*Guide* How to install a secondary hard drive on your M14x w/ Pics!

Honestly if it broke off you really have nothing to worry about. It just puts pressure on the ribbon, you can still push the pressure tab in to hold the ribbon down, just when ever you go to remove the ribbon, the tab will just come off. You'll be fine.

FYI" mine broke when I did the guide and everything has been fine since. I take my computer everywhere, move it around alot and it has not come loose.

 

thank god, i was literally panicking...i lost one black screw that holds the hard drive in but i will find one around here

 

I have windows installed on my hard drive...i wasnt told that it needed to be off of it...how do i go about doing this now?? everything is installed in the laptop now

 

anyone know what I should do?

 

I purchased the caddy that was from the link you've posted and for some reason the caddy I got is the right size and everything but the connection on the outside does not fit the SATA strip from the m14x. Any ideas or input?

 

Guys you can actually disconnect the rybon cable from the other side ( just disconnect from optical drive ) its not worth breaking that white tab, thats how i did mine the second time round, its a little tricky but i would recommend it

 

I am waiting for my caddy and ssd to arrive and I was wondering the same thing!

 

Damn, great guide, with the No Blu-Ray option available for the M14x, that's way better than an optimal disc drive, that nobody really uses it anymore.

My external one for my M11x has been used only like 2 times in over a year.

 

So far i installed it but im having nothing but trouble formatting that drive. Windows is having difficulty reading it and formatting it. Anyone else have that trouble? Shows up in windows setup just peachy. Just wont format it and its super slow.

 

Just some advice...

To make everything run smooth after you already finish the guide and have it ready for the OS.

Make sure you "DO NOT" have any previous OS on your "Secondary Drive" cause it will cause some conflict in booting orders.

* What you most likely want to do is install your chosen "Primary Drive" first without the secondary drive connected, install your OS on the primary drive, then install the secondary hard drive "WITHOUT" an OS in it.

I'm saying it just in case you swapped the drives and left the secondary drive with an OS in it.

 

I did make that mistake but I haven't had much of an issue booting my OS drive. The problem is that to say its slower than molasses is an understatement. I can't get more than 200k a second out of it. I think it is the Caddy... I put the CD Drive back in and it worked fine. I just cannot get it to work...

 

How is battery life with a SSD and a HDD?

 

The HDD does decrese the battery like about 30 - 40 minutes since it is constantly running but I created a run.bat file so I can force the HDD to go on stadby when i'm not using it. I only have movies, music, and pictures in there so it's not necessary for it to be running all the time and mostly the stuff I access the most is already cached to th system so when I access the HDD it rarely turns on. unless it's for a movie or some music.

 

titan can you provide the run.bat file or how to create it?

 

I learned from this guide how to create it

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-ssd-hdd-storage-using-optical-bay-caddy.html

It says how to set the hard drive to standby and you can also set it to standby after a certain amount of time to.

 

i have been running two ssd's, and i have noticed that my right palm rest is getting quite hot.

 

Might have to do this when I get an 14x

 

Great guide. Got it working great.

 

Has anyone, that has done this, had a humming sound come from that side of the laptop? If I tilt my laptop left or right it makes a humming sound by the hard drive.

 

...

No matter how you move the laptop it's gonna make that humming noise....

You have 2 mechanical hard drives with disks inside that are constantly spinning and be being written too. I wouldn't suggest rocking the laptop left and right while you are using.

 

Hehe i'll stay off the ocean then . Thanks again for this thread, it was a big help.

 

I know this post is older, but I found a better way to hold the drive in (besides using a strip of double sided tape). There are notches on the inner edge, and the drive caddy includes screws that will attach to the side of your drive. Attach the 4 screws to the drive, and when you put it in, the notches line up with the screws and hold it in place.

Just thought others would like to know, since using filler or tape isn't such a great idea.

 

I had already ordered the appropriate caddy from newmodeus when I stumbled on this thread, excellent idea Unless one of the ODD manufacturers comes forward with a 9.5mm slot loading Blu-Ray drive, this will be the way to go!

+rep

PS: This is the caddy from newmodeus that would work with the M14x:

Optical Bay HDD Caddy to replace Slot-Loading Optical,9.5,SATA [OBHD9-SATA-SATA-NF] - $42.00 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

 

I fixed that long time ago, and I added the new pictures... I fixed that probably the 3rd or 4th day after I made this guide -___-

 

Great guide but I have two questions I would like answered

First, does doing this void your warranty on the laptop? Because as much fun as it sounds ruining my warranty I don't think it is worth a second hard drive lol

Second, can you put the original hard drive that is in the M14x and place it in the optical slot and then put the new hard drive in the old slot? I will try to be more specific since that wording is a little tough. I want to put an SSD in the main hard drive location and then put the original hard drive in the optical slot to move the hotter drive towards the bottom and fans.

Thanks for your help folks

 

It wont void your warranty at all, and its completely reversible in the event you have to have your machine serviced.

The drive configuration you mentioned is what most of us appear to be doing. Just make sure that the HDD is empty (or at least free of a Windows installation) when you install it to the ODD bay. I've read it can confuse the BIOS. Otherwise its fine

 

Thanks for the answers. I figured it wouldn't void the warranty because I doubt anyone would do it if that was the case lol

and yea I was planning on reformatting the hard drive before I removed it so i wouldn't run into that problem

 

I have one more question in regards to making the optical drive external and running it to the laptop using a USB cable, is there some specific casing you need to put the optical drive in? I am assuming there is but I did not see anyone mention that

obviously I want to run the optical drive externally and have 2 HDDs in my laptop and don't want to have to swap out the optical hard drive caddy for the actual optical drive if I ever need it

thanks for your help again

 

Plenty of external enclosures and/or adapters available.

Here's one assortment on eBay for 9.5mm SATA drives:
USB 9.5mm case DVD -pata | eBay

 

Also, there are some specifically designed for slot loading drives too, but none of them ship from within the US. All are from Hong Kong.

They come in Black, White and Silver.
USB 9.5mm sata external slot in DVD COMBO dvd case BK | eBay

 

Thanks again man

 

I cruised through the guide and didn't really see anything on this so I am going to post this here. Yes I understand this is a completely seperate thread but I was hoping that by putting it in here more people would see it. A guy is having problems getting his M14x recognize both of his hard drives.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m14x/597126-need-help-second-hdd-issues.html

I am sure he will appreciate any sort of help you guys can give

 

Even though this was not working as a boot drive, can this work with raid 0?

 

The M14x does not have a raid controller...

As for software controlled... I am not sure and have not tried it. I dont have 2 similar hard drives to test it out

 

Can anyone tell me what the difference is? I think i found a goodd deal.
9.5mm IBM Thinkpad T400 T400s T410 To Sata Hdd Caddy | eBay

OR the suggested one

SATA Hard Drive Caddy Bay Macbook PRO 13" Unibody A1278 - eBay (item 260760330830 end time Aug-26-11 02:09:19 PDT)

 

They look like the exact same caddy. The height is right, should work no problem. Just remove the faceplate when you install it.

 

Hey I have tried everything I can think of to get this to work. I really need some fresh ideas. Has anyone been successful booting with the stock hdd in the optical bay?

 

Why would you want to boot from the SSD in the optical bay?

I wouldn't recommend that and why would you want to do that? Just asking

 

sorry typo. meant hdd. fixed. SSD in stock hdd place hdd in optical drive.

 

lol Just making sure, either way....

Why do you want to boot from the optical bay instead of the main HDD connection?

If this helps, I have the SSD in the original slot and the HDD in optical bay and everything runs fine. I transfer files and everything without a problem.

But for some reason I cannot partiiton the 2nd HDD if I wanted to for another OS. The computer just hangs of the disk management screen.

I can partition the SSD fine and have dual booted Windows 7 and Server 2008.

But the 2nd HDD in the optical doesnt let me do anything other than use it for storage. If i try to install an OS on it, it hangs...

 

Edit: I got it to boot finally and it worked for a while but it went to sleep and stopped seeing the drive then it stopped working and I'm back to square one...

 

Thanks for the pics & info about the dual HDD mod! I recently did this on my M14x and started running into issues booting up - more often than not it would wait at "Loading Windows" indefinitely.

I have the SSD in the primary HDD slot, and then put the Seagate into the optical HDD bay. If I remove the optical bay, the M14x boots up every time. Since many of you have mentioned that there may be a 3Gbps problem on the secondary SATA port, I did a little digging on Seagate's website for a way to force SATA 1.5Gbps... I found the jumper location, added it on, and since then I'm 20 for 20 on regular bootups now! I'm booting from the SSD, and have the regular HDD for the less-frequently used files.

More details w/ links here:
- Line Rate: Alienware m14x Startup Problems after adding 2nd Hard Drive

I think I'll be liking my M14x a little more now that it actually boots up all the time.

 

I'm glad u like the guide...

so just to make sure, you are saying that by adding a jumper you were able to fix the booting issues some people were having?

I haven't run into any issues since I installed the 2nd hard drive in may but it would be good to know for those who are having some issues.

 

Yes, in my specific situation, adding the jumper on the Seagate HDD to force 1.5Gbps fixed all of my bootup issues. I'm 40 for 40 on successful boots with a combination of reboots & cold-starts.

I'm using a Crucial M255 256GB SSD drive on my primary SATA port @ 3Gbps, and the original Seagate 500GB HDD in the optical bay @ 1.5Gbps. (The M255 was laying around - I'll probably replace it with something else in a few months). I'm using the latest Intel Chipset & RST drivers from Station-Drivers.com (10.6.something). So far things have been working well! The Intel application shows 3Gbps for the Crucial SSD and 1.5Gbps for the Seagate HDD.

 

I've been wondering about this as well. I ordered my caddy a few days back, waiting for it to get here now. Will test this with the original Seagate 500gb drive and a WD Black 750gb.

How has your battery life been with the added hard drive? Are you using the mod to power it down when not in use?

 

I didn't run any tests w/o the HDD before running them both - so I couldn't say. I'm not doing anything special as far as HDD power is concerned, although I did see discussion of a mod posted here @ notebookreview. I'll keep that in mind for when I need to preserve battery life.

 

Received my caddy today, I ordered the caddy from Newmodeus.com, as I've already had good results with their products. Caddy link: Optical Bay HDD Caddy, Slot-Loading, 9.5, SATA

I used a Hitachi 500GB 7200RPM drive. At first I was worried, since you can't force 1.5GB mode on this drive, it has no jumpers. First install, it booted up and installed without a problem, and is being detected at Sata II speeds.

 

Hi guys, first time posting. Just got my m14x two days ago, and that right hand rest is already ticking me off.

This may be somewhat off topic Haven't even done anything but a bit of programming for school and the odd youtube video. The laptop came nearly fully loaded, nearly as in 2820 i7, 8gb, 3gb card, etc.. everything except the HDD. I decided not to get the SSD but apparently If i had the right hand/wrist rest would have been much cooler.

So my question is If I were to swap my HDD into slot/secondary and get a smaller affordable SSD and make it my Primary/OS holder would that help that right hand rest rest issue? Has anyone with that type of setup seen an increase or decrease in temp? Thanks! Also great guide, hopefully I get the chance to put it to use!.

 

I can't give you exact figures, since my SSD always registers at 1C or 128C depending on program, but I have no heat issues with my SSD. The palmrest is nice and cool to the touch.

 

my optical drive is dead after 4 days with my m14x, i might try one of those bays ... is there any way to test the drive outside from m14x? cause it might be the flat cable and the optical bay will not work anyway!

ps: coincidently the drive died after install the asus icharger (an utility to charger faster Ipod/Iphone/ipad thru USB) is anything related USB and sata channel by the chip?


anyone wanna sell me the optical drive? msg me ... im from Brazil and Dell from here dont support this model.

Edit: does anyone knows if the optical drive that came
Can be replaced for one of those:
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?itemId=320740702538&index=15&nav=SEARCH&nid=43478033870