Im currently having some issues with the old HDD of my laptop.

So first thing's first, i bought an SSD recently and upgraded my laptop's hard disk drive to the SSD
- installed windows
- took out the optical bay
- put the HDD into the caddy

but the problem's are..

1. First try:
- didnt do anything, existing OS still installed in the HDD (replaced optical drive)
- SSD's OS boots up, but it doesnt detect the HDD
- Not even in disk management

2. Second try:
- Reformatted the HDD in the windows installer first, then,
- Tried to hot swap, booted with the SSD with the optical drive first, then hot swap it with the 2nd hard disk caddy (SSD went to sleep, unaffected).
- Wake it up, then go to Device Manager, Scan for new hardware
- HDD got detected but it became a Bad Disk and unable to do anything

3. Third try:
- Reformatted the HDD, but it ended up became a RAW Logical Drive rather than a NTFS drive.

4. Fourth try:
- Put the HDD back into the hard disk drive slot
- Boot to the windows installer with Windows 7 installed
- Switch it to the SSD, then the HDD is back to the caddy
- Windows 8.1 goes into boot loop.

5. Fifth try:
- Put the HDD back into the hard disk drive slot again
- Boot to the windows installer, format it so it becomes an EMPTY primary disk
- Switch it to the SSD, then the HDD is back to the caddy
- first boot was fine, but unable to detect
- shut down, start it up, this time windows 8.1 goes into boot loop.




what am i doing wrong?

- its definitely not the HDD problem as i've tried to install Windows 8.1, Windows 7 as well as Ubuntu, it all works and able to boot upon making it as the MAIN drive.

- caddy issue? but if its the caddy issues then it shouldnt be able to detect the drive right? or it has something to do with the caddy not working?

- im considering to purchase a SATA to USB cable converter and just format it like that while the OS is up (on the SSD)



thanks!

1. just 'clone' your hdd into ssd.
2. some case, u have to repair startup after boot from ssd (missing boot manager), maybe.
3. format old hdd to become empty disk.
4. put hdd into caddy.

u should not boot from ssd while old installation still in old hdd in the caddy at the same time.

yea i formatted it into an empty drive after that also cannot.

part of the 5 types of methods i tried.

so is it the caddy issue?

stupid question:- mobo can support?

What is the laptop model?
Is there a BIOS setup to identify the 2nd port as IDE\SATA?
Have you tried single booting with SSD in the caddy?

Hotswap is a bad idea, if the ports does not support it. Even if it does, you need to unmount the drive first.

i guess it supports?

it was able to detect the hard drive in disk management when i installed ubuntu on my old HDD.
but it doesnt show as a drive (D:\, E:\) under Computer.

so.. whats the problem?

alienware m14x
havent tried to single boot in the SSD as it was still new and i dont want it to fry in case i did something wrong upon booting up. lol.

This post has been edited by mafioso: Sep 10 2014, 03:23 PM

Since its Windows 7, try this.

1) Shutdown notebook.
2) Take out optical drive.
3) Bootup notebook without optical drive.
4) Shutdown notebook.
5) Plug in HDD with caddy in notebook.
6) Bootup notebook.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-...14x-w-pics.html

The above guide shows it being easy but it mentions something about not damaging the sata connection strip. When you plug back the optical drive, was it able to read optical media properly? Else Maybe a faulty caddy.

Looks like your HDD Caddy is not working.

yes, optical drive still works. so i dont think the cable was damaged.

anyway, gonna try to install ubuntu, and then see if i can re-partition it on windows as an empty drive so it can appear on windows.

just gonna leave about 20gb for ubuntu in case i would like to try something.

but it was able to detect? just it wasnt able to do anything.

Erm... don't think it can be "detect". Unless you have another confirm one working one to compare.

Does your caddy comes with the grounding switch?
Or it'll be easier if you just show me a picture of your caddy.

you mean this thing?

I have plans to upgrade my HDD to a SSD. Luckily I came across this thread.

I would have felt it might be related to the BIOS but it seems from the lengthy troubleshooting it ain't about BIOS. Looking forward to the resolution for this too.

Yes. Does you caddy have that switch?
If the answer is yes, try flicking the switch to the other side.
Only a few laptop has this sort of problem.
This is the first I've seen after selling near 1500 units.

Somehow Alienware M14x does has a lot of problem using Dual HDD Caddy.
Google & you'll see lots of Alienware M14x users is having the same problem.

mafioso have you tried updating the BIOS to the latest version?

yea its the latest bios for my m14x.

and no the caddy doesnt have the switch

currently i've installed ubuntu on it and trying to reformat the other 400++ gb to become an empty drive and see how it goes. lol.

Some laptops especially HP & Compaq has grounding issues after using the Dual HDD Caddy.
Your laptop might be one of them.

hmm but how come in those videos on youtube, the same model.

it works?

i think there is something wrong with that hdd caddy. (assuming the hdd has no issues)

all my laptops are running with hdd caddies (bought from different sellers/shops). none of them have issues.

I tend to bring my notebook or desktop to the shop for assistance when I encounter such issues. At times it might just be the caddy or some other parts which might be causing such issues. I don't have so many hardware to swap so it's gonna be hard for me to tell what goes wrong. That's just my 2 cents.