Can the system boot from HDD connected with Optical Drive Caddy?

0

I have a Dell Vostro 3546 Laptop, which is now 3 yrs old.

It was not powering on (4 to 5 months back) and I had it repaired by a local technician though, the power issue was fixed but a new issue took place, the system wasn't (and still) detecting HDD.

I checked connecting the HDD with other PC, its working fine and has all the data & partitions, but Laptop is not detecting Hard drive

A friend of mine suggested to try connecting the hard drive with Optical Drive Caddy, and according to him the system will boot, as I can change the boot sequence, but I want to make sure if this will work before I disassemble the Laptop.

So, will the system be able to boot from Hard drive connected with Optical drive caddy and the main HDD port (socket) left empty??

Kindly drop suggestions with specific details.

Error Code the system had produced after diagnosing:

Hard Drive 0 - DST Short Test Started: 01/01/2013 00:04:21 Ended: 01/01/2013 00:04:36 Elapsed time: 00:00:15 Test Results: Fail Error Code: 2000-0142 Validation: 122778 Msg: Hard Drive 0 - S/n WXC1E8421DMD

Note:

  1. If the system can boot with HDD connected with Optical Drive Caddy, the Read/Write speeds would differ, but how likely the difference would be.??

  2. Do I need to configure BIOS with particular settings for doing so.??

ra_si

Posted 2019-01-23T07:27:33.440

Reputation: 1

What kind of connector is in the optical bay? Does it look identical to the hard drive connector? – Xen2050 – 2019-01-23T07:41:30.903

No, its not identical, I'll be using the Optical Bay Caddy for connecting the HDD though, the main HDD port will be left empty. – ra_si – 2019-01-23T07:57:19.123

Answers

0

Yes, you can connect it like that and it should boot. Many people use this type of trick to add SSDs to be used as OS drives by removing the optical drive.

Just make sure you select the proper boot order.

Overmind

Posted 2019-01-23T07:27:33.440

Reputation: 8 562

Okay, I'll try it out. – ra_si – 2019-01-23T09:07:01.347

I tried connecting the HDD installed in Optical Bay Caddy, the system sometimes detected HDD connection but it was only one or two times, changed the Boost Sequence as well, the boot media wasn't detected not even for once. I guess motherboard has become a dummy now. – ra_si – 2019-02-07T05:01:48.150

"sometimes " is not a normal behavior. If it detected it at a point it means it works. Just make sure everything is properly/firmly connected. – Overmind – 2019-02-07T06:19:38.423

Yeah, for confirming that what I'm assuming ain't wrong, I checked more than once, the same was happening when HDD was connected with the main HDD port. – ra_si – 2019-02-07T12:26:04.710

Asked: 2019-01-23T07:27:33.440

Viewed: 390 times

Active: 2019-01-25T05:49:17.953