Optibay Caddy isn't Plug n Play?

[rodionzissou]

I received my optibay caddy today and thought I'd practice cloning my drive with diskutility to prepare for my SSD when it arrives. When I plugged it in and tried to boot i was asked to install an os. No problem, I thought, it's trying to boot from the blank drive. So i escaped to bios options, but I couldn't see the bios nor boot options. I was only presented with options to perform diagnostics on the new drive. I pulled out the trusty Unibeast USB Everythings working again.

How should I go about installing an HDD into my optibay? Should I install my SSD into the main bay or optibay? The plan is to be able to run Mavericks (when public released) and Chrome. I've heard installing operating systems on different drives is recommended using Windows and OSX as examples. But, I was thinking Chrome and OSX would get along because they're both unix? I'd want to run Chrome and OSX on the SSD and maybe windows 7 or 8 on the hdd.

here is a video of someone doing this tripple boot with their Macbook Air http://youtu.be/yxlBd59vPnc (the nerdiest video I've seen in awhile with a metal soundtrack)

 

[RehabMan]

I received my optibay caddy today and thought I'd practice cloning my drive with diskutility to prepare for my SSD when it arrives. When I plugged it in and tried to boot i was asked to install an os. No problem, I thought, it's trying to boot from the blank drive. So i escaped to bios options, but I couldn't see the bios nor boot options. I was only presented with options to perform diagnostics on the new drive. I pulled out the trusty Unibeast USB Everythings working again.

That was just HP's lame system recovery/diagnostics (whatever) thing that comes up after a failed boot. I guess you had your priority boot to the CD drive or something. Next time you see that BIOS screen, just ignore it and restart.

How should I go about installing an HDD into my optibay? Should I install my SSD into the main bay or optibay? The plan is to be able to run Mavericks (when public released) and Chrome. I've heard installing operating systems on different drives is recommended using Windows and OSX as examples. But, I was thinking Chrome and OSX would get along because they're both unix? I'd want to run Chrome and OSX on the SSD and maybe windows 7 or 8 on the hdd.

Don't know much about Chrome OS, so can't advise you there. I assume that is just a variant of Linux, so it should be similar to installing Ubuntu...

What OS you install where depends on what one you're going to use more often and therefore what you'd rather have on the SSD.

Similar with the decision of what HDD-bay to drop the SSD/HDD into. Depends on which one you might be removing more often.

I have everything on my SSD (OS X 10.8.4, 10.7.5, 10.6.8, Ubuntu, Win7) and use a secondary HDD/SSD in the caddy depending on what I'm trying to accomplish.

 

[rodionzissou]

That was just HP's lame system recovery/diagnostics (whatever) thing that comes up after a failed boot. I guess you had your priority boot to the CD drive or something. Next time you see that BIOS screen, just ignore it and restart.

I don't think I could ignore it. It would either tell me to install an OS or take me to the diagnosis menu through any option I clicked in the escape menu. (f9, f10 etc.)

So my plan is to disable optical drive boot, then connect optibay HDD. But how would I make it bootable if say I wanted to put Mavericks DP1 on it to test?

I think i'll put the SSD in the main bay, to insure SATA III is supported (I doubt my caddy supports it)

sidenote: Do you have any idea why my login background image would be just a flat grey (no pattern)?

 

[RehabMan]

I don't think I could ignore it. It would either tell me to install an OS or take me to the diagnosis menu through any option I clicked in the escape menu. (f9, f10 etc.)

You ignore it by pressing the power button or (I think) Ctrl+Alt+Delete

So my plan is to disable optical drive boot, then connect optibay HDD. But how would I make it bootable if say I wanted to put Mavericks DP1 on it to test?

Mavericks? What is that? No, seriously, no discussion on beta NDA builds. Read the rules.

If you had some other versions of OSX installed on the opti-bay drive, just use Chimera from the main drive to boot them.

I think i'll put the SSD in the main bay, to insure SATA III is supported (I doubt my caddy supports it)

Probably a good idea, although since HM65 supports two SATA3, it probably is also SATA3. I've never tested it as I've always put SATA2 devices there.

sidenote: Do you have any idea why my login background image would be just a flat grey (no pattern)?

No idea. But you can login to the 'root' user and perhaps change some of those things...

 

[rodionzissou]

ah CtrlAltDel. nice

My apologies for breaking a rule.

Thanks for the tips. It seems to be pretty much what I hoped

 

[rodionzissou]

It sounds like you swap out your opti-bay drive often. Did you fashion some kind of handle our latch? I can't even secure opti-bay caddy with a screw. I'm working on swapping the bezel to make it flush like the original optical drive.

 

[RehabMan]

It sounds like you swap out your opti-bay drive often. Did you fashion some kind of handle our latch? I can't even secure opti-bay caddy with a screw. I'm working on swapping the bezel to make it flush like the original optical drive.

The caddy I purchased has a little indent/open area at the rear (right side if you were looking at the outside end straight on). I just grab it by that spot and pull. I did not secure it with the screw that the original DVD used. Most of the time I run without the caddy installed, and I just leave the gaping hole visible.

I did not want to swap the bezel... I just kept the flat bezel that it came with. It works... it is easy to remove and put back in... it is black and doesn't look bad even though the profile doesn't match the rest of the laptop (how often do you look at the laptop from the side?)

 

[rodionzissou]

thats true. im just wondering how detrimental the drive loosening is. i lost one hard drive through impact.

 

[RehabMan]

thats true. im just wondering how detrimental the drive loosening is. i lost one hard drive through impact.

As long as you don't drop it, it is probably fine. It is not as if you're removing while it is active...

At this point I have more HDDs laying around than I need. Been transitioning to SSD as much as possible. It wouldn't hurt me to lose one... I've very keen on backups.