Upgrading a Lenovo IdeaPad S205 with an SSD and more RAM

Since my 5 year old Sony Vaio Laptop is in the process of disintegrating I bought a Lenovo S205 netbook. Additionally I ordered another gig of RAM (the S205 came with 1 GB) and a 60GB OCZ Vertex Plus SSD.

It’s always good to know what you’re up to before taking up the screwdriver so I took a look at the S205s Hardware Maintenance Manual (direct link to the PDF) and off I went with disassembling the netbook:
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After careful removal of the old harddrive, replacement with the SSD and adding the additional gigabyte of RAM it was ready to be closed up again.
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After some trouble with installing Windows XP (I had to slipstream Service Pack 3 into the installation CD to make it work) all the work was definitely worth it:
as-ssd-bench-ocz-vertex-plus-04-02-2012-08-2

If you’re going to install an SSD, be sure to read about partition alignment first, especially if you’re installing Windows previous to Vista!

  1. Wy don’t you used the mSATA to solder a support ( buy on eb** at a good chinaise poeple) and mount a mSATA device, and use your hard drive only for mass storage ?

    PS: the mSATA is under the wifi board, near the center.

    • Good to know it got an mSATA port! However, I didn’t need two drives (not even being sure if a second drive, even mSATA might fit in there) and I could make good use of the replaced 250GB HDD in a Home Theater PC.
      Thanks for the information however!

    • Can you explain in detail what to buy and solder for that would set msata ssd?

    • Georgi Velev

      Have you done this?
      I saw in the mainboard a place to solder an extra msata port, but have you tried this? Is the BIOS going to find the SSD installed in this extra slot?
      Please make a comment, since I do not want to give money for nothing if it is not going to work?
      I shall appreciate your time answering this!
      Kind regards,
      Georgi

  2. is it possible to put msata ssd + hdd in lenovo s205?

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