HP elitebook 8570w. After installing SSD, secondary HDD not recognized

rick20891 · 06 Sep 2014

Hi all,

One week ago, I decided to buy a Samsung 840 evo 250gb SSD for my university laptop (HP 8570w). For the OEM HDD, i decided to buy a 'Nimitz' caddy for in the upgrade bay.
As the university covers the insurance and warranty, I was not allowed to install the SSD myself, but had to let their service center do it. And so they did..

After a few days of trouble, they managed to let the laptop run on the SSD, but the secondary HDD in the upgrade bay was not recognized. Their assistance covered only the installing and imaging of windows 7 with the university's VPN software, but the secondary HDD problem wasn't covered.
Therefore, i would like to try to fix the problem myself, ofcourse with a little help if possible

My line of thinking was as follows:
I've heard them switching BIOS setting from IDE or RAID to AHCI.
The secondary HDD was not formatted, and is recognized in BIOS, but not in Windows. Only the SSD is showing up in Windows Device Manager. On the contrary, the Intel Rapid Storage Technology software keeps on posting messages about the HDD drive, saying the status of the HDD is 'incompatible'.

I also saw in Intel RST that the 'internal SSD of 22GB' was also disabled and on status 'incompatible'. I remember the service center saying something about incompatibility between 'internal SSD' and samsung SSD, and therefore they disabled the internal SSD. (I'm sorry for the probably incorrect 'internal SSD' term

)

With my little knowledge on HDD installations, i think the problem is in the switch of IDE/RAID to AHCI.
Because the HDD was always working fine, and is at least recognized by Intel RST, i tend to think the hardware (HDD+caddy) is fine.

I'm looking forward to hear the opinions of you guys, in order to tackle this problem :)

Regards,
Rick

Imrankhan · 07 Sep 2014

Do you have a PC. try connecting the HDD to it?
Goto Disk Management and check if HDD shown there.
Reinstall Intel RST.
Its IDE by default in my laptop with caddy. Definitely no RAID.

rick20891 · 07 Sep 2014

I have tried the caddy with hdd in my older acer 6930G notebook. There it was visible in bios as ATAPI device. In windows, no sign of life at all. Not visible in device manager.

Did not reinstall RST on the 8570w btw, but would it help, with the findings from above in mind?

Looking forward to hear any suggestion

ICIT2LOL · 07 Sep 2014

First up mate Imran suggestion of trying it on another machine - you used it with a USB connection?

Second it sounds like the folks that fitted the SSD really have made a mess of the job because it should have been easy. The switch to ACHI should not have made any difference and if the second drive is not formatted why not format it or have you got data on it?

You can use diskpart to do that or Partition Wizard Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.
I would wipe the drive before doing that and then format it see pic for wiping.

rick20891 · 08 Sep 2014

Thank you so much for the effort given!
Unfortunately, i cannot plug the drive in through usb. And for the wiping and formatting through software, i already tried acronis disk manager but the drive is not showing within those kind of programs so i cannot format. Would your program be different? It wouldn't be a problem to lose the data on the hdd btw.

Imrankhan · 09 Sep 2014

According to your first post, those university guys replaced HDD with SSD. And put HDD in caddy. And HDD in caddy isn't working.
Change to IDE mode in bios, since all HDDs support this mode.
Have you checked whether caddy is working. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/s/ref=...usb+to+2.5+hdd
There's lot of HDD to USB cables online. They come in handy in these kinda situations. Use these to check your HDD is working. If it works, replace your Nimitz Caddy.

ICIT2LOL · 09 Sep 2014

Ditto what Imran has suggested and the connection can be used with a USB adaptor as in pic.
These are really quite cheap and I use mine a fair bit to save putting drives into a machine or a caddy:)

rick20891 · 09 Sep 2014

If i interpret the answer correctly, i need to connect the HDD through an usb cable to the laptop right? (e-sata or just usb?) In case that the HDD is recognized in this way, can i be sure that it is the caddy, or could it still be a configuration problem of the internal sata port/bios setting?

First step that i will do is to hook myself up with such a cable, which will take some time through internet ordering.

I will report the steps taken and the results here of course

ICIT2LOL · 10 Sep 2014

If the caddy has a USB connection no you don't necessarily need the adaptor I showed in that pic it is simply an alternative. From what I have seen some of those caddies some have a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) component and the drive runs from it the adaptor simply connects the drive without any such interface so avoids any other "distractions".
Of course it does depend on the connection type IDE or SATA but those adaptors have both types of connection on them. (see pic) it shows a dual SATA but it follows the same principle of both connections either side

rick20891 · 15 Sep 2014

I found out some interesting facts:
Through usb, my hdd is recognized in both my laptop and in another laptop.
The hdd of a friend installed in my caddy, plugged into my laptop is working immediately.

Really strange behavior. Next step that im going to take is to format my hdd through usb i think.

Im looking forward to hear your thoughts on this remarkable problem!