How to reformat hard drive after installing mSata

[#1]

Question

I need some help with reformating my 500GB hard drive after installing new 80GB mSata SSD.

I want to eliminate the factory partitions of the 500GB so it shows up as 1 drive that I can use to store files and run games from. I tried to do a reformat but it still shows the drive formatted into 2 drives whereby one being empty and the other having about 199MB taken up.

Any pointers?

Answer

Section A: Before re-formatting the 500GB hard drive

1. Burn a recovery disc for your machine.
2. Use OneKey Recovery software that comes pre-installed on your machine.
3. There is an option to burn a factory reset recovery disc. 
4. Make sure you back up anything important on your hard drive like music, pictures, etc.
5. There should be a folder named Lenovo in C: .
6. In folder Lenovo, you will find a folder named drivers and another folder named applications.
7. Burn them on a cd. You will need  to install them on your computer once you have re-installed Windows. 

Section B: Re-formatting the 500GB hard drive

1. If you have a copy of Windows on a cd, put it in your disc drive, restart Windows, press F12 during start-up, select boot from cd. 
2. Delete your old partitions and create a new one or as many as(only 4 partition will be seen in Windows 7 though) you need
3. Re-install Windows on whichever partition you like 
4. You can get windows from the microsoft web-page and burn it on a cd if you don't yet have a cd. 
5. Use the Windows product key on the bottom of your laptop to activate it. 

Note: Do not forget to re-install drivers from the Lenovo drivers and application backup cd you made in Section A Step 6!

Otherwise, you're computer will not run correctly. You can decide whether you want to install the applications again, but drivers need to be installed. drivers are also available on lenovo support under drivers.

Remember that Windows creates a partition for Windows to run out of thus you will always have a small partition seperate from your main partition. 199MB sounds about the size of that partition. Do not try to delete it otherwise you will not be able to boot up your Windows.

Special considerations when using Lenovo mSATA drives received as FRU / Service parts

Please note that if you have received a Lenovo 16, 24, or 32 GB mSATA drive as a service FRU, it is shipped blank with no partitions and must be manually partitioned.  For instructions on this proceedure, please refer to this related article on the Lenovo Support Site.