G580 swap hdd to sdd SOLVED!!!!!

Question

Hello,
I just purchased a Lenovo g580 with win preinstalled.
the computer seems extremely slow, and was being choked by the SLOW hard drive, So I purchased an ocz vertex 3 SDD to replace the hard drive
I ran into problems, I figured I could just install the SSD and reload win8 and use a coa key on bottom of computer...
after turning over the notebook, I see there is no coa for win8 preinstalled systems, well, ok   I know how to get the code from the system, I got the coa and entered it into the retail win8 install program, and no go, was not a coa for retail install
I tried all the forums to see if I could just simply copy the drive... after trying dozens of free copy drive programs, and MANY reloads, I found a way to do this and was so easy.. and I wasted so much time.... on the info boards.. no body knew how to do this unless you order the recovery cd's from Lenovo for 89 bucks
Here is how, purchase Paragon Migrate OS to SSD 3.0.. It's only $19.99 and it works!!
http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migrate-OS-to-SSD/
simple, install, run the program with SSD plugged in via usb adapter/  I had my ssd plugged into usb port using an SATAIII adapter I purchased at tiger direct, compusa..
program asks for where you would like to copy HDD to?   select SSD and go!
5 minutes later, it was done, power down, replace HDD with SSD, restart into bios, select boot to your new SSD, save changes, and BAMM!   it works !
Hope this helps everyone

Answer 1

This is how I did (thanks to the information I found here: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-U-V-Z-and-P-series/Backing-up-Z500-Touch-Hdd/td-p/1118253).
To follow this procedure, you will need an empty minimum 16 GB usb-stick and preferably a 2nd PC besides your G580 (to avoid swapping harddisks several times), and a thingy to connect internal hard disk drives to an usb-port.
1. Create a recovery drive on your stick using the recovery utility of Windows8:
Sidepanel -> search "recovery" -> klick on Settings -> klick on "create a recovery drive".
2. Take out old harddisk, put in SSD.
3. Boot pc from stick and reinstall system with OneKeyRecovery. The reinstall will stop and abort, if the SSD is smaller than the original HDD, but this step will give you information that you need to change the formatting parameters in the recovery program.
4. Take out the SSD and connect it to another PC (or swap back to the old HDD in the G580) and read out the number and size of partitions on the disk using File manager or some disk utility. There will be some small partitions, and there will be a large unformattet section. Note the size of the unformatted section. In my case, 234 GB. (240 GB SSD): If you lack the hardware to connect the SSD externally to a PC, you can of course calculate the result on the base of the formatting information of the old HDD.
5. On the Recovery stick, search up the file called
ReCreatePartitions. Open it in Notepad or another text editor. Save a copy of the unchanged file as ReCreatePartitionsOld.
Find the following two lines:
"create partition primary size= NN" (in my case: 428032)
"format quick fs=ntfs label= Windows8_OS"
Change the value of NN to (size of unformatted section on your SSD - 30 GB). I set NN to 202000, to be a little on the safe side. The 30 GB allow for the recovery section on the SSD.
Save ReCreatePartition.
6. Put the SSD and the Recovery stick in your Lenovo and start it with OneKeyRecovery. Follow the instructions for reinstalling the system. Marvel at the speed of the reinstall and rejoice about the $20 you avoided spending! :-)
In my case, I ended up with a new install with the same structure of partitions as the old one. However, the recovery partition (D:, appr. 30 GB) is empty. So I better hold on to the USB-stick.