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

Hi guys, I am wondering if anyone has seen a problem similar to mine after installing the second hard drive.

I installed the drive without any problems using the information in this forum. It worked fine when I restarted the PC but occasionally the second drive disappears from Windows entirely. A restart of the laptop always remedies the problem, and there is no real pattern to when/why the drive disappears.

I don't know if it is a physical problem with the ribbon cable connection, or something software related.

Anyone else experience this?

Jason

J

 

I just read this entire thread. In order to use slot DVD bay for a secondary hard drive, it would seem that you have to adjust the hard drive's pin/jumper to SATA I in order for it to run without problems.

Is this still an issue with the new M14 R2?

Having a three hard drives (mSATA, HD1 & DVD bay) on a 14" laptop is quite intriguing as long as they are running at their option speeds. I might forgo the M17.

 

I've had the same issue. For me it disappears when I don't have intel RST installed. Once I stalled it. the problem disappeared but now sometimes my laptop stutters when it's writing something on the hdd on the optical bay.

 

Bah! Now I see that I can only use a drive I can throttle down with a jumper.

Kinda defeats the purpose of the caddie as ideally I would have a 1TB drive in each.

Oh well.

 

I have the 750gb hard drive, will it fit this caddy? thanks a lot.

 

as long that it's a 2.5in laptop size hard drive and it should.

 

Sata I should be fast enough for any HDD.. I wouldn't get all caught up on speeds. HDD Is for mass storage not for frequently accessed data.

 

Hello,
Everyone is having a lot of problems with their Alienware m14x (possibly other models) when they try to install 2 hard-drives in their laptop (using a HDD Caddy instead of a CD-drive). I have found a solution that is 100% working, and the hard-drive never dissapears, freezes, or just doesnt respond.

Method 1: For people who have the stock hard-drive that came with their Alienware. Samsung HM500JJ 500GB

1: Install your boot drive in the laptop, but DONT! use the hard-drive caddy for your boot drive, make sure to connect it directly to your Alienware. I am using a OCZ Vertex 2e 120GB.

2: Install your second hard-drive that you will use for whatever reason (I highly recommend only for storage, but you can do what you want) in the hard-drive caddy. Im using the Samsung HM500JJ 500gb, the one that comes with the Alienware.

3: When everything is up and running, you can install Windows on your boot drive. Do everything as you normally would.

4: Then, download Ultimate Boot CD or UBCD on the internet Ultimate Boot CD - Download the UBCD and burn it to a cd or a usb. You will need a USB cd drive for this part, because you need to put the CD into your alienware. Or you can put it on a usb, you can find lots of tutorials on how to do that.

5: Load up Ultimate Boot CD, go to HDD, then Diagnosis, then go to ES TOOL or Samsung ES TOOL. Press Enter some text will pop up, dont press anything and wait. Then the program will load, read the disclaimer and click Y. It then will automatically detect the hard-drives you have in your computer. Press the number which coresponds to your SECOND HARD-DRIVE that you installed in your HDD CADDY!!. NOT YOUR BOOT DRIVE!!!!!! (for me it is the Samsung HM500JJ 500GB)

6: When everything is loaded use the arrow keys and select "Set Max UDMA Mode" and press enter. Then change the 300 to 150. Press Save, and then Click exit. Restart your computer

7: Then when Windows is loaded, right click My Computer, select Manage, then select Disk Managment, then right click on your samsung hard-drive and click New simple volume, and then just follow all the steps. Make sure to press Quick Format. When all thats done it will take really long to format, and you will probably think it screwed up, if it takes longer than 10 minutes, just restart your computer and then everything will be fine. Your Alienware m14x is now ready, and is working 100%



Method 2: For people who have any other hard-drive (cant provide much support)

1: Do everything in Method 1, except dont use the Samsung ES TOOL, unless your using a samsung drive, or else you will screw up your drive. The only main thing you have to do is force your hard-drive to work in SATA 1 or SATA 1.5 or SATA 150 (its all the same thing). You might have to use jumpers on your hard-drive. Western Digital uses them. Besides that everything is the same.





**** I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BRICK OR SCREW UP ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!****

 

I did this.. Windows won't boot up with the 2nd caddy 750GB WD cav black plugged in most of the time, i have gotten it to boot, but I don't know how. I think it might be that I need to change the SATA operation mode to AHCI from RAID.. but this requires a re-install of everything and that's just a big fat biatch.. Or maybe it just needs to be present when installing windows. I know the trick to change to AHCI after windows is installed, but not working and I suspect because the Intel drivers are running the show but even when I uninstall them, they come back.. I'll post an update if I have success.

*Alienware M14x R2

 

I have a stock HDD (seagate 750GB), and I believe I have to use jumpers in order to force SATA I speeds.

Just to confirm, I'm purchasing these 2mm micro jumpers:

Jumpers - 10 x 2mm Micro / Mini HD PC Hard Disk Jumper | eBay

Anyone know if these will work? Thanks

*edit* SATA 1.5 speeds

 

well, did you check if your hard-drive already comes with jumpers? if not you can probably walk into any computer shop, Not best buy, but a local one. And ask for a jumper, they probably have tons of them, or they can sell you one. As, for the ones on ebay, im not sure about the sizes, because i think they vary from 3.5" hard-drives to 2.5" hard-drives.

 

you will have to re install windows. Set it to AHCI mode and then re install windows, with the caddy inside the computer. I'm sure that will work, i know its a bit(c)h but beggars cant be choosers.

 

Hi, I have a m14x and just ordered this Newegg.com - SanDisk Extreme SDSSDX-120G-G25 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Im wondering what speed the alienware m14x will take, like SATA 1 or sata 2 or what? Also, what sort of mounting stuff will i need for this. Is it even worth getting the solid state drive for the speeds you will get from it as compared to the regular hard drive. Also, could you fill in any details that the first post missed and a noob like me couldnt figure out. Thanks!

 

Tried this, I am able to boot, but drive drops randomly with ghost letter and stuff. I don't want to use jumpers maybe my caddy is bad..

I pulled it for now, it's heavy and adds heat to the system & takes power so with or without.. meh, $12 loss for caddy.
Amazon.com: Hard Drive Caddy Tray for Apple Unibody MacBook / MacBook Pro 13 15 17 SuperDrive (Replacement Only): Computers & Accessories

I need to be careful not to go overboard with these things as I often do lol. I'm shopping for 256GB mSATA every day.. That'd be plenty, but I use my MBA for all multimedia, personal stuff. This is a gaming rig only for me and so I really don't need that much storage after all.

 

Question.. so I just received my m14x r2..
It has an hdd and optical drive

My question is.. could I install an ssd as my primary and have my hdd as secondary and dull have an optical drive(CD DVD etc)?

Also. Where is the primary drive located at?
I'm fairly new at upgrading laptops.

Been searching around the forum but quite haven't got the answer I'm looking for.

 

no u can't do this unless u install an mSATA SSD which is expensive and slower than a normal SSD.

 

So Is it possible to have two ssd's in raid 0 this way. I have a OCZ vertex 4 SSD and figure I could put another in there. Is this a sata3 slot?

 

YES.

this is exactly how i have my system and it screams with the Muskin Atlas mSata SSD.

its at leat twice as fast as my desktop with a OCZ Vertex II SSD.

the mSata is located under the battery and the reg Sata port is located under the DVDrom

 

I've change the CD with the original 750gb seagate with hdd cady, and put intel ssd in the sata3 port. No problems so far, and i didn't need any jumpers.

 

So just to confirm, I have to set up a setting in the BIOS for AHCI mode before I begin this process?

 

hey guys i have an alienware m14x r2 and i want to know if i can have 2 ssd hard drives.. originally the r2 came with 512gb samsung 830 series ssd and i believe has a cd dvd optical drive. Is it possible to install a secondary ssd on my laptop? would i have to replace the dvd drive so i can place in 2 ssds ?

 

Since you have a r2, you have the option of installing a msata ssd. These are look alot like a wifi card. You will be able to keep you disc drive, and have 2 hdds. The r2 can actually take up to 3 drives if you remove the disc drive.

 

So I followed this guide and managed to get everything working! Got a Samsung 840 256GB SSD in my hard disk bay, got a 32GB mSATA SSD, and the original 750GB HDD in the optical slot bay. The 32GB mSATA SSD is used as a caching drive to accelerate the 750GB HDD through Intel RST. Everything works, however, I frequently see my Hard Disk's activity spike to 100% and then it's impossible for me to access the HDD. My 2 SSDs get SATA 6GB/s speeds, while the HDD is supposed to get SATA 3GB/s (according to HWInfo). Does anybody get that? That the HDD in the optical bay is inaccessible for a short amount of time.

This however, does mean I have to have it in RAID mode, or else the caching ssd won't be able to "cache" the HDD

 

Has anyone been able to dual boot with the second OS installed on the second HDD? I realize that the BIOS only lets you select the primary HDD as the boot device, but if I put my bootloader there and have it point to the correct partition for the other drive, ie. /dev/sdc3 (or wherever your other OS is) I'm hoping it can work.

 

I just want to say thank you Titangod for a great guide and anyone that also made this thread informative. I have got an alienware M14x R1 for over a year now and I have decided to add more storage space and use the Optical drive as an USB external drive.

I just have one question, I just bought 500GB SATA hard drive to add to the stock 500GB HDD just for more storage, do I need any further configuration? I intended to leave the stock HDD on the alienware slot and add the second HDD on the purchased 9,5mm cady slot.

Any advice or information I should know about using 2 HDD at goal? Thanks in advance......

 

I have followed this article exactly except I got a different drive caddy.
I put in this hard drive (in addition to several others)
And none of them appear on the system. The led on the caddy turns on but it doesn't even sound like the drives are turning on. Any ideas?

 

If you are sure you did every step corrently, and if you are sure your DVD drive was working correctly prior to remove it from it laptop, then there are most likely 2 possible issues causing your problem:
1. Connection Issue: You didn't plug the sata cable in correctly/ the sata cable has been damaged/ ...
2. Hard Drive Issue: Hard drives are very fragile after all, so your hard drive may be damaged. If you can test the hard drive on a different systems, or if you can't go to a computer store for them to check it.

 

I got a new caddy and this time it powers on the drive and keeps it powered on and spinning but it still is not showing up on the system.
I formatted and tested it on another computer and it definitely works.
I am running Windows 8.1, do you think there are some drivers I may be missing?

When I go into device manager it says that there is an "unknown device" that doesn't have drivers delivered by windows update.

 

Wow, I can't believe this thread is still alive.... Good luck everyone!!!!

 

Hi there, so I have been reading though this whole thread so far, and I am still looking for some answers, never before have I modded a laptop, but am really wanting to upgrade my mx14

As far as I can see i have the R2, 750Gbhdd, with 8GB ram, and still have an optical drive installed. I have iCore 7, with windows 7. So I am wanting to (if possible) install a small SDD in the optical slot for booting the OS, and hopefully just loading and running some software. I have all my movies, and songs etc on externals, so I really am just hoping to keep the laptop up to date and running smooth. I am wondering due to the laptop being R2 will I be able to put SSD into the ODD. I have been reading about jumpers and etc, however a lot of this is over my head.
I am hoping some guys can talk me through this. I am wondering can i install the SSD, and then when it is in place can i more boot files to the SSD?

Any other info that is needed I shall give you, I know this page is old, but hope to get some response! Thanks in advance everyone!

Mike

Edit:
just to include, i did not get this mx14 from new, so I have no disks, or software to re-install the OS or drivers.

 

Hi Guys, i know this thread is old but i recently aquired this alienware m14xr2, keen to put a ssd in place and do as the tutorial mentions... this has not been mentioned but i think its valid.

The mSATA ssd drive that is used as a cache is actually rated @6gbs controller speed and it also runs as full speed.
The Optical bay is rated @1.5gbs and hence putting a @3gbs SATA3 will only really downgrade its performance to whatever the max controller is
The primary hdd bay is rated @3gbs, which mean if you put a @6gbs ssd drive in its place it will also downgrade its performance to whatever the max controller is

Soooooo in light on off and correct me if im wrong

Wouldnt it be a much better option to keep everything as is, upgrade the mSATA 32GB cache drive to a 256Gb or 500GB cache drive, keep it as a software raid array using Intel RST and keep everything running @6gbs speed ???????????????????????

Before i go and jump into this i want someone else to chime in and let me know their thoughts... THANKKKKS

 

It will not work. It has been discussed before. The slot will fit msata ssd , but won't recognize it as an ssd. That slot is specifically for caching.