Lol, suspicions were right.
Gets past the initial loading screen every time with the mechanical HDD. It's almost as if the content loads before the actual loading screen comes up when its off the SSD, therefore the game misses the trigger to continue onto the main menu.
It's not a crash to desktop, it's just that the loading screen gets stuck into an infinite loop and never actually progresses past it.
I'll get a video recorded in a bit to show what I mean, but if im right then this could become a common problem with fast SSD's!
My HDD is a 7200rpm, so miles slower than the SSD and slower still than your Velociraptor... Obviously Codemasters didn't try the game on anything except 5400rpm HDDs i guess.
I installed onto an Crucial M4 (0009) last night just fine, pretty sure thats faster than your Raptor

The legitimacy of my install... dubious, till the postie arrives tomorrow anyway, but it installed just fine.
Im still concerned by how many shortcuts Codemasters have taken to do things in the game, im not aware of any rule that allows you to overtake under SC simply because you have a bit of damage to your front wing, let alone the fact that ive seen cars drive through another because otherwise they'd be stuck. They take shortcuts, it might make *some* sense what they do, but if it isnt realistic, it isnt realistic, simple as that.
In that video, after the driver pitted on his outlap he had Vettel trying to pass Massa who had no front wing. There was seemingly a big crash just before the pit entry on that first lap, so why hadnt Massa pitted?? How had such a heavy crash happened under SC?? Seems very odd tbh. I just hope there isnt going to be a long list of faults with the game, like last year, where elements of the game werent really coded in properly, it was just done lazy to say it was in the game and then abandoned once they'd cashed in and wanted money for 2011.