I'd like to add an mSATA Samsung 840 EVO to an HP ENVY TouchSmart 17 quad-core...

matermark

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Hi, I picked up a brand new sealed Samsung 840 EVO 250GB mSATA drive (card?) to add to an HP ENVY TouchSmart 17 4700MQ. I'd like to clone the original drive and maybe use the original as a data drive, but without reformatting if possible--it has a 3-year warranty (the laptop) and would like to keep the original drive as close to factory in case I have to send the laptop in under warranty.

Has anybody done this on a Envy TS 17-j000 (2013?) What's involved to get to the mSATA connector on the 17"? I read the 15" was pretty easy. Is it being used for anything?

Is this possible without formatting the original drive? If not, I'll get another drive for data.

The Samsung software says it won't clone factory-style hidden partitions. Is there a freeware or inexpensive software that will?

My laptop came with Win8, and the hidden recovery partition (a refurb.) I updated everything to get to download and upgrade to Win8.1 from the MS Store. Can I get an 8.1 ISO image from MS for free? an 8.0? What do I need to do?

Is it easier to get a cable to connect the mSATA card as a 2nd HDD instead? I thought it would be better to leave the spot for future use, just in case, and went with the mSATA.

I've rarely seen Recoveries go smoothly--should I make a set of recovery discs? Would they be 8.0 or 8.1? Is there a way to copy everything to a USB 2.0 32GB flash drive?

Any other tips? Your help is greatly appreciated.
 
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as long as the destination drive has enough space, it will work just...

terroralpha

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you need a drive cloning software like acronis. just use the "clone" option and it will copy it all over. also, upgrading the RAM and HDD does NOT void the warranty. we do this at work all the time and Dell, Lenovo and HP still repair dead laptops that are under warranty even though some parts are not original. as long as the screen and motherboard are untouched, you will be OK
 

matermark

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Aug 7, 2014
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Does it matter if the current drive is larger than the mSATA SSD? I think there's about <200GB on the 1TB HDD... the SSD is 250GB, so less data than the SSD capacity, but overall bigger HDD capacity.

Also, Win7 & Win8/8.1 are all new to me, I thought I read you can't clone a HDD to a SSD and leave both in the same machine, how do I get thru this? and what is the modern format of these latest drives (GIPT or ?) and how new does the cloning software need to be? I thought I had Acronis True Image on my XP laptop and maybe Partition Magic too, but didn't have any use for them and may have got rid of both, will have to check. Does it matter if 32 or 64-bit software?
 

terroralpha

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as long as the destination drive has enough space, it will work just fine

i cloned an 750GB HDD to a 256GB SSD with acronis without any problems for my dad's SONY laptop.

after i finished cloning the drive, i stuck the old laptop drive in a USB enclosure for my dad to use as an external drive for back ups without even formatting it. it worked just fine too.

in order to clone SSDs, you need a recent version of acronis. 2012 or newer. 2011 works too, but 2012 and newer work better. nothing older than 2011 will work right.

GPT is not a file system, it is a partition table. a new drive should not have a partition table set up. acronis should do this for you on a new drive when cloning
 
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