x300 caddy not working Help

[SpanKyM3]

Hi all,
i purchase this Caddy:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2nd-HDD-SSD-Har ... 460339160d
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Then i did this:from TFXI(Forum Member)
Thanks for everyone posting to this thread, I've been wanting a second hard drive for my X301 for quite some time now.

Based on what you guys said, I ordered this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0914686538 and this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822145530.

I got those yesterday and installed them but in my case Windows 7 32-bit didn't boot with the caddy + hard drive in the UltraBay until I changed to IDE mode. Windows startup repair (press F8 at boot) wasn't able to fix the change from AHCI to IDE for some reason so I had to do it manually. Some/all of these steps may/may not apply to you, depending on your setup.

1) Turned on the laptop without the caddy in the UltraBay
2) enabled IDE in Windows Registry by setting the value for "Start" to "0" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pciide
3) rebooted and changed the BIOS setting for SATA from AHCI to Compatibility
4) rebooted and let Windows install the "new" IDE hard drive (=my Toshiba 128 GB SSD)
5) Shut down the laptop, inserted the caddy + drive in UltraBay and rebooted to Windows
6) Windows detected and installed the drive. Rebooted once more just for fun.

Depending on your current setup the caddy might work just fine without any of those steps. I guess my problem was the lack of IDE devices/drivers (I always used the travel cover in the UltraBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0521459188) and hence the IDE drivers were not enabled. I tried re-enabling AHCI after step #6 but Windows didn't boot again, even with AHCI enabled in Registry, so I guess I have to run my 128 GB Toshiba SSD in Compatibility/IDE mode from now on.

The seller Nimitz shipped the caddy promptly and it arrived from China to Seattle, WA in only nine days, despite the New Year holidays in between. He also answered my question in under 24 hours. The product itself appears to be of high quality and fits well in the slot. As of writing this I've had it running only a couple of hours but it seems to work fine and writing dummy random data to it with TrueCrypt shows a consistent 70 MB/s write speed to my non-SSD hard drive.

I highly recommend using the bottom screw to hold the caddy in place. Happy 2012 to everyone.
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Purchase this SATA HD:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/4331 ... ve_0S03788

Cant get it to work at all.Doesnt sound like its working(spinning).Cant see it in device mgr or disk management.Did i buy the wrong drive?pretty sure it should work.Im running Windows 7 Ultimate.Was a fresh install on SSD 64.Thanks.

[SpanKyM3]

I just checked caddy and in fact the drive is spinning,was just hard to tell.Hope someone can help.May a missing software driver?

[RealBlackStuff]

Was your CD-drive working before?

[SpanKyM3]

Was your CD-drive working before?

Yes it worked fine,no issues.would I have to format the new hard drive before it put in caddy?All I did was rite out of the box put the hard drive in caddy and then into x300.

[RealBlackStuff]

Put the CD drive back in, then go into Device Manager and tell windows NOT to switch it off to save energy/power whatever.
Then use the proper Eject command, and put in the adapter/SSD combo.
Possibly W7 discovers new hardware.
If not, go into Disk Management, and check if you see a second drive in there.
Drive 0 is your main drive
If so, right-click on Drive 1 in the left column and select Initialize.
After that, partition and quick-format it.

[SpanKyM3]

Put the CD drive back in, then go into Device Manager and tell windows NOT to switch it off to save energy/power whatever.
Then use the proper Eject command, and put in the adapter/SSD combo.
Possibly W7 discovers new hardware.
If not, go into Disk Management, and check if you see a second drive in there.
Drive 0 is your main drive
If so, right-click on Drive 1 in the left column and select Initialize.
After that, partition and quick-format it.

Thanks will try that

[SpanKyM3]

So far so good.
Now which one do I pick,GPT(GUID Partition Table) or MBR(Master Boot Record)

[RealBlackStuff]

Your hardware, your call: http://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-t ... g-a-drive/

[SpanKyM3]

Your hardware, your call: http://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-t ... g-a-drive/

Thanks I was just reading that too.

[SpanKyM3]

So i got it to work the other day.i did the recommended way but for me step # 4 i did little different.

1) Turned on the laptop without the caddy in the UltraBay
2) enabled IDE in Windows Registry by setting the value for "Start" to "0" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pciide
3) rebooted and changed the BIOS setting for SATA from AHCI to Compatibility
*4) rebooted and let Windows install the "new" IDE hard drive (=my Toshiba 128 GB SSD)
5) Shut down the laptop, inserted the caddy + drive in UltraBay and rebooted to Windows

*this didnt work for me,i had to leave new drive in while it detected new IDE hard drive.Not seperate.

So anyone else can try this way if the original way doesnt work.