GUIDE: How to Add a Second Hard Drive

1 open the bottom acess panel by removing the battery then the 2 screws

2 take the connector you recieved and plug it in ( see below)




3 take the metal case that came with the connector and slide the hard drive in with the label facing up with the connector on.




4 now you need to slide it all the way into the case


5 now you need to place the back end of the Hard drive into the back of the slot for the HD.





push down until its flat then screw in







NOW i know this isn't great but i can't upload much right now

 

Nice guide, moo.
but you might want to run spellcheck on the title

*Second

 

yea noticed that after i submitted

have mercy please i just got back from the dentist

 

haha, no worries. i think people here are bright enough to be able to read through it..i hope

 

Don't worry man, I didn't even notice it.

I have a Dentist apt tomorrow

 

Ouch! I just had dental surgery and going back Friday for more, my sympathies!

 

lol its not amazing but if you can figure it out now you shouldn't be doing it

 

Moo has an SSD now?

 

had one since my Whitebook

im selling it to (need money )

 

This was supposed to be an OCing guide Moo....

 

chill out


its coming

 

My avatar is getting hot and bothered by the thought.

 

What's a seconed hard drive? I never heard of it.

Good guide, The_Moo™.

 

i heard it's faster than an ssd. i think it has something to do with cones.

 

it the SSD rejects

 

hey moo question, once you installed the 2nd hard drive, do you need any special cable for the raid 0 setup?

 

no it is not connect in any way (except motherboard ....)

 

hey moo just a heads up, i have an extra q9200 cpu lying around unused (es with temperature sensor) do you want it for 255 free shipping?

 

see what becomes of my FS thread

 

Np ill reserve it for you. I got it from shirleyfu from ebay a month ago totally forgot about it. Im not sure what to do with it since i have not even used the cpu yet to install on the m17x.

 

by the way moo when you said no cable required, does that mean once i install the 2nd hard drive all i need is go into bios and select raid 0?

 

yes and reinstall windows of coarse

 

You will have to enable RAID, then pick which HDD's you want to use then restart. It should then bring up the RAID setup menu, in which you would select "striped" to get RAID 0 or "mirrored" to get RAID 1.

 

Sorry to bring up an old thread but what if you dont want raid and just want a second hard drive?

I just recieved my m17x and purchased a 640 gig wd and it shows in windows formats and works fine
if I restart it will load fine
from a shutdown it will not boot

 

....... not quite understanding here ...


You just have it as a secondary drive without installing windows on it ?

 

yes I have a primary ssd that works fine i just wanted to add another one for storage instead of storing everything on primary and running out of space

I have seen where some have added 1 tb drives to second spot even though it was thicker
but I have not seen any problems

 

it should be working just fine .... not quite sure what your issue is .... only thing i can think of is switch them around or try reseating it ...

 

Ill explain better sorry
I just got an m17x 4 days ago
I ordered it with a 256 gig ssd for main hard drive
salesman told me I could not get a second hard drive for it unless I used raid setup

I dont like raid 0 as when they go bad I still lose all the info anyway and raid 1 is not for me

I just wanted a fast main drive to run my currently played games and do my modding of games from
and to mod i need alot of room so instead of lugging around an external 500 gig drive I figured I would just add one
How hard could it be ? I do it all the time in my pc's at home

So I was going to try to get the 1 tb wd that was mentioned would fit with minor alterations but it was not available so I went with a 640 gig western digital

The hard drive install went great as the laptop came with the caddy and hardware
So just like this tutorial I installed it
when i booted it up i walked away when i came back it was trying to fix the problem of not booting
so i figured it was a boot issue and would fix it on next start
if the drive showed in windows of course
which it did and i formatted it not the quick format either

after the format i restarted it and checked the bios
it showed the drive which was good
and it showed the sdd as first to boot so i figured it was just a glitch and continued to boot

it booted fine remember i restarted it
after i copied some files and went to copy 150 gig at once there was a problem which turned out to be i did not fully share the now d drive in the laptop

so i shut it down and went to bed
when i started it there was that error again that kept windows from starting
after it was finished it asked if i wanted to restart and i did which it booted fine
so i shut it down and it did not boot

so i called dell/alienware ...just got it right ? they should help
wrong
i was told that they couldnt help me because it was a third party drive
they did get me to stop the restart to see the error
it was an nvsys64 or something
the guy told me to uninstall the nvidia chipset drivers and reinstall ones from the site not the disc that came with it
he would have helped me do it but it was a 3rd party drive so he would have to charge me

anyway sorry for the long post but maybe this will help
thanks for the fast replies too
much appreciated

 

it does sound like a Nvidia chiset error .... the NV sys is Nvidia system for short ....


IT honestly has me perplexed because i have never heard of anything like that


Check the M17x drivers thread and download the chipset driver then download it and install it then tell me if it works

 

ok thanks i will try that

and you think your perplexed
i have installed drives in machines for a few years now

i have had issues where it wouldnt see them ,bad drives etc...im sure you know
i even had a laptop(dell of course) that would run fine for a few weeks with a larger hard drive then stop
after installing the 3rd drive i knew it had to be something else ... it was too big for bios so i split it and it has been fine for a year

up till now ive never seen one that will keep a system from booting on startup but a restart fine and of course operate fine in the os

thanks again and when i get home i will try the drivers


ok I tried new drivers from dell website 2.05 looked newer than the ones on the driver page you had
same problem
thanks for the help

 

Quick question on a second drive. Just got around to throwing my 640GB in the M17X and my computer recognizes it, it's in the list of drives in the Device Driver, but doesn't show up in the computer as say, D: What am I missing here? Do I need to get into the BIOS? I know it's something simple, and my brain thought process has froze and I'm overlooking something, but couldn't find anything using the search tool. Thanks for any info

 

In disk management right click the unused space on the new HD and create a new partition.

 

let me know how that works out for you
we seem to have the same setup and my 640 hold up the boot process

 

The problem is that I can't find it in disk management, All I have there is OS(C and the blank 14GB partition. I can find it in device drivers, but it doesn't show up in disk manager. Also since I put it in the laptop my laptop likes to circle in the restart. starts up then goes back to the press F12 boot menu, I think it's related to the drive but I'm not sure.

 

DACV, I found what I was looking for. My disk is formatting, but I did it through "computer management" just type it in the start menu. On the left hand side click storage and your disk should show up there. It brings up the disk layouts and you should be able to format it. Mine is formatting at the moment so it may be a while.

 

Now someone just needs to make a guide to installing a second HDD into the M15x OD bay. One can wish anyway....

 

DR650SE my drive works fine in windows and i am currently using it
the problem is the laptop wont boot correctly from a cold start ie a shutdown
if i restart it the laptop boots fine
it only hangs if i had shut it down instead of restarting

sounds like you have the same issue

 

Yea, mine is still formatting. This thing takes crazy long to do a complete format. Once it's done, I'll tinker around and see if I have the same problem. If I find a solution I'll post it up.

Quad, do you need to know how to physically put the HD in? Or having done that you can't get it to work right?

 

No he is just wishing you could since it only fits one

 

I don't have the laptop yet, so haven't been able to open it up and see inside. But has anyone got info on how to install a 1TB HDD into the DVD/CD bay spot? I want to remove that and install the second HDD.

 

you can but you would have to remove everything in the laptop .....

 

DR650SE has it finished formatting?

 

Well I finished formatting. Just went to bed and let it do it's thing. My computer still cycles from a hard shutdown so we do have the same problem. It starts the Win 7 start up and as the colored balls are moving they freeze for a sec, and I go back to the F2 F12 alien restore screen. My internet was down in my room yesterday and it was my day off so I couldn't get online to look for a solution. Have you found anything yet DACV?

 

I have exhausted my normal methods of fixing things like this other than a complete reinstall
Which I do not believe should not be necessary but it could happen
I have done the drivers already ...twice
2 different ways

It is is still under warranty as I just bought it
When I called Dell/Alienware they told me that it was the drivers but they could not help me unless i Paid for it because it was a third party drive
After a brief arguement the tech agreed the problem has to be with laptop and not the drive but he could not help me
I told him to tell his people to go blank themselves and we will see who wins this

I have another option which will not happen for a few days so when that is resolved i will let you know what has happened
I believe the problem will be found out with what I am doing so...

 

Sounds good, I'll try some other stuff, but I'll hold off on a respawn till I hear from you. I might try something else if I can think of it. PM me if you find a solution.

 

Ok so I just got off the phone with alienware
I am soooo glad I spent 5000 dollars

They have now confirmed I have a problem

I bought a second drive direct from dell as if you remember i bought my own 640 gig that the laptop hung on cold starts and they told me it wa third party so they would have to charge me to fix it

So I put the 500 gig from dell in and low and behold same exact problem
so after an 2 HOOOURS on the phone they now think i should reinstall the os

I will do that tonight so when i get done and that fixes the problem I will let you know

Good thing I already knew that on the first phone call
This is why I build my own pc's

 

I have exactly the same problem, I installed a 640gb WD hard drive for a storage drive and it won't boot up correctly.
It took me a while to figure out the 2nd drive was the problem with start-up. I took the drive out and the 17x works fine.

I could not find a solution to this problem, so I will see what if anything dell suggests.

NEVER Had this problem on a desktop. There must be a way to fix this as I am sure someone ordered a 2nd drive installed from Dell that works.

BTW, I change drive letters, did a low level format and still not working.

 

Forgot to mention that my main C: Hard Drive is a SSD 256gb.

 

DACV, Any update?

 

I installed a second hard drive in my M17x as additional storage (no RAID).
I am however using the Windows driver for my IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller not the Nvidia Controller driver.

Using this driver may be the issue