Need Help: Second HDD Issues

Sorry for making a new thread, but I didn't want to clutter the install guide.
My setup now has an OCZ Agility 3 120 GB SSD in the original HDD bay with the original 500GB HDD replacing the optical drive. When I boot the computer I get stuck with it "Starting Windows"

What I've found:

• I put the Driver from Dell pertaining to the engine management interface on a USB stick and when that is in I can get into windows
• I transferred the Driver folders to the SSD and it booted properly once
• Once in Windows I do not see the second drive in My Computer, however, I did see it in Intel RST and Device Manager for a while, but after a couple of minutes I got a notification saying the Drive in port 2 was removed
• I have verified all connections are secure
• I can feel that the HDD caddy is getting warm like it is spinning
• Startup Repair and System Restore do not help

Just an extra bit of "fun" I have misplaced my alienware recovery disk. I have an extra home premium disk but apparently I'm missing drivers needed to do a clean install. Yay!
Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Just a quick update: I am ordering a new caddy and hoping that fixes the issue

 

I had this problem. I can get the computer to run fine with just the SSD in there, but when I add my secondary drive (the original drive) it just doesn't boot. I have formatted the HDD, it's clean, no OS. I even tried putting both drives in and doing a fresh install, but then I can see the SSD, but not the HDD. I didn't do the install because I figured I'd run into the exact same problems.

I'd be very interested to know if a new caddy fixed your problems, because I'm thinking that might be the problem too, but I've already spent $200 for nothing, so I wasn't too eager to spend more.

 

let me know how this turns out, I was planning on using the same SSD and will hold off spending money if there is issues with the caddy

also does anyone know if there is anywhere else to buy the caddy besides eBay? I looked on newegg and couldn't find anything useful

 

Something I left out. I since I couldn't see the HDD when it was in the optical bay, I tried putting the original drive back in it's original spot, and the SSD in the opitical bay, and I got the same results. I could see the SSD, but not the HDD. So i don't think the caddy is the problem.

It's like I have a master/slave problem, but there is no master/slave setting with SATA drives, so I'm not sure why putting a formatted drive in would cause windows to hang at startup.

 

glad I'm not alone in this. The new caddy should be here on thursday. I wish there was a way to make the bios see the drive in the caddy as a hdd instead of optical drive.

 

hey everyone, im having the similar problems. when i had just the ssd everything ran fine. but now with the hdd in the optical bay i cant even shutdown my computer anymore because it takes forever to boot either freezing in the bios menu or the windows loading screen. i have the kingston 96gb ssd btw. anyone know what to do?

 

Sorry your having problems. I am running through everything I can think of to get it working. I got the new caddy in today. It failed to boot until I put in the USB drive then told me to reboot and now won't boot again... Any knew ideas?
Has anyone used the stock hard drive as the second drive successfully?

 

HOLY S**T!!! It booted. I am going to run a few checks and let you all know what I did. Fingers crossed.
Update:
Ladies and Gentlemen. I think I got this to work. Not sure exactly how I did though so I will walk you through exactly what I did.
I booted with the optical drive disconnected
Once booted I plugged in the drive
Nothing appeared in the My Computer
I then installed the Intel engine management driver from the dell driver site
Still nothing in My Computer
I closed everything then shutdown the computer and manually turned it back on

It booted just as fast as the ssd alone and I can see the second drive and transfer files at 110 MB/second sustained

UPDATE: It broke when I put the laptop to sleep and moved it.

 

And back to square one after it went to sleep.

 

Man, put a warning up there, I was all excited. Then I read your second post. I hate you a little bit right now, lol.

 

you can try that way if you want it did actually work until I moved it.

 

I DO have the ability to use the second hdd and it works EVERY time. There is just one catch... I'm on Ubuntu. I was able to install Ubuntu 11.10 with out much issue and it is running like a champ plus I have 2 finger scrolling enabled and working.

 

Try Intel rapid storage driver (not intel engine driver), see if that works. I also saw a cool post that says something about updating the registry to make sure the 2nd HDD doesn't sleep.

 

Thanks for the input. I have the Intel RSD installed and it didn't help

 

I had this problem too, turned out my first caddy was DOA. My second caddy worked but I was getting 3-10mbs on the HDD. I then installed the latest RST from intels website and now I am getting over 100mbs on the HDD. SSD is working perfectly and no sleep issues.