Build a PC

[Anonymous]

Thanks JayCee

It is a strange bios, it says F2, F2 is for Lenovo Recovery, it’s F12 for boot sequence. It has never shown a USB in boot, always got one in.

Since changing boot to Legacy I see USBs option in the boot sequence, I now see my USB DVD.

I am hoping the legacy controls the PCIe sata ports and I can use it for the Lenovo HDD.

I don’t think the link covers Lenovo E50-00 Desktop

 

[Dave Rice]

Don’t worry about booting from a pci-e card, you won’t have to. You have 2 SATA ports on the motherboard so you put the drive you want to boot from, the SSD, on one of those. If you think that booting from your internal DVD will be important then put that on the other. The HDD will only being used for data so who cares if you have to wait for Windows to load the drivers? You’ll only be accessing it from Windows anyway, you won’t be booting from it.

I am setting up a couple of laptops at the moment, after that I am going to look for the SATA card.

EDIT your screen shot just sunk in. How are drives D:, E: and F: connected?

You appear to have 4 HDDs, one 250GB, one 220GB and two 1TB. Or have you partitioned a much larger drive?

[JayCeeDee]

Dave – that set me thinking as well, and then I noticed that drive D and F are 1GB drives not 1TB!!:-)

[Dave Rice]

Well spotted! I think it may be a 500GB partitioned up, I’m sure John will tell us.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Dave & JayCee
I use C: for O/S only D: (1GB) is regular E: (100+GB) is large files F: 1GB is a backup of D

E is a fluctuating drive at the moment it was used for converting my Dads VCR to DVD (2.51GB)

Lenovo Recovery 37GB True Image backups 146GB eventually I will delete some of the backups.

TV card recordings (ie from VCR) empty at the moment but does use a lot at times.

Windows 10 Pro ISO 3.28GB (will be deleted eventually)

Utilities (empty at the moment) up to 10GB

I use E: for temp files while burning to DVD

I can do without some but would rather not.

I have a 500gb HDD

C: = 234GB total used 46GB

D: = 1GB total used 642mb

E: = 204GB total used 161GB

F: = 1GB total used 642mb

Then a secret partition Lenovo Factory Backup

My Asus is similar all my past rigs have been the same even down to my Amiga 1200 (in the older days) I am backup conscious. The backups are also on a USB 1TB HDD and on USB Thumbs and on 2.5″ HDDs to USB.

I tend to keep them on the rig as they transfer faster than USB and like to have them at hand. All the backups fluctuate over time. I can directly backup to the USB Tetra but it’s not as quick as backing up to an internal drive.

120GB will do but I always look for ways to keep stuff on a rig. I was looking at Sata power switches (too expensive) so I can switch from the SSD to the Sata HDD. Rather than keeping the case open and swapping plugs.

[Anonymous]

Oh yes

I am also considering re trying PCIe Sata ports for my 500GB

This post has created page6 see page 5 for Drive configuration.

[Dave Rice]

Found the pci-e SATA card will try and test it this afternoon.

John, you won’t need to swap cables. There are two on the motherboard and two on the card = 4 drives. Personally I would have the SSD and DVD on the motherboard and any data drives on the card.

[JayCeeDee]

John – just a couple of points, – which back-ups are the latest ones, on the un-attached 1TB drive or on the internal 500GB drive that’s split??

With all the WannaCry Ransomware furore, I’ve made sure to have all my back-ups on an un-attached drive ( mine is currently being replaced as it’s playing up. )

As your set up is at the moment, you’ve opted for the riskier route, as if your only drive fails, you could lose your back-ups too. If it’s Acronis you use – which I think it is – you can set backups of 1 x full backup plus 2 x differentials. You can make 2,3,4,5,6etc versions of this “set”.

When you’re running the SSD with the OS, and the spinner with all your data, it’ll be easier to manage. For peace of mind, always keep an up-to-date back up copy of the data drive that isn’t attached to the computer – what they call “air-gapped”.

[Dave Rice]

OK, with the drivers installed from Startech it’s recognised by W10.

Here it is shoved in one of my PCs with an SSD (disk 1) on the motherboard and an old W7 drive (disk 0) from the laptop I’ve just been setting up on the pci-e card. On it there’s two Windows data partitions, a Linux dual boot partition and a Toshiba recovery partition on there (there won’t be in a minute ?). So your setup will end up looking very much like this John.

Whilst it is possible to boot from this card it just adds needless complications. Boot from the SSD, have the internal DVD on the other motherboard port and your old drive on the card. Job done.

Now I’ve lost your address John!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Dave that’s a plan

Jaycee the backups are created on the PC HDD then backed up to the 1TB

That’s the point of other backups, you never know when the 1TB is gonna play up or even the PC HDD

Fresh install is backup 1 then I backup as I go (1-8 etc) until the install is complete.
Once I am happy with stability I delete 2-7

The TB is USB and only on when I need it, I switch from Lenovo to Asus. “air-gapped” are the 2,5″ and the USB thumbs.

Looking good Dave I just hope the Lenovo sees it on boot.

I will try and PM my addy

[Anonymous]

Dave just before I take the plunge with the SSD on the Lenovo

is it the better choice, than the Asus

 

[Dave Rice]

The Lenovo is the better choice by a mile.

“Looking good Dave I just hope the Lenovo sees it on boot.” John, there is no reason why not but Windows won’t see it until you install the drivers. Leave it all unplugged when you install the SSD, get basic W10 working with just the SSD plugged in then start adding things.

I’m using ToDo backup free to do the backups of my laptop (to a server share). It manages the old backups for me. It’s setup to do a weekly disk image and a daily file backup.

Each job has an image reserve strategy and this is what the daily one looks like, it’s set to preserve the last 7. You can see where I’ve missed a few days. It’s deleted the older jobs for me.

It’s dead easy to set up, it manages itself and best of all it’s free ?

But that’s for later. Get the SSD working first then we can figure out the best way to keep it all safe.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Dave Lenovo it is for sure, I thought after posting the above but couldn’t delete the post.

As you say get the SSD running.

[Anonymous]

The SSD arrived, I installed it and started to install Windows 10 (using the Lenovo DVD.

After the first session it restarted, but hung at the splash screen.

I waited and waited and turned it off, on turning it back on it said getting things ready.

After that it restarted and hung on the splash screen, I turned it off/on and it went to express settings, after that it restarted and hung on the splash screen.

I gave it some thought, apart from it’s the SSD all previous installs have been ok.

After head scratching, the only difference is setting boot to legacy, I disabled legacy and all is fine I am now updating Windows.

So after all that I can’t use the USB rom to boot.

[Anonymous]

The SSD arrived, I installed it and started to install Windows 10 (using the Lenovo DVD.

After the first session it restarted, but hung at the splash screen.

I waited and waited and turned it off, on turning it back on it said getting things ready.

After that it restarted and hung on the splash screen, I turned it off/on and it went to express settings, after that it restarted and hung on the splash screen.

I gave it some thought, apart from it’s the SSD all previous installs have been ok.

After head scratching, the only difference is setting boot to legacy, I disabled legacy and all is fine I am now updating Windows.

So after all that I can’t use the USB rom to boot.
Cheers
John

[Dave Rice]

It’s a minefield John, I’m having the same issues with an Asus Transformer. You may well be able to boot from the DVD if the media is set up to boot from EFI. Yes it’s not just the BIOS settings it’s a whole lot more involved. If you have a mix of old and new you’re stuffed.

The important thing is that you’re up and running on the SSD.

[Anonymous]

Yep so far it’s running a treat, for now I am using USB3 thumbs for D: & F:

Paragon (BR14 Free) is my choice for backups (to the 1GB USB Tetra) I can boot Backup & Recovery CD from main DVD but I doubt it will see the USB drives.

In the back of my mind I recall you suggested W10 backups, I will look into that once I have completed the install (long process)

[Dave Rice]

It should be able to see a USB as a target for backing up to. Paragon’s more flexible than W10’s backup and says:

Supported Computer Bus Interfaces
Complete UEFI Support
Parallel ATA (Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment)
SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment)
External SATA (eSATA)
SCSI (Small Computer System Interface)
iSCSI
USB (Universal Serial Bus) 1.x/2.0/new3.0
IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
All types of RAIDs (hardware and software)
PC or PCMCIA Card (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association)

[Anonymous]

I mow have a few paragon backups (Paragon Backup & Recovery) installed on W10).

Sadly I find it rather confusing when in the recovery part. Paragaon (CD boot) can see all my drives on the USB Tetra except the drive with the backups on.

Further investigation needed at the end of installs on the SSD.

[Anonymous]

Dave Rice wrote:

Found the pci-e SATA card will try and test it this afternoon. John,

Thanks for the card Dave sadly I have a conflict in Device Manager, tried searching for a driver, to no avail.

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