Hey guys. This will be my first post on here and I'm stoked to be among other Thinkpad enthusiasts! I bought my first Thinkpad from Office Depot, where I'm working this summer until I go back to Clemson to finish my degree in CompE, and so far I love it. I think I will be a Thinkpad man from now on! Anyway, my e420 came with the core i5 2410M, 4 GB RAM (2 slots of 2) and a Seagate 500 GB 7200 RPM HDD. Well, I ordered the 8 GB upgrade from Micron (Crucial) which was two 4 GB cards and the installation went beautifully. So, now I'm up to 8 GB. It went so well that I decided to order the Crucial 256 GB M4 SSD. Well, this one didn't go nearly as well. The hardware swap was a cinch. Then I tried to load the recovery disks that I had made and the first disk wouldn't run. I then ordered a set from Lenovo and they ran but when they finished and I tried to boot it it said the boot manager was missing. Then, the repair disk didn't even see the OS at all. I didn't order the data transfer kit with the SSD because I planned on doing a fresh install thinking it'd be safer. Well, when I contacted Lenovo they said they couldn't help me with it because the drive isn't a Lenovo. So, I called Crucial and they swear up and down they are compatible. So, now I'm waiting on the EZ Gig data transfer kit (USB to SATA cable and software). But, I've read that Thinkpad drives don't clone well so I'm not sure this is going to work either. I know that Thinkpad's have this Hidden Partition and I'm wondering if this is the issue. I also know that there is the disk protection software within the ThinkVantage that stops the actuator arm in certain situations to protect the HDD.... Could this be part of the problem? I have AHCI mode activated in the BIOS and the BIOS sees the M4 SSD. I just can't get the OS to become bootable. Are these things incompatible? Is the cloning even going to work? Should I just get my money back? I love this machine and I really don't want to ruin it. I thought I was improving it and making it more durable. Should I even try to clone it? I've read that the cloning works for people and then they end up with freezes and BSOD's! Any help would be greatly appreciated guys. Thanks again and awesome to be part of the community. Court : North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Check in the BIOS if you are booting from UEFI or Legacy BIOS. ACHI and UEFI are 2 settings crucial to Thinkpads and SSD Compatibility. I'm running 2 SSD drives (one of which is the same as yours) in my machine but I use the Legacy BIOS mode as opposed to the bleeding edge(atleast for Thinkpads ) UEFI system, which has no support (officially) for the Fingerprint reader. I have done the installation using both Cloning software and recovery disks, and both methods have worked out just fine - and I am hard pressed to point out any discernible performance loss by going with the older, slower Legacy BIOS. at most, it's a few extra seconds at boot, and I'm fine with that.

To be perfectly frank, Clean installs are a somewhat militant stance on getting a performance boost. The SSD is fast enough as it is, but some power users want to eke out the last drop of juice from their hardware, and more power to them. In my view, most users will not be able to tell the difference between a clean install and a recovery one week later, once you've got all your programs up and running. They will however have put in a considerable amount of time manually downloading and updating drivers and utilities. Might as well let the Recovery suite do it for you!

So if you've got those disks handy, fire up the computer and install away, but be sure you are running with ACHI enabled, and Boot Priority set to Legacy in the BIOS -

Thanks so much for the reply. So, I checked in my BIOS and I am in AHCI mode for sure. As for the UEFI is says that I am set for BOTH, but Legacy first. Are these the correct settings? If so, then you think I should just go ahead with the clone? The data transfer kit is scheduled to arrive Tuesday. Micron overnighted it to me Friday and Monday is a holiday so... They did that free of charge so they have been great and I hear that this drive is supposed to one of the best if not THE best. I just don't understand why the recovery disks Lenovo sent are not working. Anyway, thanks again for the help. Court

I encountered some issues with installation of Ubuntu when I bought my T420 if it was set to "both", so I changed it to "Legacy" as I didn't feel like spending the time to get UEFI boot to work at the time. I'd change it to "Legacy" and give it a try.

Even though my computer worked just fine with the Boot setting on enabled to utilize both UEFI and Legacy, I would set it to legacy only, just to eliminate one possibility.

The Cloning software that Intel provides is excellent. It copies off the drive, including the hidden Lenovo partitions in a snap. I have not used Micron's Cloning solution as My OS is on the Intel drive, but I'm sure it will work just fine.

It is very nice of them to send you the cloning kit!

Thank you guys a lot for the help... So, I'm going to change that setting and go ahead with the cone tomorrow when the kit gets here. And, yeah that was really cool of them. It shows they have confidence in their product. Thank again guys. Also, could it be that there is a proprietary setting on those disks? Like maybe they think that I'm trying to install the OS onto another computer and thereby blocking me from "stealing" that copy of 7? I thought maybe that might be what it was. Anyway, you guys don't think that the software that stops the actuator arm to protect the HDD will mess withe the ssd do you? Or the auto defrag that comes with windows 7? I heard that defraging is bad for ssds? Any truth to that? Thank again. AWESOME forum....

AFAIK on my system, Lenovo Airbag Protection seems to be SSD-aware. When I open the applet in the control panel, the Accelerometer does respond to movement - the model laptop in the window mimics my laptop's movement exactly, but the software reports that the drives are still running. This is on the highest sensitivity setting. I've also disabled drive power-off and spin down in my power controls, so maybe it has something to do with that, but it is unlikely.

I think it would be nice if someone with deeper knowledge could confirm this.

Windows' Defrag tool will report incredibly bad numbers, such as 30% fragmentation on a week old SSD drive (as it does on mine) this is because SSD's store data in a fundamentally different way than HDD's. Trying to Defrag the drive is a pointless exercise, as the drive is aware of where each little bit of information is stored on the NAND, and it is so fast, it does not benefit from re-arranging it all into a single, sequential file as it would be on a Defragmanted HDD. Rather, the SSD deliberately stores data all over the NAND cells as its firmware does something called Wear-Levelling, which tries to ensure all of your NAND cells are getting equally written to(every NAND cell has a limited number of writes before it begins to fail) This helps in maintaining your Drive in a predictable, manageable way.

The reason Defragging is considered bad for SSD units is because it causes a lot of write cycles, as it rearranges data across the NAND. Even though the technology is now somewhat matured, and many early firmware errors have been ironed out, the general consensus is to try and reduce the number of write cycles on any SSD as a best practice. Every tip or tweak you find on SSD use with Windows will aim to reduce the write cycles (disable hibernate, disable System Restore, disable indexing etc.) in order to prolong the usable life of the NAND memory. A quick search on the web will yield many SSD optimization guides, and it would be a good idea to implement many of the suggestions given in them (At your own risk, however)

I see. Utilize the entire set of nand cells and thereby minimize the total number of writes per cell. So, assuming the clone works, I will use Norton Ghost to back up data instead of system restore and disable it. The obvious question, then.... Can I disable the auto defrag functionality in 7? Just if you happen to know off the top of your head.... I'm surprised that nobody has run up on this issue before me. At any rate, you have been more than helpful and that's really cool so I won't wear out my welcome, but; I'll try this clone tomorrow and let you guys know the results... For precedent's sake, if nothing else. I'm sure if no one has run up the issue yet then it's simply a matter of time. I welcome any input anyone might have. Thanks again.

A Caveat on System Restore - you can make backups manually using the Backup facility baked into Windows 7 (which is an excellent feature, by the way). What really needs to be turned off is 'system protection' the automated process that makes restore points to fall back on in case of failure. Norton Ghost is an equally good alternative.

I've had the Intel disk for about a month now. I have not experienced Windows trying to auto de-frag it up unto now. I think you will need to look in Scheduled tasks and disable it if the setting has been made there before.

Well, guys, it's a done deal. The clone worked perfectly and I'm now typing from the M4. This machine is A LOT faster... The Windows sign didn't have time to fly in and brighten at boot. LOL. It started to and then the password prompt popped up. Guys, I seriously can't tell you how much I appreciate the help. I am making the necessary changes mentioned above as soon as I finish this post. I just wanted to let you guys know and to, of course, say thanks. As I said (typed), I'm super stoked to be a member of the forum!!! Court

Just a quick update. The Micron (Crucial) M4 256 SSD continues to work perfectly in the Edge e420 with the core i5. I would highly recommend this upgrade. My only advice would be to make sure you order the data transfer kit along with it...