Dell M4700 Crucial 128GB MSATA nightmare!!

Hi all,
I have recently bought a M4700 which has a normal 750GB SATA HDD in.

I bought a 128GB mSATA (6Gb/s) SSD from Crucial to go in the mSATA/Mobile internet slot.
Crucial say this is GAURANTEED M4700 compatible, hmmm........

I installed it, booted up, the BIOS saw it straight away, Windows saw it, installed it, so i went to computer management to Initialize it.

Problem, when i try to initialize it, WINDOWS says "THE REQUEST COULD NOT BE PERFORNED BECAUSE OF AN I/O ERROR"

I am on my second SSD as i rang Crucial, AND Dell, who both said i was doing it right, so i sent it back to Crucial.
The have just sent me a replacement, and guess what.........
It won't work, exactly the same problem please help!!

SO far ive tried Updating ALL windows drivers, Flashing the BIOS, iv'e even reinstalled windows with the mSATA installed first.
I am a Microsoft Network Professional and i'm stuffed if i can work out why it doesn't work!

I know the drive is mSATA III (6Gb/s), and for some bizarre reason the new Dell M4700 only runs mSATA II (3Gb/s),
but this shouldn't matter as they are meant to be fully backwards compatible?.

My full spec is:

Windows 7 64bit Pro.
I7 3720QM @2.6GHZ
16GB 1600MHZ RAM (2x8GB, 2x free slots)
K2000M Quadro grtaphics
Intel PRO wireless
Bluetooth card
DVD r/W
SD card rader
etc.

Can anybody suggest anything?, am i missing a driver, or are Crucial telling lies about it's compatibility,?????
as ive been told Dell program the system to only let certain mSATA's work??.

Many thanks,

Dan

 

In the first review here Amazon.com: Crucial 128GB m4 mSATA Internal Solid State Drive (CT128M4SSD3): Computers & Accessories there is a reference to Firmware. What version are you using?
IS you plan to install windows on the Crucial eventually?

 

Well, i got a mSATA M4 running perfectly in my M6700 so it should work in the M4700 too. It's normal that it would run on SATA II, the SATA III ports on the M4700 are for the HDD and ODD IIRC, but it should pose any compatibility problems, my M4 is running on SATA II in my M6700.

I would agree with JOSEA, check the FW version, mine is on 000F.

 

Dan,

Breath. Relax. Check your firmware. I'm on laptop #5, and about to pull the trigger on #6. I have never seen what you are seeing unless something silly is wrong. Crucial makes drives to SS2 and 3 specs. It should work.

cg

 

Dan,

Have you resolved your problem? Did you install mSATA into WWAN port? I actually cannot see msata bay/port under the back cover... Is it under the keyboard? Please help!

Thx,
Alex.

 

In the M4700, the WWAN connector doubles as a mSATA connector, it's only in the M6700 that you can have both WWAN and mSATA.

 

Only thing I can suggest is that the 'mSATA' code part of the wwan port is missing on your model (simply defective...).

Or; try installing Win8 to see if it's a driver issue.

Or; try ensuring the RAM is seated properly and also that it is in the proper slots too (since all your Sodimm slots aren't filled yet).


Is there another SSD to try?

 

Is it still visible in Windows? If it is not visible in Windows this might be worth a try.

Why did my SSD "disappear" from my system? - Crucial Community