[GUIDE] M15x Optical Drive HDD Caddy Installation (56k Warning)

Introduction:
Long story short I had my heart set on the M15x because of the beautiful 1080p LCD and single GPU configuration. Unfortunately I also wanted two HDDs; one main SSD to boot off of and install games on, and one backup drive for storage and to reroute my unnecessary writes. The M17x was out of the question since for a single card, the M17x would be a huge waste of money to me. Thus my search began for an alternative to carrying around an external drive.

My search brought me to the site newmodeus.com, where they offered HDD caddies that mimic laptop optical drives both slot loading and standard tray ejecting. I placed my order and two days later, I had my caddy. I ordered the 9.5mm caddy since I wasn't absolutely sure if the M15x used 12.7mm or 9.5mm. Turns out it's 12.7mm but fear not, the 9.5mm still fits like a charm.

Fortunately and unfortunately my motherboard decided to take a crap after 2 days with me. This allowed me to dissect the entire laptop, learning all the parts and placements, and allowed me to test out the caddy. A perfect fit! After calling Dell and troubleshooting (about 1 hour), a replacement motherboard was rushed overnight (pending the weekend...). The day came and the motherboard finally arrived along with a tech. We had prior arrangements for him to drop off the motherboard and, me having done the work already, just handed him the defective board. No tech screw ups and all was well in the world.

Note: He was a nice guy too, but even nice guys aren't allowed to touch my M15x...

Parts needed:
9.5mm or 12.7mm slot loading optical drive caddy with a external connection of SATA (NOT PATA!!).

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

12.7mm Caddy
OBHD Caddy replace 12.7 Slot-Loading Optical,9.5 SATA-SATA [OBHD-SATA-SATA-NF] - $42.00 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

12.7mm Caddy with 12.7mm height for 1TB HDD!
OBHHD Caddy to replace Slot-Loading Optical,12.7,SATA-SATA [OBHD-SATA12-SATA-NF] - $44.75 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

Dis-assembly:
Please follow your service manual for detailed instructions. Just please be sure to be organized, use clearly labeled containers etc to store screws and be sure to use caution when handling sensitive parts.


Everything I needed. Dis-assembly took 1 hour with the pdf service manual.


That's what the M15x looks like all taken apart...

Caddy Prep and Installation:
Installation is straight forward. Do the reverse of removing the optical drive. If you use the 12.7mm caddy, you should have no problems but the 9.5mm needed a slight adjustment (below). The caddy comes with screws to mount the HDD.

Note: Use antistatic gloves or a wrist strap if you are afraid of static frying your tech. I am because I have 3 dogs and 4 cats...


Ready to be installed.


Remove your SATA connection from the DVD drive and connect it to your caddy.


SATA connected. Now we begin the installation.


Place your DVD mount to your new caddy. All holes should line up for a 12.7mm caddy but for a 9.5mm caddy you will run into a problem on one side.


Mount bumps into the 9.5mm caddy and so you will not be able to install 2 of the screws. Keep the screws safe in case you want to get a 12.7mm caddy (oh come on, you want the 1TB HDD).


Ready to be dropped into the chassis.


Line up your mounts and replace the 3 screws removed from dis-assembly.


Don't forget the 4th screw on the bottom of the chassis.


Connect your caddy to your motherboard. You are now done. easy huh?
If you know how to reassemble, disregard the rest of the guide.

You are done now, you can stop looking at this very long guide...go congratulate yourself on a job well done.

Reassembly:
Ok for those of you who like real life photos of the reassembly, look no more. Follow the service manual for locations to tighten down screws.


Replace your I/O board that must be removed for DVD removal and caddy installation (it blocks one of the 3 screws).


My NEW!! motherboard installed with lights, speakers, etc connected and ready for the next step.


Magnesium chassis installed with express card connected via motherboard. Remember to replace the plastic "card" that is removed at dis-assembly. Tightened screws down at locations listed in service guide.

In between step: At this point you should also reinstall your BT and Wifi cards if you haven't already done so. Do it after installing the LCD but before installing the palm rest.


Palm rest installed. Be sure to connect the touchpad before doing so. LCD is also installed and wired routed through their respected channels (consult service manual for more info).


Keyboard reinstalled. Be sure to reconnect it along with the Alienfx connection.


CPU and GPU reinstalled and re-TIMed with MX-3.


Heastinks and fans reinstalled. Remember to connect them in! RAM and main HDD (not pictured) also installed.


Service panel goes back on. Battery reconnected. AC reconnected. Reconnect everything else not listed, shouldn't be much or too difficult now.

If you replaced your motherboard. like I did, you will need to reenter your service tag at the bios screen.


Hey look! Backup drive! Not sure about raiding since I don't care much for raid lol.

Hope you enjoyed this guide and found it useful. If you have any questions be sure to PM me or post here. Like all my threads, I try to answer every question I can. This modification can also be done on the M17x if you desire 3 HDDs.

Until next time. Thanks for looking!

 

Nice Guide Villosa. I wanted to add 1TB pretty soon to my m15x. I might have to do this sooner or later.

 

Nice work villosa. I will also be doing this when my m15x arrives! A quick question though, will the 12.5mm drive fit? I thought the slot was a 9.5mm like the sxps16/13?

I already have a 12.5mm caddy and ati 5870 in my clevo ready to be stripped out when my new baby arrives

 

I think there are only two sizes, 12.7mm and 9.5mm. The 12.7mm will definitely fit though.

 

sorry meant 12.7! thats great news, saves me buying a new caddy

What did you do with the slot loading optical? I am trying to find an external case to fit it.

 

Lol I put the DVD drive into the M15x box for safe keeping. I really have no need for an optical drive anyway.

 

Very nice dude.. Was curious how much effort this would take and what kind of solution was available for the HDD placement.

Didn't know that caddies were available, great!!!

Now I can have a 2nd SSD or HDD wicked!!! I'm just surprised they didn't offer it as an option themselves (Alienware I mean)..

Would rather use an external DVD drive anyway since I hardly use one.

 

awesome guide villosa, and wow i loved how you kept all the screws seperate, lol nice work bro.

 

Thanks guys. I'm glad this guide was helpful and was able to confirm that the caddy will work in the M15x.

 

great guide may do this in the future for adding a ssd and moving the 7.2k drive into that space rather not have external hd but soon will have to so i can be sure i wont have to delete my iso files lol

 

I am planning to upgrade the DVD drive in my M15x to a Blu-ray drive. Was wondering if I really need to unhinge the screen from the base prior to removing the magnesium cover. Per the steps in the service manual after removing the palm rest you are supposed to remove the two screws on the bottom of the laptop for the screen. Couldn't I just remove the 4 screws for the magnesium cover at that time instead, flip the laptop over, open the lid as much as possible, disconnect the cabling for the screen then working the cabling out of the guides, then removing the 12 screws to get the manesium cover off.

 

In theory that might work but I would follow the service manual very closely because I've come to realize that every step provided is essential in some way, even if it's not noticeable at first.

 

Gotcha. Thanks for the feedback. Most appreciated.

 

Np bro, good luck with the swap. Let me know if you have any more questions.

 

Swap complete! Considering that I've only ever worked on desktops I couldn't be more pleased with my success. Everything went without a hitch. Watched Avatar on Blu-ray last night in fact just to test out the drive. Let me tell you, any M15x owners who also sport this 1920x1080 LED screen are doing themselves a disservice by not going Blu. What a picture! I did end up leaving the screen on by the way. Logistically it would have been easier to manage the laptop for the remaining steps with the screen off. That must be the only reason they suggest to remove it prior to the mag cover, I/O board, and then finally the drive.

 

Anyone know or done this on the M17x? I'm interested in running RAID as in my sig, but also having my 640GB HDD in the computer as well. Curious if there are any minor differances between the 15 and 17 that will make this impossible.

 

Let me check on the M17x service manual when I get home in about an hour. As long as the back of the drive uses a SATA connection it should work but I will double check for you.

Also, congrats Lowpro! It awsome having extra storage!

EDIT: Just took a look at the service manual. It's the same deal with the M17x!

 

slot loading blu ray drives only come in 12.5mm so obviously the m15x has to be that size.

 

To avoid any confusion. I've done my research.

The M15x uses 12.7mm DVD or Bluray drives. 12.5mm caddies will fit but 12.7mm caddies are a PERFECT fit. Here is a list of 12.7mm Bluray drives for sale.

Dell drivers for the BD-Combo also states it as a 12.7mm drive. Drivers & Downloads

Panasonic Slim Blu-Ray Burner Slimline SATA (Slot Load) Drive

12.7mm blu ray slot load - Google Product Search

 

I bought mine here Alienware m15x m17x Blu-Ray SATA Player Reader CA10N on eBay.ca (item 310218347399 end time 16-Jun-10 11:45:09 EDT)

I don't think he has any left but its the original from dell.

 

Thanks for the link bro. I just wanted to clarify that the M15x and M17x both use 12.7mm drives and not 12.5mm.

 

Just curious, I'm interested in doing this but I do like to use the blu-ray optical drive at times. I'm more interested in having the 2 hard drives in my m15x though.

Does anyone here know of any external enclosures I can use for the slot load optical drive for those times that i wanna watch a movie? Kinda like having a portable blu-ray drive.

 

heh sweet, i should put 2 ssds on raid

 

2 ssds on raid.. interesting

 

Just a note, I'm not entirely sure RAID will work with that setup. If anyone tries and it works I'll update the guide with the info. Thanks!

 

I'm not 100% sure how raid works but I don't think it'll work on the M15x since the main SATA connector that the HDD uses maxes at 3.0 Gb/s and the SATA connector that the optical bay uses maxes at 1.5 Gb/s

I'm assuming both connections would have to be the same SATA connection for them to run as raid (As well as having two of the same hard drives)

Correct me if I'm wrong please

 

LOL my knowledge of RAID is 0% since I've never been interested in it. I prefer having a main and backup drive over 2x but essentially "1" fast drive.

 

Hey what do you think of this on Ebay $20 shipped


9.5mm Serial ATA Optical Bay Hard Drive Adapter/caddy - eBay (item 250632165773 end time Sep-09-10 19:16:59 PDT)

 

from the pictures i can tell that it is designed to replace the normal loading cd drive, not the slot loading one we have on the M15x.
so will need some modifications when it arrives.

 

i am gonna send an offer for this at $10-12 bucks it is worth a gamble and i will let you know. It might be some time till i get it since it is coming from china and then i need to get off my lazy a** and install it. lol

NEW SATA 2nd HDD caddy for 12.7mm Universal CD/DVD-ROM - eBay (item 300449917017 end time Aug-25-10 02:56:45 PDT)

 

i'll get one too.
i'll report back once it arrives.

 

lol i picked one up for $9.89 usd or 11.00 AUD from the seller after sending him a best offer and ebay bucks lol...not sure when i will have the chance to swap it out since i do not have an SSD yet soooooo.....thanks

 

The drive caddy just arrived, but i have to go out and buy an HDD to plug in, will post back in a few hours.

 

it won't. raid requires a bios function (if inbuilt) or a seperate boot rom (if a raid card) the m15x has neither.

not all raid configs are for speed
raid 0 = speed
raid 1 = protection (copying all the data to both drives - side effect is faster read speed)
raid 10 = 4 drives, combination of 0 and 1
raid 5 = hybrid with 3 drives, 2 in a sort of raid 0 with the 3rd being a type of parity check and can recover damaged data in the event of failure.

those are the 3 main ones anyways.


i too am intrested in this mod, however for the life of me i cannot find an external enclosure for the dvdrom... i'd like that option since it's the bluray drive and i sometimes like to be able to watch a film etc...

 

Newegg.com - SABRENT EC-BSAT Black USB 2.0 CD/DVD-RW Slim Notebook Drive Enclosure

that's the one I bought, requires 2 usb ports and no power adapter... tried it once and works fine.. only your not gonna have a cover because we dont have a sliding door...

be sure, whichever one you buy, that it has a slimline sata connector like that one from newegg does..

 

what does it look like without the front? i mean i'll be putting it in my laptop backpack and it's probably going to be damaged by the looks of things

oh well.

 

well, heres a quick pic I took with my phone..I have mine in my alienware backpack in a ziplock bag to prevent dust from getting in it.. I only use it a couple times a year anyway..

 

I got mine yesterday as well from china box was kinda crumpled but the caddy was fine. I will not have a chance till the weekend probably Sunday to mess around with it. Looks like it will squeeze in and brackets should fit the front cover you might need to pop off since the caddy was for a regular tray loading and not a slot loading. Let me know how it goes since i would like to know what i am in for.

thanks

 

a piece of black plastic + a knife could do the trick

 

thanks for the pic, much appreciated

yeah i think i'll stick with my single drive and probably go for something like the seagate momentus hybrid drive in the future.

 

i think like wattos said get some black abs plastic and a dremel and you can make a beauty cover real easily. I have a tray loading bluray burner that i converted into a external slim usb using this enclosure.

$11 shipped

USB 2.0 Slim SATA CD-ROM DVD-RW Optical Drive Enclosure - eBay (item 130407624493 end time Sep-04-10 15:38:10 PDT)

 

just installed my caddy, it worked without using any drivers.

but i just noticed that i could hear the HDD that i have just installed, it seems to be coming out of the CD slot. due to that area being open i can hear the new HDD.so the system is a little louder.

 

I too installed the caddy today that i got from ebay for $10 worked like a charm. The screw holes on the caddy were too small and plastic so you need to use a screw driver to enlarging it slightly to get it started. I just pushed a little hard on the screw and had it thread into the plastic. only 1 hole i had to use a screwdriver to enlarge the rest i just used some pressure

The caddy fit nice and tight in place and no additional work was needing to modify just make sure to use some pressure to get the screws started to thread. The bios detect the optical disk as a hard drive and i am installing windows 7 on a intel 80gb ssd as we speak. The overall work was not too bad and i removed the screen and took me about 1.5 hours since i had to go back becuase i forgot to remove the blue wrapping from the caddy. I would say it would take about and hour if you have some experience upto 2 hours if you have never done anything like it before.

Nice upgrade overall since i was looking to use a small SSD for boot and a larger hard drive for storage. I am using a hitachi 7.2k rpm 500gb 16mb cache drive for storage and intel 80gb SSD which i will probably swap out to a corsair "F" series.

 

i would really like to have a second HDD slot but what should i do when i took out the blu ray drive? could i just buy the enclosure that faiz provided? hehee.. im just overall worried that i might spoil my M15x that im gonna get this Oct ~ Dec.

never really dismantle any computers/Notebook in my life yet

 

I bought the 12.7mm caddy linked to from the first post, and I'm now typing on my M15x after installing it

Installation went without problems, and actually the M15x is a lot easier to take apart (and put together again) than a lot of other laptops I have taken apart in the past. Now in addition to my SSD, I also have approximately 600 GB of additional storage on my new WD Scorpio Blue 640 GB disk.

I guess I will just get an USB DVD drive for those rare occasions where I actually need to read data from a CD/DVD.

 

LG GP08NU20 DVD+RW Hi-Speed USB External Drive - Cowboom Store

$28.99 plus shipping but limited time only.

I think the same thing but lenovo brand

Lenovo - Find accessories for your laptop and desktop - Storage 55Y9394

$79.99 - 50% coupon exp 9/15 (USPCS29394) = $39.50 and free ship

 

Ordered the ebay "universal adaptater" (same as faiz23 and madoon).
But my M15X isn't shipped yet ^^ (one long week to wait)

 

Wonders if those enclosure have Esata & USB connectors, since esata are much faster?

 

i can guarantee you for $11 bucks it doesn't i have them. I have the same one in front of me and it has two jacks one for power and one for data and both are USB on the other end. The internal connector is sata but there is not e-sata connectors at all on this external enclosure

 

Sweet! Glad the mod went well and now you have extra storage.