Hard disk not recognized in Optical Drive caddy

[A13hinav]

Hello.
I bought Storite New SATA 3.0 9.5mm Universal SATA 2nd HDD/SSD 2.5" Hard Drive Plastic Material Caddy for CD/DVD-ROM Optical Bay to use it with my HP laptop model HP 15 ac-179tx.
Along with this I also bought Samsung SSD 750 Evo 250 GB model.
Here is my problem. Everything works fine when I used SSD in the Caddy and hard disk in the hard disk bay.
But when I used my 1TB Hitachi hard disk that came with Laptop in the caddy it isnt recognized.
Is it the problem of this particular Caddy? Do i need to get a different model?
Because of this I am forced to use SSD in the caddy which will only give me SATA II speed (3gbps) instead of SATA III (6gbps). Would really appriciate it of someone could help me. Please

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, A13hinav.

It could be some sort of weird incompatibility issue. Do you have the option to try the caddy and the HDD with a different computer, even a desktop one, just to see if you still have the same issue. If you do and if the drive is perfectly healthy, then I guess it's because of the caddy.
You could backup the HDD's data, just to be on the safe side and test it with its manufacturer's diagnostic tool to make sure that it's in perfect condition.
You could also get in touch with the caddy manufacturer's and/or the laptop manufacturer's customer support to see if you need a specific driver for that caddy or it there are any incompatibility issues between those two devices.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how it goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[A13hinav]

I will try that. In mean time I heard that a Caddy either internal or external cant support more than 500GB as it draws more power. Hence 1TB hard drives cant be used . Does 1TB HDD require more power than 500GB counterpart? Is that true? or is it just a base less rumour?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

You should be able to see that in the HDD/SSD caddy's specification sheet. Or at least get in touch with the manufacturer's customer support for more info on that.
As for the power difference, it really depends on a lot of things. A 500GB drive could consume more power than a 1TB drive and vice versa. Basically it depends on the model, number platters, features, etc. So basically it is impossible for me to answer that question unless you have two specific drive models in mind. If this was the case you'd be able to check their power consumption in their drive spec sheets as well.

 

[A13hinav]

I have solved the problem. In a way i guess. I had a older HP laptop with a 500GB HDD SATA II of same manufacturer. Once i swapped them everything seems to be fine. So I switched my 1TB into older laptop and 500GB HDD into the caddy. For some reason its working. I cant be bothered to see why it works as I am exhausted. Maybe some other time I will revisit this thread and get to the bottom of this and find why exactly it happened.
Thanks Boogieman_WD for taking time to reply. Really appreciate it.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Well if this is the case and as you've mentioned that the caddy is SATA II, perhaps it's an older model caddy that has some limit restriction regarding the drives' size. Anyway, hopefully you figure it out at some point. I'll be happy to learn what was the exact cause for the issue if you decide to post it some other time.

 

[Navinder]

Hello.
I bought Storite New SATA 3.0 9.5mm Universal SATA 2nd HDD/SSD 2.5" Hard Drive Plastic Material Caddy for CD/DVD-ROM Optical Bay to use it with my HP laptop model HP 15 ac-179tx.
Along with this I also bought Samsung SSD 750 Evo 250 GB model.
Here is my problem. Everything works fine when I used SSD in the Caddy and hard disk in the hard disk bay.
But when I used my 1TB Hitachi hard disk that came with Laptop in the caddy it isnt recognized.
Is it the problem of this particular Caddy? Do i need to get a different model?
Because of this I am forced to use SSD in the caddy which will only give me SATA II speed (3gbps) instead of SATA III (6gbps). Would really appriciate it of someone could help me. Please

Hello there!
I am currently experiencing same issue in my hp p204tx laptop.
Also kindly note my findings:
1.) SSD in Caddy (@ half R/W speeds) and HDD in primary bay works with often windows booting issues on SSD.
2.) SSD in primary bay (@ full speed) and HDD in caddy works together only in linux. Windows recognize only SSD primary bay. However, for some time in beginning (after installation of OS), windows recognized the HDD on caddy as Disc1 and was asking to set partition table (MBR/GPT) on 'Disc Management' but couldn't proceed, bcoz of some error.
3.) The optical drive is rated 1.5A and now the substituted HDD 1TB is 0.85 rated. Also the second config works under linux. So, I will straight forward rule out 'insufficient power' issues.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hi Navinder.

Good job on the troubleshooting so far!
The fact that the SSD does not reach its full potential while connected with the caddy might mean that either the SATA port or the caddy uses SATA II interface instead of SATA III. This would explain the bottleneck.
As for the HDD not being recognized by the caddy, have you checked if your BIOS recognizes it while connected to the caddy? Is the HDD's capacity compatible with the caddy? Have you tried testing it for errors and/or bad sectors?

Please let me know how it goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[Navinder]

Hi Navinder.

Good job on the troubleshooting so far!
The fact that the SSD does not reach its full potential while connected with the caddy might mean that either the SATA port or the caddy uses SATA II interface instead of SATA III. This would explain the bottleneck.
As for the HDD not being recognized by the caddy, have you checked if your BIOS recognizes it while connected to the caddy? Is the HDD's capacity compatible with the caddy? Have you tried testing it for errors and/or bad sectors?

Please let me know how it goes.
Boogieman_WD

Well, I have no means of checking " HDD's capacity compatible with the caddy". The laptop has very limited options in bios. For now, I have returned the ssd and caddy on return policy to amazon. I will look into the matter later, if possible. I have wasted enough of my time and energy already.

Thank you for your time. Although, if you come across any solution in future please reply me.