thread on that very topic?

I did, thank you. However, I didn't want to assume that the Inspiron 17R SE would have the same BIOS/chip set as the XPS 8500. If you're saying they do, that's great. I will begin steps 1-3 above.

I was also hoping for feedback on my general plan. Do you see any red flags? I'm always nervous when overwriting data, even when I have backups.

Thanks,

Philip

I do not believe you will be able to clone the system drive over to the mSATA drive due to size limitations. You really should do a clean install.

Well, I cloned my original 300GB system drive to the 256GB drive without a problem, I just made sure the actual space required was less than 256GB. With the Win8 factory install, C: has 35GB. My back of the napkin calculations suggest I've only got maybe 100GB of personal data from my old system, maybe 150. Any reason that wouldn't work this time?

One thing that looks strange, and I'm coming from a 3 y.o. HP laptop, is that I don't see a recovery partition. Seems possible from here:  

Curious where on the drive this is located if not in a dedicated partition.

Hey, good to hear the cloning worked.

The Win 8 OS restore utility is set up differently than Win 7 or previous operating systems. See this article for more information.

Well, the cloning worked on the old system, I haven't tried this one yet. That's because I'm not able to create the recovery media. There is a bug where after the first disc is created and verified, the second disc is continually ejected. I called tech support, and their research suggests it's a BIOS bug. Doesn't surprise me, as I saw a BIOS update fixed at least one other problem on this system, according to these forums. Looks like that version got shipped without proper testing. I will be calling hardware support next to walk me through that.

Regarding the cloning, while I couldn't see the recovery partition, disk management showed a total of 4 partitions, 3 without labels. So I'm crossing my fingers that the cloning software will work. Option 2, suggested by tech support, is to do the following:

1. create recovery media
2. use Windows easy transfer tool to backup Win7 machine
3. remove both drives from Inspiron, install new SSD
4. recover using media from step 1
5. restore using easy transfer tool

Problem with that is that I think I won't have those extra partitions. Can't say for sure as I've never done a recovery onto a new drive. 

Hope all this helps the next person, will update with my progress.

Thanks, I have another update. Dell still can't get it to work and doesn't know why. I've called them 3 times and Microsoft once at their suggestion, who quickly pointed out that Dell just asked them to help with their own software (it is *Dell* Recovery and Backup, after all :-) We updated the BIOS and made sure the DVD drive had the latest drivers, but no luck. Dell found a couple desktop.ini files that appear to have error logs from the Recovery software and are analyzing them. In the meantime, they're simply sending me the recovery media.

As for the partitions, both the MS tech and myself were surprised to find out they were completely empty! All 3, including the 13GB partition. The Dell hardware support tech said this is standard for Windows 8, which uses them as a cache/journal for unexpected shutdowns, but that seemed fishy since they machine had been up and they were still empty. He also didn't seem terribly confident and did suggest I ask software support. I might buy that Win8 doesn't use a recovery partition (even though that doesn't seem safe if the C partition gets corrupted), but don't understand why there are multiple empty ones on the drive. I'm supposed to get a call back from tech support today with their findings, we'll see what they say.

Thanks again!

Philip,

While the extra partitions (recovery and utility) are a convenience for Dell and its customers, they outlive their usefulness once you move the OS to a new drive. They take up too much space and it's simply not worth the effort to save them when external tools work equally well.