Possible solution to dell 1564 - 2nd HDD in caddy

Hi. Just to put my two cents on the problem because I am an owner of two Dell 1564 laptops with the AMD 5450 card.
I wanted to upgrade my laptops by increasing the ram to 8gb, by replacing the HDD with an SSD and also replacing the ODD with the HDD in the caddy.

The same as all of you, I had problem as the laptop was freezing at BIOS DELL screen.

In the end I managed to solve the problem, after making a lot of try-outs.

My opinion is that you need to find an old HDD that has 8mb cache (NOT MORE than that).
And also it probably needs to be SATA 1, but I managed to make it work with SATA 2 as well, but the cache of the HDD has to be 8mb, and the protocol up to SATA 2.

This is my opinion.
See the screenshots.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b184/madvinegar/DSC_0134.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b184/madvinegar/DSC_0132.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b184/madvinegar/DSC_0133.jpg

In one of the laptops I installed in the caddy a fujitsu 300gb HDD (sata1, 8mb cache, 4800rpm), and on the other laptop I installed in the caddy a 400gb toshiba HDD (Sata2, 8mb cache, 5400 rpm). Both HDDs are in addition to a 240gb Kingston SSD).
It is working just fine on both laptops and have been recognized by the BIOS 100%. The HDDs even show up on the boot options as you will see!
I have not tried to boot from the HDD in the caddy (there is no OS installed in there - I just use it for storage) but I believe it will work as it can be selected in the boot menu.

I did not even have to upgrade the BIOS to the latest one. As you will see in the screenshots, the BIOS is A04.

Also the caddy I bought was not a DELL dedicated caddy. It is just a cheap bulk caddy from a local store.

Worst case scenario, try to find and buy the exact same HDD models that I used. In the screenshots you will see their model IDs. :)

Hope that assists owners of the same laptop.