Pavilion dv7-6b32us only sees 1 HD.

[Apota]

I just purchased this notebook computer. I can see it has 2 hard drives inside, but the computer is only seeing one of the hard drives. I can't find any specific documentation for this particular model notebook computer with detailed specifications. The only specifications I can find says it has 1 hard drive & that's not true.  Does it have the 2 hard drives because it supports Raid?  Because if so there is an issue because the computer only sees one of them. Is the 2nd hard drive just a spare & it's not supposed to be working?  What's the deal?  Thanks for your help and time!

[banhien]

Hi,

It has ONLY 1 HDD but it has ROOM for the second HDD and you have to buy the HDD plus the crady & cable for it. After that you can use as RAID or 2 separate HDD's.

Regards.

[HaggisCat]

It should show up in "Computer" as drive "F" or "E" and is used for storage, although I have installed software on mine and it will run from the secondary bay.

 C is the OS, and D is usually the recovery partition, E or F will be your ROM drive and what ever is left over for the secondary drive.

[banhien]

Hi,

You can order kit from this:

   http://partsurfer.hp.com/Search.aspx?SearchText=605415-001

or you can buy cheaper elsewhere.

Regards.

Updated: Based on this, it has only ONE HDD. Again, you can buy the kit & another HDD to install it by yourself.

[Apota]

Well, I must be loosing my mind then because I took off the cover & I thought I physically saw 2 hard drives in their. I took off the cover because II was upgrading the memory from 4GB to 8GB. I will take a picture & upload it here so you can see what I'm taking about. I'm suprised that the hard drives are only 5400 rpms. I would assume they would be at least 7200 rpms, because that should make the computer run so much faster I would think.  Maybe put in an SSD drive in one of the bays instead?  Do you need a special mounting kit for the SSD drive?  Thanks for your help and time!

[HaggisCat]

It will be interesting to see the picture.

 No you don't need a special mount for an SSD, the one for a standard drive will work.

[Apota]

Yeah, you are right. I took it a apart again & the other drive bay is empty & the 2nd cable is missing. I clicked on the link, but it doesn't say what's in the kit. Is it only another data cable to connect it to the SATA port? If I get an SSD drive should I boot Windows off the SSD drive instead of the regular hard drive? What's the best setup for the best performance?  Thanks!

[banhien]

Hi,

Now it's up to you, at least you know only ONE HDD in there. You can add another HDD, switch to SSD or many interesting things.

Regards.