Extend the limits of your netbook with a bigger solid-state drive.

CONSIDERING that I’ve installed Windows 7 RC on practically every review netbook that’s passed through my hands lately, it’s quite ironic that I haven’t actually installed the operating system on my Asus Eee PC 901.

The reason is that the Eee PC 901 is one of those second-generation netbooks with only 12GB of solid-state drive (SSD) based storage (that’s 4GB soldered on the board and 8GB fitted into a mini PCI-E slot) and a Windows 7 install requires at least 16GB of continuous space.

Sure, quite a few enthusiasts have actually been able to produce a custom, pared-down version of Windows 7 that’ll actually fit on the Eee PC’s 8GB SSD, but doing it means you’ll only have a few hundred megabytes of space left and a much lesser Windows 7 experience.

Luckily, if you’ve got some cash to spare (but much less than buying a new netbook) and if you’ve had experience upgrading any notebook’s RAM or hard disk, then there’s some hope yet for getting Windows 7 on a netbook with a tiny SSD.

Over the weekend, I purchased a larger SSD from an online website, upgraded my Eee PC with it and finally installed Windows 7 RC.

It sounds pretty involved but it’s actually much easier than you think.

The warning

Before we go on, I have to say that upgrading your netbook could very well void its warranty, although in the case of the Eee PC, upgrading the RAM or the internal SSD does not void Asus’ warranty conditions, which allow you to open the hatch at the bottom and upgrade both components.

However this isn’t the case with all netbooks, some of which, for example, allow you to upgrade RAM but not the solid-state drive/hard disk, while others with harder to reach internals will not allow you to even open up the casing without voiding the warranty.

The rule of thumb is this — if you see any screw on the machine with a sticker over it, breaking this seal will void the warranty.

Of course, chances are that if you’ve a second-generation netbook, the warranty has probably lapsed, as is the case with mine.

Now that you’ve been warned, we can get right into it.

Cost versus lust

As far as a netbook is concerned, the relatively low price of the machine means that there is a very fine balance between need and lust. Let me explain.

Solid-state drives are still in their infancy, and the costs right now are pretty high for what you get, so it’s very easy to go overboard and spend more than you need.

After weighing in my options, I ordered a RunCore 32GB Pro SATA 70mm Mini PCI-E SSD from www.mydigitaldiscount.com and with shipping, it cost RM480, which is certainly not cheap for the size, but still way cheaper than buying a new netbook.

Now I would really have liked a 64GB SSD instead of the 32GB one, but that would have cost me double, in which case I’d be better off buying a new netbook (which these days come with 160GB hard disk drives) for the amount of money I’d be spending.

In any case, 32GB is more than enough for Windows 7 and if you’re just installing a few productivity applications and using the netbook for word processing, surfing, light gaming and whatnot, you’ll still have about 21GB free even after installing OpenOffice 3.1, various chat clients and Mozilla’s Firefox 3.5 browser.

There are a number of online retailers which sell SSDs meant for various netbooks of all makes.

One thing you have to be aware of is that, unlike, say, standardised notebook hard disk drives, different brands and models of netbooks require specific SSDs with a particular size, shape and connector.

For example, the Eee PC 901 uses a small SSD with a mini PCI-E connector, while the Hewlett-Packard Mini 1000 series netbooks can only fit a shorter SSD board with a mini ZIF connector (think ribbon cables).

The Dell Mini 9, on the other hand, has basically the same mini PCI-E connector as the Eee PC 901, but requires a much smaller SSD board, as the bay the drive sits in is smaller than on the Eee PC.

MyDigitalDiscount.com also has very clear information on what SSDs fit which machines so there shouldn’t be any confusion over which one to get.

There are two types of SSDs available for the Eee PC 901 — a so-called “Pro SATA” (Serial ATA) mini PCI-E version as well as a regular PATA (Parallel ATA) mini PCI-E version.

I’d recommend the Pro SATA version because it’s about the same price but is substantially faster in read and write speeds thanks to the use of faster memory chips and a Serial ATA controller.

The catch? Installing the Pro SATA SSD into your netbook means that you can no longer use the recovery disc that comes with the Eee PC to restore your netbook, since the Windows XP image Asus has included only has drivers for parallel ATA.

The PATA SSD is essentially the same as the one on the Eee PC (except in a larger capacity) and thus should you ever wish to go back to Windows XP, you can just connect an external DVD drive to the machine and pop in the recovery disc to restore the Eee PC back.

If you’ve installed the Pro SATA SSD and want to go back to Windows XP in the future, you’ll have to find a valid Windows XP CD and then install it manually with the proper SATA drivers instead of using Asus’ system restore CD.

If you haven’t understood the information thus far, you should just get the slower PATA version instead.

Grocery list

So while waiting for the SSD to arrive at my doorstep, I prepared a grocery list of stuff that I needed so that I can be up and running as soon as the SSD arrived.

Here’s what you need: l A USB flash drive at least 4GB in size l A copy of Windows 7 RC on DVD l A valid serial number for Windows 7 RC l A set of small Philips screwdrivers l The latest BIOS update for your netbook

Unless you already have an external DVD drive to connect directly to your netbook, the USB flash drive is necessary to install Windows 7.

If you have an external DVD drive with a Windows 7 DVD then you can skip the Preparing the USB flash drive section.

If you don’t have a DVD drive, then a 4GB flash drive is what you need to store the Windows 7 install files, which, when compressed, takes up about 2.5-3GB of space.

It’s also a good idea at this juncture to back up whatever existing data or files on your netbook to an external hard disk, SD card or a separate USB flash drive.

You should also update your netbook’s BIOS to the latest version to solve any potential problems that you might have with Windows 7

The Eee PC 901’s latest BIOS update for example, fixed a major screen blackout issue when installing Windows 7.

I probably don’t need to mention this but I think I should anyway — Windows 7 RC is still essentially beta software and while you can use it for free right now, the operating system is set to shut down and become unusable starting from March 2010.

By that time I already plan to buy a valid copy of the operating system to replace this one.

Preparing the USB flash drive

Copying Windows 7 onto a USB flash drive and using to install the operating system onto a netbook isn’t as easy as it first seems.

The problem is that you first need to make the USB flash drive properly bootable and then only copy the Windows 7 install files into it.

There are a number of ways to do this, but the easiest I’ve found so far is using WinSetupFromUSB (tinyurl.com/lf4zwn).

Just download WinSetupFromUSB and install it on a desktop PC that has a DVDdrive (not your netbook) then connect the USB flash drive to it.

Under the Format USB disk section, click on RMPRepUSB which will then open up a new dialogue box.

In this dialogue box, tick NTFS, Boot as HDD, and under Boot Options, choose WinPE/Vista V2 Bootable.

Lastly right at the bottom, choose “Copy Files from here after preparing USB drive,” click on Choose Folder and point it to the DVDdrive where you have the Windows 7 disc.

Click Prepare Drive and then just wait for WinSetupFromUSB to complete the task of preparing and copying the Windows 7 disc contents to the USB flash drive.

Once that’s done, you’ve succesfully created a bootable Windows 7 installer on a USB flash drive.

This is probably the most difficult part of the whole process, but once done you can use this USB drive to install Windows 7 on any machine that can boot from a USB drive.

Installing the SSD

A couple of days after ordering it online, my SSD arrives in good condition.

Once I made sure I backed up my data elsewhere, I turned off the Eee PC, removed the battery and then proceeded to unscrew the hatch at the bottom of the netbook.

Two screws later and the mini PCI-E and the RAM slots were exposed.

The mini PCI-E SSD is attached to the machine with another two smaller screws at one end — just unscrew these and the card should pop upwards at an angle.

The old SSD is easily removed and the new one can be slotted back in the same way — at an angle, then secured back with the two screws.

Once the SSD is in and the cover screwed back on, your toughest job is basically done.

Installing Windows 7

The next thing to do is to connect the power adaptor on the netbook and then plug in your Windows 7 USB flash drive.

Turn on the netbook and go into the BIOS and set the machine to boot from the USB flash drive (or just hit ESC on the Eee PC which will bring you to the boot menu) and then restart the machine, booting from the USB flash drive.

If all goes well, you should see some activity and the Windows 7 installation should begin.

Just follow the steps and point the installer to your new SSD and then keep your Windows 7 serial handy.

Drivers

Surprisingly, right after installation, Windows 7 already had most of the important drivers, including the all-important drivers for the 802.11n wireless chipset on the Eee PC 901.

This meant that even if there were any drivers that Windows 7 did not include on the DVD, a quick visit to Windows Update will usually fix that.

Right after install, I found that I only needed to find updated drivers for the Broadcom Bluetooth chipset from the Broadcom website (tinyurl.com/qcdfqc) and the latest Windows 7 graphics drivers for the Intel 945 Express chipset from the Intel support site ( tinyurl.com/yr33tt).

All other drivers can be found at support.asus.com — some, like the ACPI driver to enable the special keyboard functions like brightness control, can work using the Windows XP driver.

Final thoughts

One thing that I haven’t touched on during this article is one major side benefit of installing a faster SSD is that Windows 7 really runs like the wind on it.

For example, Windows 7 boots up in 35 seconds flat with the new SSD and read and write speeds are noticeably faster with the RunCore SSD compared with the much slower 8GB that came with the Eee PC 901.

Oh yes, and if you’ve got this far and this is the first time you’re doing this — welcome to the world of geekdom.

You’ve officially passed your final exam.

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