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 Post subject: Query regarding HDD in optical bay of a laptop
PostPosted: June 15th, 2018, 14:26 
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Joined: August 23rd, 2017, 10:02
Posts: 15
Location: Asia
I have a laptop with usual hdd+odd specification & I am planning on putting a ssd in hdd place while shifting hdd to odd bay using a caddy. I did some research on this & came across a youtube video of a person(from my country) doing the same successfully but with a warning: He said not to put ssd in hdd bay but put it in odd bay. The reason being that he experienced sudden loss of power while shutting down laptop when hdd was in odd bay(characterized by data loss/click/screeching sound).None of this happens while ssd is in odd bay.
point to note: OS was cloned from hdd to ssd & then they were installed in their new positions.

Now I don't believe in blindly following anything so I read all the comments & there was one other person who supported his argument but then he claimed he resolved this issue by deleting system partitions(EFI,OS etc) from hdd leaving only data partition.

As I have never heard about such a situation so I searched some more & came across a thread on asus ROG forum(a different model & different country) with same issue(see above point to note) & again the user claimed to solve this issue(after trying crystaldisk/similar software to turn off any hdd power saving features etc) by following similar method(this time user formatted both hdd & ssd during fresh install of windows).

Is it possible that mere presence of system partitions on an hdd can trigger some sort of power saving feature in a laptop if that hdd is connected to a optical drive bay port?


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 Post subject: Re: Query regarding HDD in optical bay of a laptop
PostPosted: June 15th, 2018, 15:12 
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Joined: October 16th, 2013, 13:21
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Location: Brazil
Simple opinion : people in those forums are just common users, that tried a lot of things they do not understand, and when things started working, probably credited the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

There COULD be a situation where the motherboard cuts power to the cdrom drive before the rest, as part of its shutdown procedures. That would be different in differnt brands, but could happen.

If you know what you are doing, there shouldn´t be a problem using the "normal" hdd in the optical drive bay. Just configure windows correctly. Also, no reason to keep the disk "as it was" in the second position. If you want the drive there for the added space, format it and use to store data.


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 Post subject: Re: Query regarding HDD in optical bay of a laptop
PostPosted: June 15th, 2018, 17:12 
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Joined: August 23rd, 2017, 10:02
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Location: Asia
rogfanther wrote:
Simple opinion : people in those forums are just common users, that tried a lot of things they do not understand, and when things started working, probably credited the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

There COULD be a situation where the motherboard cuts power to the cdrom drive before the rest, as part of its shutdown procedures. That would be different in differnt brands, but could happen.

If you know what you are doing, there shouldn´t be a problem using the "normal" hdd in the optical drive bay. Just configure windows correctly. Also, no reason to keep the disk "as it was" in the second position. If you want the drive there for the added space, format it and use to store data.

That was my first guess but if assuming it to be true then it is unlikely this behavior can be changed by windows(& user if it is hard coded into laptop UEFI firmware).

Spildit wrote:
I do have several LENOVO / IBM laptops with a main hard drive on it's correct configuration and then a 2nd HDD on a bay that replaces the DVD/CD ROM drive.

I didn't observe the described problem at all ...

Of course this may vary from computer to computer, etc ... So no easy way to know for sure if it will work ok with your specific system without testing it first.

I have asus laptop

I found this on another thread:
"Hi, I want to direct all of you people's attention to the problem that optical drive communicates with bios to tell it whether the tray is open or not. If the tray is open , reading from disk is stopped. That is why when you put HDD or SSD into that slot using incompatible solution, BIOS thinks the tray is open and stops read/write. This problem is mentioned on caddy website(I can't find the page right now but I have read it). They say it is why they let you choose brand and models on their website to sell you compatible caddy. They implement some circuit to send the signal that tray is always closed. Probably that is the function of that button on some of the caddy replicas available on aliexpress and ebay."

I searched some more & found out this issue is not exclusive to Asus but almost all brands & from what I found apparently it has to do with presence of a "diagnostic pin" on caddy board which may get connected in a wrong manner causing issue at shutdown. It seems like nowadays caddies comes with a sort of small switch which can be moved to different positions(2 or 3) & depending on your laptop brand there is a specific position which will result in caddy working fine with no issues.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads ... 065/page-8


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 Post subject: Re: Query regarding HDD in optical bay of a laptop
PostPosted: June 15th, 2018, 18:46 
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Joined: October 16th, 2013, 13:21
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Location: Brazil
The first part, of BIOS needing to know if the drive is open, doesn´t make sense. That would more like wild theories from some user that tried to find a way to explain something .

The second part, with the associated thread, seems more plausible. And in it also there is information about things working in some brands and not in others. But at least it contains factual evidence of people suggesting something reasonable that can be verified to solve the problem.

So, if you want to use the other hdd in a caddy, the easier way to know if it will work for you is trying to find the most compatible caddy, and try it. If something doesn´t work right, then you can follow the path of trying to modify it.


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 Post subject: Re: Query regarding HDD in optical bay of a laptop
PostPosted: June 16th, 2018, 5:52 
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Joined: August 23rd, 2017, 10:02
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Location: Asia
^^Good point but one question then,if clicking sound is hdd hardware issue then it shouldn't be resolved by any means & both persons were quite sure about their "hdd issue" being resolved after doing hdd format/delete system partitions(I am guessing their caddy switch got selected to correct position somehow during their last attempt while reinserting/reinstalling hdd caddy). As you have much more experience can you think of another reason for this clicking sound during shutdown other than sudden power loss. May be the caddy board connector configuration is a possible reason(see my previous post & quoted link for details).


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 Post subject: Re: Query regarding HDD in optical bay of a laptop
PostPosted: June 16th, 2018, 11:35 
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Joined: October 16th, 2013, 13:21
Posts: 713
Location: Brazil
Depending on brand and model of hdd, it may make different sound when shutting down/starting up. What the person may have heard ( we don´t know that happened, just what the person *thought* happened ) could be just the hdd shutting down.

But if someone heard a SSD making "screeching noises", well, he is probably wrong about what he is hearing and why.

As for this "sudden loss of power " concept : any loss of power is "sudden". As @Spildit said, most OSes do not send a spin down command to disks. And the power supplies won´t reduce gradually the voltages, so that power would be like 5V, for example, then when switched off go to 0V. No gradually passing through intermediate voltages.

What would be called "sudden power loss" would be only when the computer is in its normal working state, and suddenly shut down. That would correspond to problems in motherboard/power supply, but wouldn´t affect hard disks just because of it. Well, some Seagates may die just from one looking angry at them but that is other story.

And again, formatting/deleting partitions would not solve a hardware problem.

You have a good lead in that thread about the middle pin in the caddy. That is reproducible and verifiable. The other things, about deleting partitions and the like, are most possibly artifacts of users don´t knowing what is happening, and messing with whatever option/part they can imagine, instead of either correctly asking questions, or taking their computer to a technician.


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 Post subject: Re: Query regarding HDD in optical bay of a laptop
PostPosted: June 16th, 2018, 16:32 
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Joined: October 16th, 2013, 13:21
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Location: Brazil
Yes Spildit, I agree with you, if the drive has bad sectors, and they cause this noise ( if it is from the head grinding to the surface, wouldn´t it cause strong damage to the head ? ) swapping these sectors would make the noises go away.

But that would be in a normal case of the drive.

The "tales" the op read seem to be about the noises appearing when a drive is moved to the caddy. As in, connected to the normal sata port, no noise, connect to caddy noise.

We don´t know the situation of said drives, the real conditions and what was really happening, and also don´t know what those people said, just what the OP understood. And from the kind of his worries, it seems he strongly believes in the stories of those people, while us here @hddguru are trying to find explanations for a behaviour that we didn´t see and don´t know if is real.

As I proposed to the OP, the easiest way to know for sure is buy the best recommended caddy for his laptop, and be prepared to make some tests and experiences according to that thread from notebookreview with the cutting pins suggestion.


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 Post subject: Re: Query regarding HDD in optical bay of a laptop
PostPosted: June 17th, 2018, 0:24 
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Joined: August 23rd, 2017, 10:02
Posts: 15
Location: Asia
rogfanther wrote:
Yes Spildit, I agree with you, if the drive has bad sectors, and they cause this noise ( if it is from the head grinding to the surface, wouldn´t it cause strong damage to the head ? ) swapping these sectors would make the noises go away.

But that would be in a normal case of the drive.

The "tales" the op read seem to be about the noises appearing when a drive is moved to the caddy. As in, connected to the normal sata port, no noise, connect to caddy noise.

We don´t know the situation of said drives, the real conditions and what was really happening, and also don´t know what those people said, just what the OP understood. And from the kind of his worries, it seems he strongly believes in the stories of those people, while us here @hddguru are trying to find explanations for a behaviour that we didn´t see and don´t know if is real.

As I proposed to the OP, the easiest way to know for sure is buy the best recommended caddy for his laptop, and be prepared to make some tests and experiences according to that thread from notebookreview with the cutting pins suggestion.

It is not that I believe these tales(I already discarded the theory about formatting/removing system partitions on hdd as the solution of this issue), it is just that I worry a bit more about my data. I can live with a slow ssd compared to living with a very small possibility of data loss. I am more curious about the exact reason behind this. I know full formatting can mask bad sectors but what exactly causes the hdd to make clicking sound that too only at shutdown when connected to a caddy is what I am hoping to find here. It is also why I am delaying the "experiments" with caddy as I am in no hurry & that will be the last option once I exhausted all possibilities of finding a reasonable answer for the source of this issue. :)


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 Post subject: Re: Query regarding HDD in optical bay of a laptop
PostPosted: June 17th, 2018, 11:13 
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Joined: October 16th, 2013, 13:21
Posts: 713
Location: Brazil
Probably nothing causes it, it comes just from imagination of some not-so knowledgeable users.

But ok, keep your research, and meanwhile connect your hdd through an usb adapter.


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