HDD in caddy not working

[VencaS]

Hello,

I would like to ask for support with following issue. I bought new SSD HDD and wanted to use it as drive with system. So I removed the original HDD (with installed Windows 10 and more partitions) and installed the SSD. After that I installed OS Windows 10. This system works fine on the SSD.

I placed my original HDD to a caddy and connected it instead of optical drive. I disabled booting from CD/DVD and USB in BIOS.  After restart, the drive was recognized in BIOS (displayed in boot order), but the laptop won't boot. It got stuck with HP logo and did not boot. I realized that when I disconnect the caddy, Windows boots from SSD. When I connect the caddy again, after a while hdd is visible in My Computer (all partitions, but without correct labels), but none of the partitions is accessible.

I thought it can be because there is still instaled OS on the caddy drive. So I booted GParted from USB, removed all partitions and created one with NTFS. After that the drive is not visible in BIOS boot order, but if I connect it after Windows starts, I can see it in Disk Management.

Because I'm lost with this issue, I tried some procedures with GParted and TestDisk which caused the drive was in RAW data format. Finally I removed the one partition in GParted and after boot, the drive is marked as Uninitialized and it asks me for initialize where  I can select MBR or GPT format. I tried GPT, but it failed because IO errors.

My questions:
1. is it even possible to use the original disk in caddy instead of optical drive?
2. if yes

  2a. how should be the disc formatted - can you advice me a tool and steps to do?
  2b. is there necessary some additional configuration in BIOS?

I do not care about data on the original hard drive, I have a full backup. But I would like to use it as data storage.

[banhien]

Hi,

Because the old HDD still has a signature therefore you can use a very simple work around

1. Mount old HDD to other machine, NOT HP machine to copy files and reformat it,

2, Now put it back to the caddy and machine will boot from SSD.

Regards.

[VencaS]

Hi,

thanks for answer. What do you mean with reformat - should I create one NTFS partition?

[banhien]

Hi,

Reformat means reformat. May I repeat: Use a different computer to copy/move data files from old HDD elsewhere and re-format it. You can create one or two partition AFTER that.

Regards.

[VencaS · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I reformated the disk in another computer and created one NTFS partition on it. It works well there, it is accessible and writable. But when I put it into the caddy and boot, it is again not accessible. Anyway I solved it using another hard drive - I had one with installed Windows 7. With this drive in caddy, laptop booted fine and and all partitions are visible. Only one action was necessary - I had to assign letter to all partitions in Disk management. After that, I can read content of all partitions and it is writable too.

So maybe the disk must have some structure of partitions so that it can be used with caddy, I don't know. Maybe I could try to clone the working drive to not-working drive and check if that works (both have same capacity), but I'm glad it works like that, I spent 3 nights on that.

[banhien]

Hi,

I dod mention the signature, could be still hidden elsewhere, re-initiate it should fix the problem

Regards.

[Pckopatugur]

I have same problem , I try  to reformated hdd in other pc but when i put hdd in caddy to laptop it doesnt work. I dont know if my caddy is not work it should be unseen in Microsoft Disk Management...I guees caddy is working  good,...  I want to use my HDD  with caddy, but laptop wont work simultaneously with  two HDD (or ssd) 

[Pckopatugur]

Maybe caddy is not working. First caddy didnt  work after that I bought second caddy  and this caddy in hdd worked but it was very slow. I think these caddies have some problem .I should buy a caddy with quality materials...

[banhien]

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@Pckopatugur wrote:
... I think these caddies have some problem .I should buy a caddy with quality materials...

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@Pckopatugur 

The speed of Optical Disc Drive controller is much slower than normal SATA 3 speed. Buying "quality" caddy won't help.

Regards.

[Pckopatugur]

Thank you for reply but I say it's very slow actually I mean It's very very slow and sometimes frozen , Caddy in hdd writing speed is 1-2 kbps , sometimes  15-30 mbps . Is it normal what do you think ?