Loads of problems putting SSD into MSI Laptop!

JP01

JP01

JP01

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Joined
30 Dec 2010
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35
Hi guys,

I'd be really grateful if anyone could help, literally spent hours trying to fix this one!!! :(

So I recently got a new MSI Laptop (GT60 2PC Dominator) which didn't come with a SSD. I've just purchased one (Crucial M500 240GB) and am having a bunch of problems trying to clone my windows over to it, or set it as my boot drive!

The MSI laptop comes with Windows 8.1, which doesn't have any kind of install media or product key that I can find.

Basically my plan so far has been to get the SSD installed in the second drive, then use a clone tool to clone the existing partitions onto the new drive. This has finally worked, which was really tricky to achieve but I've gotten there.

Now I can't set my SSD as the main boot drive. Within the BIOS, it only presents me with the options of 'WINDOWS BOOT MANAGER' rather than letting me pick between the two drives. I have tried setting to UEFI with CSM mode, or Legacy mode, because that came up as a suggestion, but no luck there, either.

The bios won't let me set the SSD as the boot drive. I've also tried just to use the bios to reset my laptop and install windows 8 freshly onto my SSD, but that doesn't seem to be an option to re-install windows 8.1 onto a different drive.

Lastly, I've also tried just disconnecting the old HD and booting up with the SSD inside, but that didn't work either.

Anyone have any ideas?!
 
At splash screen you should get an option for the boot menu,on gigabyte its f12,not sure on msi then you pick which hdd/ssd to boot into

Use jellybean software to recover your windows key
 
Hi Wazza,

Good idea! Okay, that worked from the perspective that it showed me the crucial drive and i then clicked enter to boot from it. Though what it didn't seem to do was give me the speed from SSD, it was still really slow on booting up.(loading all the programmes when windows starts.) So I'm not 100% sure it was actually using the SSD. I tried disconnecting the old HD again, and using the boot menu to load from the SSD. But windows just comes up with an error screen saying windows failed to load....

Your idea about jelly bean also helped, as it let me retrieve my windows key. But what went wrong was that I tried to download the clean install of windows 8.1 and burn to DVD, which would help, but it says my OEM key can't be used as its not classed as a 'product key' :(
 
Try with just the ssd attached and boot from windows disc,then do a startup repair,might need to repeat it a few times but it should fix the startup

Your oem key,you could try phone activation then key in oem serial over the phone and they will issue you with a new key
 
Hi Wazza,

Thanks for your reply again :)

I don't have any media for Win8 with my machine, its all on partitions. I did find one thing though, MSI have a burn recovery thing that lets you burn some recovery discs. I'm going to try those now and hoping that might fix it.

I tried using the start up menu and the repair options, but they only let me recovery the old HD, there's no options to ever fix anything relating to the SSD :(
 
Hey Wazza,

Good news - finally did it!

I tried with loads of cloning programs, none of which successfully managed to work.

This might be helpful for anyone else who gets one of the new MSI laptops and wants to install to a SSD:

I opened Burn Recovery from the app page, used that to create 5 x DVD back up of the system.

Then I removed the old HD, leaving only the SSD in. Placed the first recovery disc in and booted from DVD/CD drive.

Followed that process and now I have an install of Win8 with the MSI stuff on my SSD. I then just got Win8 running, inserted the old HD and reformatted it!

Sounds pretty easy, but there was a lot of trial and error involved to that point. It would be interesting to know if anyone with one of these models ever gets a cloning program to work and what the steps were, but for now I would 100% recommend that method to get an SSD running.
 
Hi mate, I'd suggest doing a clean install on the SSD Alone and seeing how that reacts. Cloning to SSD's generally isn't the best idea.
 
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