Smart Bay HD Problems

Alright, I've had my Alienware m15x for about 3 weeks now. I'm completely in love with the thing. It's met my expectations and beyond. I've really only had one problem. That is when I take out the optical drive and put in the Smartbay HD I purchased (Which is the 80GB 7200RPM (8MB Cache) Smart Bay), I can't seem to find how to actually use it.

At first, I assumed it would come up in the Computer section under removable Storage, it doesn't. I'm not sure why, It technically is removable storage, right? I checked to see if anything wasn't installed correctly, nothing could come up. Everything seems to be installed correctly. I'm not sure what's going on really.

I currently don't have the Drive with me at this moment so I can't really try anything. But, I could also post the model and stuff if anyone needs to to help me with the problem.

I would appreciate and greatly thank anyone who could help me with this problem.

Thanks,
Tyler

 

Did you safely remove the dvd drive first?

 

Yeah, I removed it via the tab in the bottom right corner.

 

Hmmm... Might have to reboot, that's all I can think of. I don't have one.

 

from what i've seen in the Device Manager on my m15x, the DVD drive/smartbay I/O controller is IDE/ATA, not sATA... I can't recall anytime that an ATA device has been "good" at warm/hotplugging.

could just be quirks with the hotplug handling in Vista. since it IS an older format, the drivers under Vista might not be 100%.

could try a reboot after you install the new device, that would definitely make it work... if not, you might wanna ask AlienWare about it. 'cause a reboot should fix it. (however, it also shouldn't be necessary.)

IMO, I have no idea why there even IS an IDE controller in this computer... making it 100% SATA would've been a cinch. but it's a moot point now, as I'm not a developer for AW... I just think the system would've been a little more flexable without ATA... as the ATA standards are old enough to require resources that newer standards not necessarily need as nailed-down... but whatever.

 

I figured out what hardware it is. FUJITSU MHW2080BJ G2. That's exactly as it appears. Not really sure what to do. Still doesn't show up.

 

The problem is that the drive is all unallocated space. You need to partition it and format it before you can use it.

-Right-click Computer and click Manage
-Expand Storage in the left-hand pane
-Click on Disk Management
-Right-click on the new hard drive (should say something like unallocated space) in the right-hand pane and click Format

That is off the top of my head, if you need more specific instructions let me know.

 

seems to me that windows isn't correctly assigning your harddrive a drive letter (and thus you can't use it), this can be easily fixed if you know some more advanced features... or you can keep trying by unplugging/plugging it back in for hours till windows does it itself...

you want to go into computer management, it's under the "administrative tools" in the "classic" control panel. on the left of computer management, you'll see disk management. so when you have your drive installed, go there, find the drive, right click and specify "change drive letter or paths" and give it a drive letter.

this process should only need to be done once, from now on, the drive should automatically get that drive letter when connected.

also, please remember to eject the drive safely when you're done with it. File system corruption is a *****, and i'd hate to see that happen with any of you good folks.

 

Great minds think alike Mystik. Looks like we posted at the exact same time!

 

too fast man. and so good

 

Wow guys. Thanks so much! It's currently formatting as I type and was assigned the Letter D. Can't explain how happy I am. Now all I need is to buy a Smart Bay Battery. :O

Thanks again!
Tyler

 

lolz, i had the same problem when getting my m15x.. hhahahaa...