HDD/SSD, Caddies etc.

[rodionzissou]

first post:

Hello! This forum has been very informative and interesting. I've been checking back monthly for a year or so. I've been doing research and planning my moves to join this awesome user base. I'm lucky enough to have purchased a 4530s a little over a year ago and just love it. I was hoping I could ask you all a few questions directly as my previous methods have lead me on multiple (some wild) google chases.

My first move is to replace my optical drive with either an SSD or HDD. I happen to have an HDD that I purchased awhile back and wonder of it's compatibility with the 4530s. The images below illustrate the following information.

A is the HDD in question while B is the standard HDD bundled with most 4530ss.

Questions:

1. There is an additional port segment on HDD A that is not present on the original HDD B. Does this matter and or prevent it from being compatible?

2. Will the thickness of A (9.3mm i Believe) prevent it from fitting in the standard HDD bay? If so, can I at least fit it in an upgrade bay via the optical drive
replacement?

3. Can I replace the caddy and top cover of A with the caddy and top cover of B? Because, even if A is not too thick to fit in either bay, it's caddy has a large metal arm jutting from it's back.

4. If I end up needing to buy another hard drive, I am thinking I should just go ahead and get an SSD. Will there be special steps to take to install the SSD?



I'm just looking for the cheapest way to get started with my build. I have the USB, OS Installers, and software, but need to know whether or not to purchase another hard drive when I purchase my optical drive replacement caddy. Thanks for taking the time to read. ^_^

 

[rob1980]

"A" appears to be in some sort of caddy already, was it from a ps3 or a tv box like sky virgin etc?

You should be able to remove that, can you post a pic showing the bottom of the drive, we should be able to see the pcb on it..

*edit, looking at the pic again, it appears as though there are screws in the side of "A".. remove those 4 if they are in there, and you should then have the HDD "bare" and the same as the other one

btw, from my own experience, having OS X on SSD is a great upgrade, and HDD in a caddy in place of optical drive, do it if you can, whether you go for a raid / fusion type setup or separate is down to personal preference.

To answer your other questions better..

Do not try to remove the top from one drive to fit the other, it probably wont fit properly fouling some components or restricting air flow etc. I dont think you'll need to anyway, Im sure you just need to remove the "extra" casing on Drive "A".

The extra pins, they will not foul anything, and swapping the drive on the probook is very easy, you could simply try putting it in and removing it again within 5 minutes.

Installing onto SSD might be easier in some ways as it will be a smaller drive and will avoid the boot0 error you might get on a larger drive, the only extra thing to do will be install the Trim enabler app after install and turn it on.

Good luck

 

[johnnyboy]

I have a 4540s and I have ordered a HD caddy and a SSD. My plan is to have Windows 8 on the original HP drive and ML on the SSD.

I am assuming the installation of ML on the 2nd HD is straight forward. However, I am unsure about how to dual boot i.e. get to choose which HD boot from upon start up without having to press for example f11 to get into the boot menu and chose from there. I'd like it to be automatic and to have a simple option between one or the other.

I do not know if you get what I mean. This is the first time I do something like this.

 

[RehabMan]

I have a 4540s and I have ordered a HD caddy and a SSD. My plan is to have Windows 8 on the original HP drive and ML on the SSD.

I am assuming the installation of ML on the 2nd HD is straight forward. However, I am unsure about how to dual boot i.e. get to choose which HD boot from upon start up without having to press for example f11 to get into the boot menu and chose from there. I'd like it to be automatic and to have a simple option between one or the other.

I do not know if you get what I mean. This is the first time I do something like this.

Install OS X and Chimera to your SSD in the HDD[CD]-caddy...
Set BIOS options to have priority boot for CD.

After that, it should boot automatically into Chimera and you will get to choose between Windows and OS X.

Chimera will be able to boot your Windows install provided it is not UEFI based. I have no idea how the 4x40s come from the factory with Win8 as to whether they are UEFI or legacy. If it is UEFI-based install of Windows, Chimera will not be able to boot it and you will need to re-install Win8 (in legacy mode; disabling UEFI). If it is factory legacy install of Win8, it will "just work" provided you boot the "System Reserved" partition from Chimera.

 

[johnnyboy]

The SSD is 120 GB while the original drive is 320. Would it be recommendable to make a Mac partition on my original drive or could that cause issues with stability etc.?

Btw, I've been using Win8 now for a week. Out of the box I've had huge issues with things like graphic glitches, random error messages of unknown characters. Updating and re-installing drivers did not solve the issue. Had to call HP suppport to get it fixed. Make me recall all the lost years as a Windows user.

I'm eternally thankful for all of your help since I got started using OS X. All hail RehabMan, our Community and Apple

 

[RehabMan]

The SSD is 120 GB while the original drive is 320. Would it be recommendable to make a Mac partition on my original drive or could that cause issues with stability etc.?

If you're buying an SSD, I assume you're doing so for speed. In which case, you want your most used OS (or both) on the SSD. 128GB is a little tight (although doable) for both Windows and OS X, so... pick one OS to go on the SSD and put the other on the HDD. There is no stability problems either way. I run Windows, OS X (10.8.4, 10.7.5 and 10.6.8), and Linux all on one 256GB SSD.

Btw, I've been using Win8 now for a week. Out of the box I've had huge issues with things like graphic glitches, random error messages of unknown characters. Updating and re-installing drivers did not solve the issue. Had to call HP suppport to get it fixed. Make me recall all the lost years as a Windows user.

I'm no fan of the changes made in Win8. But it is very stable and faster than Win7 if installed correctly with good drivers. If Microsoft can only fix what they screwed up with the desktop experience, Win8.x will make a decent OS. As with most OEM installs of Windows, I'm sure HP's Win8 install is complete crap. I don't even bother anymore -- first thing I do with any PC is re-install Windows from scratch, gather current drivers, and grab only the useful software from the OEM (which usually is nothing). You cannot trust HP, Lenovo, Toshiba, ASUS, etc to provide a good Windows image to go forward with. Their goal is to load it up with a bunch of crap they are paid to provide and provide a "differentiated" experience with their own creations, which are also usually utter rubbish.

 

[rodionzissou]

Thanks rob! the HDD does in fact work. I'm not sure of it's origin as it was purchased on ebay a long while ago. I've placed an order for the optical replacement caddy. I have an SSD in my cart and ready to purchase alongside a 2670qm. I have a quick question about this. There are a few listings on amazon (i'm ignoring the ebay listings for now) for the 2670qm Socket G2 (rPGA988B) that are priced between $120 and $160 (US)! Do you think this is too good to be true? I see nowhere in the listing any mention of them being the engineering samples. Are there codes or any signs to look out for to avoid incompatible processors?
I cant wait to be using osx again!

A big thanks to rehabman, tonymac and everyone else for all of their hard work.

PS
I agree that os8 as a platform is stable and fast with a good install and proper drivers. Although, the user interface is indeed more of a hindrance than feature for power users.

 

[johnnyboy]

RehabMan, I've installed ML successfully on the SSD and set the boot priority to boot from the Optical Drive. However, it just boots into my Win8 on my original (mechanical drive). If I press F9 instead and choose the Optical Drive there is a short error message saying: "An error occurred with the boot selection verify media is present and retry"

Not sure if this is related to what you said about AHCI and Legacy.

 

[RehabMan]

RehabMan, I've installed ML successfully on the SSD and set the boot priority to boot from the Optical Drive. However, it just boots into my Win8 on my original (mechanical drive). If I press F9 instead and choose the Optical Drive there is a short error message saying: "An error occurred with the boot selection verify media is present and retry"

Sounds more like you don't have a boot loader installed on the SSD.

Not sure if this is related to what you said about AHCI and Legacy.

You mean UEFI vs. legacy. (AHCI has to do with SATA modes, not boot loaders).

It could be related, but since you already installed ML on that SSD using Unibeast, you would have already had to have changed BIOS boot mode to allow legacy, right?

 

[johnnyboy]

I get "cannot boot from device" when I try with Legacy mode instead of Hybrid. It says a operating system couldn't be found.

I'll do the install again from scratch tomorrow. That time I will choose Legacy mode right from the start to see if it makes any difference.

Unfortunately with my limited knowledge I'm left to trial and error