Problem swapping out to SSD in new Alienware 13

Question

I just got my new AW13 this week and I really like the system, but wanted to swap out the 1TB HDD with a 500GB SSD.   I got a Crucial MX100 and used Acronis to copy all of the partitions from the original drive to the new.  I had the SSD in a usb external enclosure and the system had no problem seeing the drive at all.  All seemed well until I moved the SSD into the laptop from the external enclosure.  The laptop does not recognize that a drive is connected when I have the SSD plugged in directly to the SATA port on the MB.   Here is what I have tried so far...  I checked to make sure I had a clean connection from the sata cable to the SSD drive and it looked good.  I check the connection on the SATA cable to the MB and that was fine(unplugged and reseated).  I put the old HDD back in the system and it fired right up.  I put the SSD back in the USB enclosure and it was recognized and accessible.  I checked in the bios for any settings that would relate to HDD and didnt really see anything work messing with.  There is no raid option, so UHCI is the only option.  I called Crucial and asked them, but the laptop is so new, they don't have much info on it to be of much help yet.  With the drive working when connected to USB, he concluded that maybe it was something specific to the cable that was non-standard or maybe something in the bios.  I posted on the notebookreview forums and someone else had the same experience with another crucial drive, but tried a samsung drive and it worked fine on their AW13. I wanted to check here before I call into support to see if anyone has had similar experiences and resolved the issue.

Jesses101 · Accepted Answer

After 2 hours with tech support, I was informed that the alienware system does not support the crucial brand ssd. They suggested that I buy a Samsung drive.

ejn63 · Answer

What OS is on the drive?  If it's Windows 8, did you disable secure boot before you cloned the drive?

fattire · Answer

It is Win 8.  I think that it was enabled when I cloned both times I tried it, but will give it a shot.  Would not doing that prevent the drive from being seen by the bios at all? I didn't know it could do more that making the drive unbootable. I'll give it a shot and hopefully that works. Thanks for the response.

Aamdanseur · Answer

Wow! I am having the exact issue. I tried to upgrade to the MX100 512gb SSD. Bios and the system won't see it though. I tried with an is (win7) installed no dice, so i tried to format the drive still nothing. Alienware is sending another machine but I'm not sure that will fix it.

shenson007 · Answer

Same Issue here. I have 2 Crucial MX100 SSD drives that worked in my old ASUS laptop but neither one is recognized by my new Alienware 13 BIOS.

Aamdanseur · Answer

Yeah that's not true either. I had the MX100 512gb crucial that worked fine in the Alienware 14, but didn't in my Alienware 13 when it came:/ It's a bios issue:/

capitainealbato · Answer

I confirm: MX100 512GB doesn't work in the Alienware 13...despite the BIOS A02 rev. [:(]

Tesla1856 · Answer

I confirm: MX100 512GB doesn't work in the Alienware 13...despite the BIOS A02 rev. [:(]

Doesn't work how? Not detected in BIOS even?

There was an issue with Dells not liking Micron/Crucial SSDs. Could that still be broken after all this time? I mean, it's all standardized, right?

rla1999 · Answer

I have used Crucial in the past on a couple Alienware laptops I used to own and never had an issue with Crucial.  I used Windows 7 though and not Windows 8

capitainealbato · Answer

It's not detected in the Bios. I tried 4x 512GB MX100 SSD on 3 differents Alienware 13 and same results: no detection whereas if I put one of them in an HP tower or in an HP laptop, there's absolutely no problem...

This is annoying.... :(

I'm using Win7 PRO but the Alienware 13 doesn't detect the Crucial MX100 512GB in its own BIOS...

Do you know which brend is compatible with these laptops?

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