M17xR4 GPT Protected Partition

[BrokeHombre]

I've had this unit for about a week now, it originally came with a WD 750gig Scorpio Black HDD with Win8 Home installed. I cloned the HDD to my Samsung 120gig SSD SATA III. It took a few tries but finally got ACRONIS True Image 2013 to work. After Cloning I installed the SSD in the Drive 0 space where the HDD was, I left the HDD out. I powered up and it booted to the desktop with no problems. I attached the HDD to the laptop by using a HDD adaptor (connected by USB) and noticed that it wasn't recognized when I clicked on 'Computer' but when I checked Disk Manager it was listed, discription was 'Healthy GPT Protected Partition' I was unable to format or anything. at one point I thought I had it formatted - it was listed as Unallocated - but when I mounted back in the laptop at Drive 1 and booted the machine it still wasnt found in 'computer' but was in Disk Management and was once again 'GPT Protected Partition'
I called AW support and after discribing everything to the support specialist, he mentioned that it was something to the effect that the HDD that shipped with the laptop would somehow only work in Drive 0 - I find that hard to believe personally, but went with it. He stated that there wasnt much more he could do since I more or less voided my warranty, for pretty much just Upgrading my laptop. Anywho...I thought I would test his statement, I swapped places with the HDD and SSD ( I put the SSD in Drive 1 and the HDD in Drive 0) I booted and it booted to the SSD but still would not 'see' the HDD, only in Disk Managememnt and still as a GPT Protected Partition, and I was still unable to format or anyting. I am at a loss - Any thoughts?? Has Anyone else ran iton this??
I know the R3's had issues recognizing SSD's in Drive 0 but I also read that was taken care of in the R4's I am also thinking of using Alien Respawn to recover back to the SSD, I noticed a few small issues, mainly with System Recovery which I believe I should just turn off anyway since it is an SSD and dont want un necessary writes to it. Not only that but thats what the respawn is for.
Thanks for letting me ramble on - any advice is/will be greatly appreciated.

 

[dpinkerton]

As long as your data is backed up... I would do this.... http://blog.paulgu.com/windows/delete-gpt-protective-partition/

 

[BrokeHombre]

As long as your data is backed up... I would do this.... http://blog.paulgu.com/windows/delete-gpt-protective-partition/

No worries about data - I had nothing on the HDD other than the OS when I cloned it to the SSD.
I will try the DiskPart - again. The first time I tried it was when I had the HDD attached to the laptop by USB HDD adapter and it lookied liked it worrked, but when I put it back in the laptop and booted it was right back to GPT - -

I will try again with the laptop installed in Drive 1 or 0 - I forgot where it is now! LOL

I will post my results tomorrow - calling it a night. Thanks for advice!

 

[AeonSoul]

R3 had troubles running to Sata III speed an SSD mounted in Drive 0 (bit it still ran to Sata II speed), but yeah, that has been taken care of in R4.
Try what dpinkerton said, and let us know.
Oh and don't worry about your warranty, upgrading your system doesn't void it.

 

[BrokeHombre]

Try what dpinkerton said, and let us know.
Oh and don't worry about your warranty, upgrading your system doesn't void it.

SO I ran DiskPart as dpinkerton and AeonSoul suggested, Success!! So the Protected Partition is out of the way, now I have 750gigs I can use for data and storage and Leave my 120gig SSD for the OS YIIPPEE!! Thanks !!

Next question is - are there any particular setting I need to configure for the SSD so that it is mainly used for the OS and cache? I read somewhere to turn off the page file for the SSD and system restore as well, anything else??

Also - Should I install all apps such as Java, Flash etc...to the Data drive, and what about Windows Updates, although I dont think I can direct where the updates are installed too, by default those go right into the windows directory I believe.