Added 2nd SSD and computer wouldn't boot

[StevenD]

I have a 2-month old X1 Extreme Gen 5. I wanted to add a 2nd SSD.

I ordered and installed a Crucial P3 Plus Gen4 NMVe drive, 4TB, model number CT4000P3PSSD8.

Everything went smoothly. I've installed literally hundreds of drives in Thinkpads -- wrist straps, heat pads, everything. The computer wouldn't boot up. Not even to get to BIOS or the Lenovo red banner screen or F10 or F12-select-boot-device or anything.

I swapped the positions of the drives, though the manual said that only the left drive (when the battery is close to you) has Gen4 speed. But anyway, didn't help. I took it out, re-booted the Extreme, put the Crucial drive into a brand-new Sabrent external NVMe enclosure, and the computer wouldn't recognize the drive at all. I called Crucial tech support, and they had me do a few things, but they decided that the drive was bad and send it back.

But then, I called Lenovo tech support, because I didn't want to send the drive back if there was something I missed. The guy was *very knowledgeable and *very nice, and worked with me for a *long time, but we couldn't get anything going. He said it's possible that there's a problem with the motherboard, but he had gone far beyond his normal assignments in working with me because it wasn't a drive that was sold to me by Lenovo, and they weren't supposed to debug "3rd party" drives. But really, Crucial makes working drives, right? He suggested I replace the drive, and if it still doesn't work, I might have to get a *from-Lenovo* drive and have *that* not work and *then* they would consider motherboard issues. I hadn't wanted to spend $500+ on a 4TB drive when Crucial has them for less than $300.

I know that things don't always work. But I'm still wondering whether this is a good drive and I have a good motherboard and we just missed something important!

Any ideas about what's going on or things to try would be *greatly* appreciated!!

--Steve D.

[w0qj]

So did this work out for you?

1. I've learnt from my T42 days that cloning a 2nd SSD, then adding both original SSD + cloned SSD into same computer, and you cannot boot from computer.
But I'm sure that's not your issue observed...

2. Also, my experience with my X1 Extreme Gen 3, moving the SSD with the Windows (Win10 Pro) installation from one slot to the other slot does not matter; my X1E Gen 3 can also boot as normal!

[StevenD]

Hi, thanks for asking!
I should have posted my own follow-up, sorry.
I spent way too much time on the phone with tech support. I put drives in and out of the machine a million times, trying things. Finally, I told Crucial that the drive must be bad -- even though I knew it was very unlikely. But there was nothing else to do. Crucial sent me another one, and it had the same exact problems.
So I sent it back and ordered one from Western Digital. Worked perfectly the first time.
I don't get it. I doubt seriously that both Crucial drives were "bad," and all these drives are made with the same architecture requirements, right? But for whatever reason, the WD worked great, and the Crucials didn't. Go figure.
/Steve

[RealBlackStuff]

SSD-quality from best to worst: SLC-->MLC-->TLC-->QLC (Single/Multi/Triple/Quad a.k.a. 1/2/3/4 bits per Cell).
That Crucial model is a QLC-drive, cheapest of the cheap and lowest in performance.

[StevenD]

Interesting. I looked up the successful drive, and it seems to be a TLC.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wd ... k-in-black
/SD

[Madexpat]

Hi
I have same problem - trying to replace the 256gb boot drive with a crucial 4tb boot drive that's been cloned from the 256 original.
Won't start up, just get an error message:
"2100:detection error on storage device 0"
Anybody have any insights how to resolve this on my X1 Extreme gen 5?
(I was able to do this same process effortlessly on my gen3 before....,/

[StevenD]

How did you clone the 256 to the 4tb? Was it on the Extreme? My experience was that, with the Crucial 4tb in the machine at all, it wouldn't boot. So if yours *would* boot to allow the clone, then it seems to be something else from what happened to me. I don't know whether sending the Crucial back and getting a WD (as worked for me) would help.
/SD