Problem after trying to install new SSD in ThinkPad

So I got a new ThinkPad Yoga. I cloned the original drive to a new, larger capacity SSD using the EaseUS software. Then I took out the old drive and put in the new cloned drive and I can't seem to boot up. I get this error message:

"2100: Detection error on HDD0 (Main HDD)"

So I took out the cloned drive and put in the original drive, and now I am getting the exact same error message along with a beep, pause, then 2 consecutive beeps. Any help?

 

Did you check the BIOS settings?

 

Yes I did. Is there anything I should be looking for? I checked the boot priority order and the ATA HDD0 is number 1.

 

The boot order seems fine.

I'm thinking maybe that maybe the SATA connection isn't fitting properly. Did you check to make sure everything fit perfectly?

 

Yup. I'm pretty sure I put the drive in firmly and fully inside. This is really perplexing

 

I'd venture a guess that the drive is not sitting right or pushed in all the way.

BTW, the way you cloned the HDD to SSD is not going to work on a ThinkPad, but let's cross the "recognition" bridge first.

Is the original HDD still in its caddy and rubber rails?

 

Sorry not sure what you mean by your last question. Could you clarify?

 

Is the "system reserved" partition on the new SSD marked as "active"? That's where Boot Manager lives and it must be marked as the active partition on the drive. I don't know if EaseUS does that, but you should at least check to be sure.

 

How could I check if it is active?

 

The hard drive in ThinkPads normally sits in the metal caddy secured by four screws. There are also rubber rails that go alongside the drive.

For the drive to be properly inserted all of the above should be in place.

 

You can't until the drive is recognized...checking anything on another computer will get you nowhere.

Let's get the machine to "see" its old hard drive first if at all possible, shall we?

 

Yes I put everything back in its original place. I'm also following the instructional FRU videos provided by lenovo themselves here: RTPW1230_ThinkPad_YogaUltrabook

 

Interesting.

The next thing I would try is removing the hard drive cover (we're still testing the old spinning drive, not SSD) and *gently* pushing the drive inwards while attempting to boot the machine.

Is the drive "seen" in BIOS, BTW?

 

The original drive is also an SSD. I cannot see the SSD in bios. When I start the computer it brings me to a boot menu, in which there is nothing listed at all. It is as if the computer doesn't recognize the drive as bootable. This is highly unlikely, but is it possible that while I was cloning the drive, something happened to the original drive?

The good news is I am no longer getting the HDD error mentioned in my first post. Not sure what made it go away. Perhaps while I was fiddling with the drive and trying to place it more securely

 

Here's something else that is interesting. I was able to boot to the cloned drive VIA usb 3.0 hard drive enclosure while in safe mode. If not in safe mode, it won't be able to boot

 

I've never known my drives to be that sensitive, I slide mine in an out all the time. The only thing I am careful about is the orientation of the drive. I use a flashlight or whatever to peer into the empty slot to note the position the connector has to be in (narrow edge / long edge) so that I slot it in correctly. Other than that, depending upon the thickness of the drive, if you laptop is rightside up or upside down could cause the drive to maybe be aligned too high so the edge connect slides right above the connector or below the connector. What you should be able to do is "feel" the last 1/4" inch of the drive insertion to encounter a little resistance.

You should also see the drive in bios, but I'm wondering if the UEFI / Secure Boot thing is causing the bios to not see the drives? I'm not sure if that could be it but you could try disable secure boot and trying it again. After double checking that the drive seems to be seated correctly anyway.

Edit:
The likelihood that something happened to your original drive while cloning is highly unlikely. I'd continue to troubleshoot just the new drive as it has to been something simple that we're just overlooking.

 

Also tried disabling secure boot. Same result

 

It really sounds like one end of the cable is not seated properly. I'd go through and disconnect both ends (one end that connects to the Hard Drive/SSD and the end that connects to the Motherboard) and reconnect/reseat it.

With the old Hard Drive attached, can you detect the hard drive spinning at boot up?

 

Okay I FINALLY figured it out. I was doing everything correctly and the hard drive was seated properly. The problem was somehow I had loosened the cable that connected to the motherboard without even knowing it probably when I was removing the original drive!

I've also discovered that the cloned drive will not boot. I will have to find another way to use the new SSD. How can I get the factory default system on to the new drive that I got? I was thinking I would simply create recovery media using a USB drive, then I will boot from that usb drive with the new SSD installed. Would this work?

 

Did your cloning software support cloning UEFI?

 

I'm using EaseUS Todo Backup. Have no clue if it supports UEFI?

 

When cloning a drive for a ThinkPad...

The new drive must be in the main bay, and the old one in the external enclosure.

Your best bet is booting Clonezilla from a USB stick or external CD-ROM and following the prompts.

Having said that, I prefer a fresh install at all times, but to each their own.

Good luck.

 

Thank you ajkula66 and everyone else for chiming in your thoughts and trying to help me solve this issue.

Also thanks for letting me know what is the proper way to clone on a ThinkPad. I had no idea it had to be that way. Though I wanted to ask do you think my other method should work without a problem, which is to create recovery media on a USB stick from the original drive, then boot from it with the new drive inside the bay?

 

It might work but I've never done it that way. Sounds like it should.

Then again, I don't use W8.

Good luck.

 

Use a product such as Minitool Partition Wizard, which is free in a Home Edition (or non-free for a more feature-rich version) and runs under Windows. It also provides a free standalone boot CD version that you should download and burn to CD.

Then boot your laptop to the boot CD, which hopefully will work. Partition Wizard will then be usable to view, examine and modify the partition structure on all of your drives... assuming they're electrically visible of course. You should be able to see which (if any) of the partitions on the drive is marked "active&boot", and it should be that small "system reserved". The second large partition (i.e. C, where Windows is installed) should simply show up as "system".


NOTE: are you sure you have the SSD drive inserted correctly? I recently changed the 500GB spinner SATA drive that came with my W530 to a 512GB Samsung 840 Pro. I'd never opened a laptop before, and apparently didn't pay too much attention to how the original SATA drive was oriented (i.e. which was "top" and which was "bottom"). So I removed the drive by pulling it out of the drive bay of the W530, and then the side rubber rails just kind of dropped off.

Now I'd never installed a drive in a laptop before, and didn't realize that the male power/data connector way inside the drive bay is positioned such that it either WILL or WILL NOT fit into the matching female connectors on the drive. But it seemingly does not prevent the drive from being pushed all the way in... just that the connectors are not "married".

So my first attempt with the SSD actually put the rails on "upside down", so that when I inserted the drive into the bay and pushed it back and thought it was "married", in fact NO CONNECTOR MARRIAGE HAD OCCURRED. The drive was actually raised (or lowered) by a small fraction of an inch because the rubber rails were pressed on upside down, and the drive itself had thus been placed into the bay upside-down from the correct orientation. So in fact it was simply NOT even seen by the laptop, because the power/data connectors were simply not mated with the laptop.

After several attempts at problem solving failed to produce any change, I took the SSD out of the bay and once again looked closely at the W530 maintenance manual to try and understand what their diagram was trying to imply about how the rails should attach, and why they'd shown two different diagrams one for SATA spinner and a second one for SSD. Anyway, I finally decided that maybe I'd attached the rubber rails incorrectly, and very carefully reversed them as it looked like the diagram in the manual was trying to suggest.

Well, it was after that when I saw that this required the drive to be reversed (i.e. turned over) in order to insert it into the drive bay and have it fit and the plastic bay door reattached. And sure enough, because of the rubber rail reversal now the upside-down from original drive position was a small fraction of an inch lower (or higher) than where it had been originally. And now sure enough I absolutely felt it push up against the male power/data connectors deep inside the drive bay. I then pushed firmly, closed things up, and one more time attempted a re-boot.

And now SURE ENOUGH... the drive was now properly seen in the BIOS. And I could now proceed with the rest of my "from scratch" Win7 install to the new SSD. Note that I changed my mind about how I was going to install with the new SSD, deciding to NOT "clone" from my SATA spinner with Macrium Reflect but rather to "install from scratch" using a retail Win7 Pro x64 installation DVD with a retail product code key from MS.

 

So I was able to get the new drive to work in my ThinkPad Yoga. I took a shot at doing what I exactly did the first time: I cloned the new drive via usb hard drive enclosure using EaseUS software. I popped the new drive, and it booted flawlessly! I have no idea why it would not boot the first time. Perhaps something went wrong during the first cloning. Anyway, just letting you guys know this method actually works

 

Hi, I'm going to attempt exactly what you did (replace TPY SSD with a larger capacity SSD using EaseUS to clone), but I'm a total noob. Would you mind going in detail about how you cloned your original SSD? Specifically, did you clone all the partitions? In EaseUS,what options did you set: did you optimize for SSD, which partition did you "Set Active", and did you resize any of the partitions?

Would really appreciate your guidance. Thank you!

 

While trying to clone Thinkpad Yoga partitions using EaseUS, I encountered the following error: No more partitions can be created on the destination disk.

I still have one last partition left to clone (Recovery Partition). Any clues what went wrong?

 

Apparently not, given that he tried again with success, having figured out that he had unplugged the connector the first time.

 

I bought a Samsung SSD for a TP Yoga and simply used the Samsung utility to clone the existing SSD in the machine to the new one in an external enclosure. Then I popped the new drive in the machine and it worked fine.

 

Interesting.

They've obviously messed around with the BIOS structure on newer ThinkPads - along with everything else - and effectively enabled this approach.

Good to know for the folks using the latest generation of these machines, group which will never include the silly old me...