Lenovo Z500 SSD upgrade

Computer & Electronics December 10, 2014 Alex 11

Does a SSD really counts that much? I have promised you all in one of my first posts on this blog (Lenovo Z500) that I...

Does a SSD really counts that much?

I have promised you all in one of my first posts on this blog (Lenovo Z500) that I will come back with the feedback after upgrading my stock HDD with a new SSD. I will describe to you below the process so that you will know exactly how to perform this upgrade on your Lenovo Z500 laptop.

Before explaining the steps I have to say one thing and one thing only related to this SSD upgrade: I love my laptop now more than the first day I bought it. The improvement is colossal. Even though you can see this improvement in the Windows Experience Index that changed from 5.9 to 6.8, it is not enough. This mark does not reflect the real feeling. As an example, before this upgrade, on Power On, my laptop needed 4-5 minutes to finish loading all the startup applications and become fully operational. This was the reason that I was always leaving it in sleep mode. Now all of this happens in 35 seconds. 35 SECONDS. That’s how big the difference is.

Now with the actual steps of upgrading your Lenovo Z500.

What do you need ? I have recently bought the SanDisk Ultra II which in my opinion is the best low cost solid state hard drive there is on the market.

You also need a mean to connect your SSD to your computer through USB. There are a lot of solutions out there and I chosen one that I have bought some time ago: Sharkoon Dock SATA QuickPort Duo 8,8 cm (3,5″) 300 Mbit/s. You will also need some small cross slot/ Phillips screwdrivers.

The first thing you’ll need to do is cloning your old system partition. This is only in the case that you do not want to install Windows and everything else all over again. You can find here how to clone a hard drive in 3 easy steps.

Once you have your system cloned on your new SSD all you need now is to replace the old HDD.

– Power Off your laptop.

– Flip it over and place it on a scratch free surface in order to protect its cover. I used a small towel.

– Remove the 5 screws that are visible. There will be 3 small ones and 2 larger ones.

– Remove the 4 rubber feet in order to be able to remove the 4 screws underneath them.

– Remove the keyboard. If you will look in the picture above you will see a black arrow that points to one of the screws. You can push the keyboard through that hole on the base of your laptop, in order to easy remove it. A part of the keyboard will pop up and it will be easier to remove the other clips that fix the keyboard. DO NOT PULL YET!!! You need to disconnect the keyboard first. Lift the plastic security that cover the strips and pull the strips out. Now you can remove the keyboard.

– Remove the base cover. After removing the keyboard you will see 6 screws (M 2.5×6) that you need to uninstall in order to be able to remove the base cover. After removing the one on the far right, you must remove the optical drive by pulling it to the right. Flip again the laptop and you will see 3 more small screws in the place where you removed the optical drive. Remove them. Now with the help of an old credit card that you do not need, or with a flat nylon tool, slowly release the base cover and remove it.

– Remove the HDD. Now you can see the HDD protective cage installed with other 4 screws. Remove them and slide out the protective cage and the HDD. The HDD is fixed to the cage with another 4 screws. Remove them, slide out the HDD and replace it with the SSD.

– Installing. You have to install everything back in the exact reverse order.

If you found the post useful, then like it below or share it to whom you think might need it. Don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions.

Here you can find the promised update with how to Replace the ODD with a HDD on Lenovo Z500

Comments

Shabab
January 16, 2015 #1 Author

Thank you so much. Instructions were easy-to understand. thanks again
Michal
May 15, 2015 #2 Author

Hi, could you also show us, how to replace ODD with HDD that you removed? Thank for this tutorial, too. It’s very helpful.
- Alex
  May 28, 2015 #3 Author
  
  Sorry for answering so late, but your comment ended up in the spam folder for some reason. I am planing on doing a small tutorial on how to replace the ODD with an HDD with the help of a HDD Caddy. Waiting for the caddy from Amazon.
  Hopefully next week there will be a new post with the tutorial.
- Alex
  June 4, 2015 #4 Author
  
  You have now available the tutorial on how to replace ODD with a HDD on Lenovo Z500
- Alex
  June 4, 2015 #5 Author
  
  https://gadgetcatch.com/replace-odd-with-a-hdd-on-lenovo-z500/
marco di milano
July 17, 2015 #6 Author

hello I saw your nice tutorial on how to replace a hd inside a notebook lenovo z500.
my concern more ‘great and not’ take it apart but much of that we can install the new operating system Windows 8 original windows and over the next 10 days.
I read that many do not succeed because of an error.
You can explain step by step the correct procedure?
sorry for my english google translate;-)
I hope in your help.
Hello Marco
- Alex
  July 17, 2015 #7 Author
  
  Hello Marco,
  I don’t understand exactly your question. On Gadgetcatch.com there is a post https://gadgetcatch.com/clone-hard-drive-3-easy-steps/ that shows you how to clone your current HDD in order not to lose anything that you previously had. If you want to install a new operating system, like I did as I do not like Windows 8 you also have a post here https://gadgetcatch.com/installing-windows-7-on-a-gpt-hdd-lenovo-z500/ that shows you how. Please if none of this posts answers your question try to explain better what you need. You can use Italian if you think that Google translate is not translating correctly what you’re saying. I can understand Italian, so feel free to write in Italian and I will answer you in English. Best regards!
  - marco di milano
    July 17, 2015 #8 Author
    
    ciao alex, visto che capisci l’italiano ti scrivo in italiano ben volentieri.
    ti ringrazio molto per la disponiblita’ ecco cosa mi ha risposto l’assistenza tecnica di lenovo e quello che ho scritto io su un forum di tecnologia italiano
    
    ciao ragazzi,
    ho scritto nel forum internazionale di lenovo, e in poche ore ho ricevuto risposta ecco cosa mi hanno scritto :
    
    Hi italian friend hdv
    *
    Regarding your questions:
    1. From*page 26*
    https://download.lenovo.com/consumer…s_hmm_v1.0.pdf
    
    of the HMM, the Z500 supports low profile (7mm) and a standard size (9.5mm) SSDs so the*Samsung SSD 850 should be compatible.
    * *-*Link to picture
    
    https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/image/s…v=mpbl-1&px=-1
    *
    2.*Depending on the place where you purchased the unit, some stores put a warranty sticker*on the screw slots (like in my area) so any signs of tear will automatically void the warranty. You may verify this with the store if especially if you purchased an extended warranty.
    
    If you’re leaning towards data migration, it’ll be best if you use the*Samsung Data Migration Software*to migrate the HDD to the Samsung 850 SSD. From there, you can upgrade to Win10 once it’s released on July 29.
    
    Upgrade to Windows 10 for free
    
    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wind…ows-10-upgrade
    
    More info:
    Lenovo Z500 SSD upgrade
    https://gadgetcatch.com/lenovo-z500-ssd-upgrade/
    
    Z500 Video Disassembly Guide
    https://www.lenovoservicetraining.co…7&key=TGVuZw==
    
    neokenchi (Support Specialist) posted a new Reply in*Lenovo P, Y and Z series Notebooks*on 07-17-2015 03:33 PM:
    
    ho telefonato piu’ volte a lenovo italia questa pomeriggio ma mi invitavano a guardare e contattare le varie assistenze tecniche presenti sul loro portale.
    devo dire che hanno un servizio pessimo, non meravigliamoci se poi questa gente viene lasciata a casa dalle multinazionali.
    ho pure chiamato alcune assistenze lenovo sul territorio italiano mi hanno sparato 82 euro all’ora per l’assistenza…
    no comments…
    mi sono armato di coraggio e al diavolo i cinesi e le assistenze a peso d’oro mi sono messo a vedere con attenzione i vari video tutorial su youtube su come smontare il z500.
    mi sono bastati 30 minuti e voila’ mi sono messo all’opera molto piu’ facile del previsto lo smontaggio a prova di cita informatica
    
    vorrei fare una premessa nel pomeriggio ho chiamato microsoft per chiedere lumi sull’upgrade del mio windows 8 su hd meccanico a windows 10 su ssd
    la tipa di microsoft mi ha detto che non e’ fattibile in quanto lenovo ha installato sul mio pc una versione di sistema operativo oem e che a seguito di un importante variazione hardware del pc vedi ssd non si puo’ effettuare alcun upgrade di sistema operativo dovrei rivolgermi a lenovo e chiedere un media vedi dvd o iso per la reinstallazione di windows 8 e successivamente 8.1 e infine migrare in forma gratuita a windows 10
    ma e’ veramente cosi ??
    se uno usa il tool di migrazione dichiarato dal tipo del forum di lenovo o il clone del hd verso ssd non si poteva aggirare il problema ???
    comunque ora vi dico cosa ho combinato nei giorni scorsi avevo installato windows 10 sul ssd all’interno di un piccolo netbook asus eepc perfettamente funzionante con i vari upgrade dello stesso w10, oggi dopo aver smontato il lenovo ho inserito il ssd con l’installazione di windows 10 del piccolo asus sul lenovo, ho richiuso tutto per benino.
    e quando ho acceso il lenovo aveva il suo bel sistema operativo perfettamente funzionante in pochissimi secondi una vera bomba di reattivita’.
    una sorpresa davvero molto positiva.
    ma non e’ che la tipa di microsoft mi ha sparato una mare di fregnazze …??
    cosa ne pensate e ora come procedereste al mio posto ??
    premesso chje per la fregola di fare le prove non ho nemmeno clonato e migrato i dati dal hd al ssd .
    ditemi voi il da farsi ??
    ciaooo grazie
    - Alex
      July 18, 2015 #9 Author
      
      Hello Marco,
      
      I understand your problem. You want to install W10 on your Lenovo Z500. That unfortunately I will not do for the moment, maybe latter on I will add a tutorial if I decide to change my OS. I am really satisfied how Win7 is working. After reading all your comments and the answers you got from support I do not see it as a very big problem. You have a new SSD that you wanna add to your Z500. What I would do, I would format the new SDD to GPT (doing the opposite as did in the post https://gadgetcatch.com/installing-windows-7-on-a-gpt-hdd-lenovo-z500/) and then clone the HDD on the new SDD. I do not see any problems with that. Unfortunately, as I haven’t done it until now I cannot tell you what kind of errors might appear and how to solve them. Sorry for not being able to help you more for the moment. Ciao!
      - Kanzler
        July 29, 2015 #10 Author
        
        Sup guys!
        I’d like to install my new SSD in my Lenovo, but no clone, since I have no external drive to put my files and the amount of data is much higher than the SSD that I’ve bought. Therefore, I wanna install the OS from scratch (clean install). I didn’t get it clear how to do it. Any one to help me out here?
        I guess that if install factory recovery drive in my USB drive (8Gb) and then run it with my new SSD, it must work. But I don’t know exactly where to get this factory recovery, since Lenovo doesn’t help at all. I’m worried I’ll lose my Windows 8 pro license if I do so. By the way, I don’t have the key or any CD with me.
      - Alex
        July 29, 2015 #11 Author
        
        Hello Kanzler,
        Unfortunately you are right. As you do not have any key or CD for your Windows the only option is to clone the one that you already have in order not to lose your license…