Amateur in need of setup/configuration help.

[idata]

I apologize in advance if this is the wrong place/format/medium to solicit help; that said, I am vastly too inexperienced with computer configurations to be able to sort through jargon, tech support everywhere has been absolutely useless, and I figured I might give community forums a shot. Please let me know what I might be doing wrong and show me the proper course of action, if possible.

Background: I've recently purchased a Lenovo Ideapad Y580 from the Microsoft Store. Prior to this, I've also purchased 2 Intel 330 SSD's. Each SSD was adequately configured into a second and third laptop without a hitch, simply by cloning the existing drive into each SSD, and then swapping out the stock HDD for the Intel 330's via a USB-SATA cable and some 3rd party data management software (EZGig I believe).

This was my same approach for the recently purchased Y580, but it seemed that this laptop came with a 750 GB HDD + 32 GB (flash memory?) configured in some way that was beyond me. I initially just cloned the 750 GB HDD into one of my (formatted) Intel 330 240 GB SSD's and swapped their places. The configuration worked swimmingly for about a day; speeds on everything were absurdly fast relative to what I was used to. 4 A.M. the next morning, Windows decided to update and abruptly crash. Figuring it was a fluke, I tried to just boot up again - but to no avail. I tried booting from the old drive, switching the boot order through F2/F12, booting in safe mode, nothing. It's here that I realized the old OS must've been erased or removed somehow when the HDD/SSD were switched, though I still have no idea how. Lenovo tech support offered their premium technicians' help only if I would feed them $60 and wait for a recovery disc to come in, so I opted to purchase Windows 7 Ultimate from a 3rd party instead.

At this point, I'm pretty fed up with the 32 GB portion and just wanted to get Win7U to install onto the SSD and be over with it. However, when trying to install onto the SSD, I kept getting and error message saying that the drive needed to be under GPT? I resigned to just installing the OS on the 32 GB portion. This allowed my laptop to function normally again, but at the cost of having no space (there was maybe 7 GB left after the OS installation). Now I try cloning the 32 GB into the Intel 330 240 GB since I could boot without any 2.5 drive in the laptop. However, no matter how I tried to reorder the boot configuration via the startup menus, I could not get Win7U to boot up from the SSD instead of the flash memory. This was mainly a problem because all the documents, media, program files, and everything on the desktop needed to be on the SSD in order to have space.

As far as I know, the 32 GB flash memory portion cannot be removed. Ultimately, I just want to have at least all the programs/media stored by default onto the SSD (D: drive). It doesn't matter if the OS would be stored on the 32 GB portion and the two drives be linked somehow (although I know absolutely nothing about RAID or how to set this up), or if I were to bypass the 32 GB portion altogether and just have everything run off of the SSD. I just want my new laptop back 😕

And yes I am aware that:

- I could just install the programs/put user files on the SSD directly, but this wouldn't really be a feasible set up.

- I should stop being stubborn and just attempt to restore the original 32 GB + 750 GB configuration, as it is efficient enough and that's how it was meant to run. Be it as it may, I only really wanted to have 1 SSD and it would be an optimal setting for me, despite the whole process being a pain in the ass.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions and/or if I could clarify anything in the post. Thank you.

[idata]

😕 anyone?

[UHans]

The 32GB drive might be a Mini PCI-e/mSATA card that can be physically removed. Check the Hardware Maintenance Manual at http://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mobiles_pub/ideapad_y480_y580_hmm_1st_edition_mar_2012_english.p... http://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mobiles_pub/ideapad_y480_y580_hmm_1st_edition_mar_2012_english.p...

The manual shows one WLAN and one TV tuner mini PCI-e card but your model might be equipped differently.

[idata]

Managed to remove the 32 GB but then ran into the GPT error when trying to install on the Intel SSD again. Tried to clone onto the Intel but just recently lost my USB-SATA cable. Tried to follow a guide to boot from an image that would repartition my Intel but anything I owned that had a burner died on me. This has been much more trouble than I expected.

[idata]

It seems Lenovo has found another way, in a sense, to "lock down" their products from owner modification, as some Apple products are. It is the GPT aspect of their configuration of that laptop that is the problem, as you know.

Without researching that PC, it sounds like they are using the EFI "safe boot" feature, which requires any drives used with the PC to be formatted in GPT format, vs the usual MBR Windows format. Windows 7 can format disks in GPT, but that may not be the simple fix you need. I would not try GPT formatting over a USB cable, a direct SATA connection would be best, done before attempting to install Windows on that PC. I may also be wrong about this, but this GPT error you mentioned points in that direction.