Help please. I installed a new SSD into my optical bay on my HP laptop, and I can't get my computer to read the SSD. I went into Disk Management, Speccy, and Device Manager and can't find my new SSD there. I'm trying to use Acronis True Image 2016 to clone HDD to my SSD, and Acronis is telling me that there is only 1 Hard Drive on the computer so I can't use the Cloning feature.
Installed SSD in optical bay and computer is not reading it
- Thread starter Danxity
- Start date
Double check the connectors to the SSD. You need to have a power cable (from the PSU) AND a Sata cable connecting the SSD to the motherboard. To save time you can just boot into the BIOS on a restart and see if the SSD is visible from there.
If you're still unable to find the SSD, you can temporarily grab the SATA power and data cable from your HDD and connect it to the SSD. The computer won't boot to Windows, obviously, because the HDD isn't there, but you can pop into the BIOS and check if the SSD shows up. If it does, then you know your SSD is not the problem and it must be either the cables or motherboard port.
If you're still unable to find the SSD, you can temporarily grab the SATA power and data cable from your HDD and connect it to the SSD. The computer won't boot to Windows, obviously, because the HDD isn't there, but you can pop into the BIOS and check if the SSD shows up. If it does, then you know your SSD is not the problem and it must be either the cables or motherboard port.
Right then. And you're sure the SSD is properly mounted and connected? It is also worth booting into the BIOS just the see whether the SSD shows up there. Assuming it doesn't...
Was the optical drive working before you swapped in the SSD? That would tell us that the connectors should be working.
Your best bet is still to swap out your HDD with the SSD as a test. That would at least tell you whether the SSD works.
I have a HP Elitebook and the BIOS looks different from a standard BIOS, and there's no way to see in there if anything is connected. HP made a custom BIOS basically. I'm going swap the HDD with the SSD now and see if I could just a system recovery. I wanted to use Acronis True Image to do a clone originally. I pressed F9 and went into Boot Options to try to boot from Optical Bay or something else. There's nothing there I could select. It jus't shows a screen that says "Boot Options" and all it shows is "Ethernet". I can't select or change anything in there either.
Are you sure you're getting into the BIOS properly? Mashing F10 (for HP) on Boot I believe? Surely your HP BIOS at least displays the connected SATA devices? That's a fundamental BIOS feature. I find it difficult to imagine HP haven't implemented it. You can see the drives listed in a screenshot of a HP BIOS on this page: http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-bph07110
Your other option with Cloning is to purchase a relatively cheap SATA to USB adapter, something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812120102&cm_re=sata_to_usb-_-12-120-102-_-Product
According to the Acronis page that will work fine as long you a) use a bootable USB drive to boot to the Aconronis Cloning Utility and b) have the target drive (in your case the SSD) installed in the laptop, with the source drive (your HDD) in the USB adapter.
You'll also need to make sure the drives are compatible for cloning which isn't always the case.
Instructions here: https://kb.acronis.com/content/2931
Your other option with Cloning is to purchase a relatively cheap SATA to USB adapter, something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812120102&cm_re=sata_to_usb-_-12-120-102-_-Product
According to the Acronis page that will work fine as long you a) use a bootable USB drive to boot to the Aconronis Cloning Utility and b) have the target drive (in your case the SSD) installed in the laptop, with the source drive (your HDD) in the USB adapter.
You'll also need to make sure the drives are compatible for cloning which isn't always the case.
Instructions here: https://kb.acronis.com/content/2931
Yes i'm sure I got into the BIOS.
http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03736054
If you check the link above. My BIOS look like a white screen, and not a standard looking BIOS. And this type of BIOS menu really suck. You can't do much in here, or actually you can't do anything with this BIOS.
BTW really thanks for your replies!
I will have to try to buy the cable like you mentioned, or try and make a recovery CD I guess.
http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03736054
If you check the link above. My BIOS look like a white screen, and not a standard looking BIOS. And this type of BIOS menu really suck. You can't do much in here, or actually you can't do anything with this BIOS.
BTW really thanks for your replies!
I will have to try to buy the cable like you mentioned, or try and make a recovery CD I guess.
SOLVED : Samsung EVO 850 SSD SATA III working in Optical Drive now.
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) - 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7.
I have SSD as main drive and a HDD in "Optical Drive", But it was taking too much battery/ too much noise. I put a new Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SATA III SSD in optical drive. For some reason it was not showing anything!!!
After reading some post , I realized that my caddy is not SATA III compatible. So I clicked on the link provided https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004FM...
It looked exactly like my previous caddy but something inside, a chip or something is new. Make sure seller is "HIGHFINE".
NOTE : After installing new Caddy in optical drive with SSD Sata III, I started computer and was able to see SSD in DISK UTILITY. I initialized/ formatted it. BUT drive was showing in some weird small size. I restarted Laptop and it came on FINE.
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) - 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7.
I have SSD as main drive and a HDD in "Optical Drive", But it was taking too much battery/ too much noise. I put a new Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SATA III SSD in optical drive. For some reason it was not showing anything!!!
After reading some post , I realized that my caddy is not SATA III compatible. So I clicked on the link provided https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004FM...
It looked exactly like my previous caddy but something inside, a chip or something is new. Make sure seller is "HIGHFINE".
NOTE : After installing new Caddy in optical drive with SSD Sata III, I started computer and was able to see SSD in DISK UTILITY. I initialized/ formatted it. BUT drive was showing in some weird small size. I restarted Laptop and it came on FINE.
SOLVED : Samsung EVO 850 SSD SATA III working in Optical Drive now.
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) - 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7.
I have SSD as main drive and a HDD in "Optical Drive", But it was taking too much battery/ too much noise. I put a new Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SATA III SSD in optical drive. For some reason it was not showing anything!!!
After reading some post , I realized that my caddy is not SATA III compatible. So I clicked on the link provided https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004FM...
It looked exactly like my previous caddy but something inside, a chip or something is new. Make sure seller is "HIGHFINE".
NOTE : After installing new Caddy in optical drive with SSD Sata III, I started computer and was able to see SSD in DISK UTILITY. I initialized/ formatted it. BUT drive was showing in some weird small size. I restarted Laptop and it came on FINE.
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) - 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7.
I have SSD as main drive and a HDD in "Optical Drive", But it was taking too much battery/ too much noise. I put a new Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SATA III SSD in optical drive. For some reason it was not showing anything!!!
After reading some post , I realized that my caddy is not SATA III compatible. So I clicked on the link provided https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004FM...
It looked exactly like my previous caddy but something inside, a chip or something is new. Make sure seller is "HIGHFINE".
NOTE : After installing new Caddy in optical drive with SSD Sata III, I started computer and was able to see SSD in DISK UTILITY. I initialized/ formatted it. BUT drive was showing in some weird small size. I restarted Laptop and it came on FINE.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram