Putting SSD into Aspire ES1-132-C8WF

MarkieMAN64

Hi there. I'd previously asked some questions on this in a previous post (https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/548792/new-ssd-es1-132-c8wf) but @brummyfan2 suggested I ask a fresh question on it to open it up to everyone. That's just incase anyone thinks I've not seen that thread.

So, I'm planning on putting an SSD into my Acer Aspire ES1-132-C8WF. I bought the cable from eBay. I think I know pretty much what to do, but if anyone has step by step instructions, that would be helpful. Brummy, you did appear to post a blog with instructions for the process, but it wouldn't allow me to access the blog. Like I said, I think I'll be fine if not...but it might help.

Second is that I've not been able to find the metal casing/screws to hold the casing in place for this particular model. I've seen people suggest using bubble wrap or tape or some such thing to hold it in place. If anyone can advise me on this, that would be great.

I've seen it said that the SSD needs to be a 7mm thick one to fit in the bay. I know it sounds like a dumb question, but I'm guessing for that info, if the drive's listed dimensions are 10.1 x 0.7 x 7 cm, then that would be appropriate, 0.7cm being 7mm. I know as I type this it sounds like such a dumb question, but I just don't want to get the wrong one.

Thanks.

brummyfan2

Hi,
Remove the cover to access the HDD bay, run the cable through the groves,, connect the cable C to motherboard connector A, you can use any rubbery material  to secure the HDD in the bay, please have a look at the post with a picture to get an idea in this thread, your SSD is fine as it's a 2.5" and will fit in the bay.
https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/585190/solid-state-drive-bracket-help-aspire-v3-772g-9850

brummyfan2

Hi,
Remove the cover to access the HDD bay, run the cable through the groves,, connect the cable C to motherboard connector A, you can use any rubbery material  to secure the HDD in the bay, please have a look at the post with a picture to get an idea in this thread, your SSD is fine as it's a 2.5" and will fit in the bay.
https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/585190/solid-state-drive-bracket-help-aspire-v3-772g-9850

MarkieMAN64

Thank you. That is useful. So the "packing material" everyone is talking about is just a small piece? My thought was that the hard drive was too thin, and so needed something to make it thicker/wedge it...which made me confused why we weren't just getting a thicker SSD. Now that makes sense. Thanks so much. I'm sure combined with the instructions from the post you linked to and the one I mentioned in the OP, I'll manage without issue. If I do come across any issue, I'll be sure to ask, but otherwise, thanks again!

brummyfan2

You are welcome 

MarkieMAN64

Hey. Everything worked okay...till I tried to migrate the OS (as in that question I linked to in the OP.)

Everything was going fine, till it went to a black screen. I waited a while on the black screen. I then tried restarting. The Acer logo would appear, return to black screen. I tried booting to a USB drive as I'd sorted that out in media creation tool just incase, still goes black. BIOS works fine, it's just not doing anything. Have now set the SSD as the first option in the bios boot order because I read that I should just leave it. Should I have instead set it to boot to the EMMC drive (or whatever it's called) since that was what it was originally...then leave it?

Any advice would be helpful. Thanks.

MarkieMAN64

Or would you prefer I make this a new question too, @brummyfan2 ?

MarkieMAN64

Took out the SSD and the computer boots normally. Going to be honest, I didn't expect that to happen. Anyways, my plan is to either try again with migrating/copying the eMMS drive to the SSD or doing a fresh install of Windows -something I wouldn't mind doing first if someone tells me that might be best (I don't really have anything on the computer at the moment which would take very long to reinstall).

One thing was I appear to have got the wrong length of cable to plug in the SATA drive. There appears to be two different lengths of essentially the same cable (if not more). Have now ordered a new cable which, at least from photos, appears to be the correct length. I'm also going to use a USB to SATA cable to do this process as I figure that that would be easier to sort out than having to un/plug the cable inside the machine anytime I needed to for whatever reason. I guess it'll just be a case of putting the drive inside after that process...or is this all more bother than it's worth...?

One other quick point is that every video which I've watched either cloning or fresh install windows days you should remove the original hard drive in order to ensure that the computer is booting to the correct drive. I can't do that, so is there any way to ensure that the correct drive is being booted to without physically removing the old one?

These are minor questions which I'm sure I'll get ironed out...but it is very difficult finding advice for how to deal with these small laptops.

brummyfan2

MarkieMAN64 said:

Took out the SSD and the computer boots normally. Going to be honest, I didn't expect that to happen. Anyways, my plan is to either try again with migrating/copying the eMMS drive to the SSD or doing a fresh install of Windows -something I wouldn't mind doing first if someone tells me that might be best (I don't really have anything on the computer at the moment which would take very long to reinstall).

One thing was I appear to have got the wrong length of cable to plug in the SATA drive. There appears to be two different lengths of essentially the same cable (if not more). Have now ordered a new cable which, at least from photos, appears to be the correct length. I'm also going to use a USB to SATA cable to do this process as I figure that that would be easier to sort out than having to un/plug the cable inside the machine anytime I needed to for whatever reason. I guess it'll just be a case of putting the drive inside after that process...or is this all more bother than it's worth...?

One other quick point is that every video which I've watched either cloning or fresh install windows days you should remove the original hard drive in order to ensure that the computer is booting to the correct drive. I can't do that, so is there any way to ensure that the correct drive is being booted to without physically removing the old one?

These are minor questions which I'm sure I'll get ironed out...but it is very difficult finding advice for how to deal with these small laptops.

Hi,
Could you please tell us the method you used to migrate the OS from original drive to the new SSD.

MarkieMAN64

I did use minitool partition wizard. If I decide to migrate again (as opposed to a fresh reinstall), I might be inclined to try a different migration program. Do you have any recommendations? Whilst I did plan on just using the USB to SATA convertor to clear the SSD so it's ready to try again, is it worth using that to also migrate Windows/fresh install, or should I wait until the new (hopefully correctly lengthed) cable arrives..? I'm guessing I couldn't use that to actually run Windows, but would there be any disadvantages to using it to install/migrate it?

Also on that, I don't think the cable had anything to do with what happened, since the drive appeared just fine as a storage drive in Windows, but I'm probably not going to try to squeeze it in there again as it seems quite a fragile cable to be bending where it's not supposed to. So annoying that that didn't occur to me.

Am I correct in saying that drive c is the drive which you are booting from? I.e, if I either migrate or fresh install windows into the SSD from the eMMC then boot from the SSD, will that automatically be drive C? If so, will the eMMC automatically get assigned another letter? If not and if I should do that, how do I? I know how to change letters for other drives, but have never tried to swap letters for a c drive out of fear, mostly.

Sorry for all the follow up questions. Hope you don't mind.

StevenGen

What is the SSD that you are installing and trying to clone to? e.g. brand and model name? Because, the best cloning tool to do this with is the "Macrium Reflect v7" (see instructions here:  https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Cloning+a+disk) that you can use. For me the Samsung 2.5 and M.2 SSD's are the best and the simplest to install and clone, as their "Data Migration" software, is so very simple, quick and very rarely goes wrong. 

Note: 
1. Clone the boot C: drive (or whatever drive your boot drive is on) with the existing boot drive internally and the new SSD externally plugged into the USB by means of a SATA to USB or an M.2 to USB similar cable (see photo below, this is for a 2.5 SSD). 
2. After the cloning process is finished, you have to remove the existing internal boot drive and replace it with the new bootable SSD cloned drive.
3. Then go into BIOS and make sure that the SSD drive is shown in BIOS and its the 1st boot priority drive, 
4. El Voila, no hassel(s) and very simple to do!

MarkieMAN64

It's a SanDisk, which has no native software, but I think I may try Macrium out.

skögr87

could you share the link to the cable that you used? I am trying the same thing but I think the cable I am using is busted. Tried with a WD Green and now with a SanDisk SSD both of them have the disk showing in Disk Management but the disk will not initialise.

Thanks.

musicrab

I've just ordered a cable but for 332 model - which may not help those looking for a cable for the 132 model.  
https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/484882/acer-es1-332-c5e1-sdd-upgrade

Wow, Acer has so many models...  I don't suppose there's a list of models with SSD capabilites, but come with default 32GB emmc?  Good little value laptops these...apart from having to buy the ***** cable!

superspazio

StevenGen said:

What is the SSD that you are installing and trying to clone to? e.g. brand and model name? Because, the best cloning tool to do this with is the "Macrium Reflect v7" (see instructions here:  https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Cloning+a+disk) that you can use. For me the Samsung 2.5 and M.2 SSD's are the best and the simplest to install and clone, as their "Data Migration" software, is so very simple, quick and very rarely goes wrong. 

Note: 
1. Clone the boot C: drive (or whatever drive your boot drive is on) with the existing boot drive internally and the new SSD externally plugged into the USB by means of a SATA to USB or an M.2 to USB similar cable (see photo below, this is for a 2.5 SSD). 
2. After the cloning process is finished, you have to remove the existing internal boot drive and replace it with the new bootable SSD cloned drive.
3. Then go into BIOS and make sure that the SSD drive is shown in BIOS and its the 1st boot priority drive, 
4. El Voila, no hassel(s) and very simple to do!

Hello I am doing the same upgrade to this ES1-132, added RAM and SSD, then cloned the emmc to SSD. Having done this, I press F12 at startup so I can choose the SSD as the boot disk. Fine. The notebook starts up fine, the SSD is the C: drive and the eMMC is the drive, everythings works fine. This proves that the SSD is fully functional.

However, this is not all, because I cannot find a way to make the SSD the default boot drive. I have tried changing the order in the boot menu but this has no effect. In some way the eMMC always appears as the C: drive unless I call the boot menu (F12) at startup and select the SSD. In this way I cannot even update Windows, because of the many automatic restarts which bring back the eMMC as the boot disk.

I have read many complaints about this, so this is not just my issue.

Is there a way to make the SSD the default boot drive?

Thank you

MarkieMAN64

superspazio said:

StevenGen said:

What is the SSD that you are installing and trying to clone to? e.g. brand and model name? Because, the best cloning tool to do this with is the "Macrium Reflect v7" (see instructions here:  https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Cloning+a+disk) that you can use. For me the Samsung 2.5 and M.2 SSD's are the best and the simplest to install and clone, as their "Data Migration" software, is so very simple, quick and very rarely goes wrong. 

Note: 
1. Clone the boot C: drive (or whatever drive your boot drive is on) with the existing boot drive internally and the new SSD externally plugged into the USB by means of a SATA to USB or an M.2 to USB similar cable (see photo below, this is for a 2.5 SSD). 
2. After the cloning process is finished, you have to remove the existing internal boot drive and replace it with the new bootable SSD cloned drive.
3. Then go into BIOS and make sure that the SSD drive is shown in BIOS and its the 1st boot priority drive, 
4. El Voila, no hassel(s) and very simple to do!

Hello I am doing the same upgrade to this ES1-132, added RAM and SSD, then cloned the emmc to SSD. Having done this, I press F12 at startup so I can choose the SSD as the boot disk. Fine. The notebook starts up fine, the SSD is the C: drive and the eMMC is the drive, everythings works fine. This proves that the SSD is fully functional.

However, this is not all, because I cannot find a way to make the SSD the default boot drive. I have tried changing the order in the boot menu but this has no effect. In some way the eMMC always appears as the C: drive unless I call the boot menu (F12) at startup and select the SSD. In this way I cannot even update Windows, because of the many automatic restarts which bring back the eMMC as the boot disk.

I have read many complaints about this, so this is not just my issue.

Is there a way to make the SSD the default boot drive?

Thank you

Okay. Feels like that should be put in its own question, and if you don't feel my limited answer here at least points you in the right direction, feel free to do that.

May seem like a daft question, but you have went through the process of formatting and installing windows to the SSD, yes? You've not just taken a brand new SSD out the box and stuffed it in there thinking that was the end of the process. I recommend you do this using a thumb drive (setting the thumb drive as top priority).

You also should set the SSD as the C drive if it's not already.

There's not that much about the process from the step you are on to the end that is different from installing windows on a new SSD normally. Sorry I can't be more help than that. This was a few months back. A lot has happened since then.

Like I said, best to post a fresh question as it will be seen by a lot more people.

superspazio

Thank you for your suggestion MarkieMAN64. Actually I did format the SSD prior to cloning the eMMC onto it, but I cannot set it as the C: drive because the eMMC is the C: drive. When I boot the notebook with F12 I can choose to use the SSD as the boot disk and in this case the SSD automatically appears as the C: drive while the eMMC is given a different letter. In any case I will try and reformat the SSD following your suggestion. Could you explain what you mean when you write "I recommend you do this using a thumb drive (setting the thumb drive as top priority)." Thank you