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Windows boot hangs when second HDD is installed in optical drive bay

Tags:
  • Optical Media
  • Windows
  • Storage
  • Boot
  • Laptops
  • SSD
  • Hard Drives
August 20, 2014 12:09:18 AM

Hello,

Recently I've decided to make upgrades to my Lenovo G510 laptop by installing an SSD and using the old HDD as a storage drive in the optical bay. I was able to install the SSD fine and set up a dual boot with Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu on the SSD, which booted perfectly fine. However, issues arise when I try to install the second hard drive in the optical bay.

I purchased a caddy for the HDD, which fits the laptop fine, and use GRUB to boot into either Ubuntu or Windows. Booting into Windows causes the laptop to hang on the loading screen (at which I am forced to shut down at this point), but booting into Ubuntu works perfectly fine and I am able to read from and write to this drive. If I remove the HDD+caddy from the drive, the boot returns to normal.

BIOS is able to read both the SSD and the HDD when they are connected; the issue arises when I start to boot Windows. Another interesting note is that the BIOS takes some time to load when the second HDD is installed, but it does not hang indefinitely as when Windows is booted.

If it helps, my Boot Mode is set to UEFI, Secure Boot is enabled, and the SATA Controller Mode is AHCI. Any help with this issue would be greatly appreciated.

More about : windows boot hangs hdd installed optical drive bay

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