What is the largest internal drive that can be fitted to an Aspire 5 A517 - 52?

Solingon
Solingon Member Posts: 5 New User
I fitted a Crucial MX500 2000 GB drive and had an error on boot from the Intel storage software (unknown configuration). Once booted up I went to the Intel memory and storage management, found the drive, it was  reported as being offline, I then deleted its metadata which appeared to work, windows found the drive and it was available.
On the next boot, boot up failed and I tried all the automated recovery options, all failed. I removed the 2000 GB drive and now all is back to normal.
When connected via USB the 2000 GB drive works (obviously slower).
I am guessing the drive is incompatible in some way - too large ?

Answers

  • brummyfan2
    brummyfan2 ACE Posts: 28,457 Trailblazer
    Hi,
    Yes, the size of the drive is the problem, I think 1TB is the maximum for this model because Crucial didn't advertise 2TB as compatible with this model.
    https://uk.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/acer/aspire-a517-52g
    https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/48123518
  • Solingon
    Solingon Member Posts: 5 New User
    This is a second 2.5 drive added to the vacant slot, so I presume the maximum there is also 1 TB ?
  • brummyfan2
    brummyfan2 ACE Posts: 28,457 Trailblazer
    Solingon said:
    This is a second 2.5 drive added to the vacant slot, so I presume the maximum there is also 1 TB ?
    Sorry, I mistook it for a M.2 drive, no, you can install any size HDD/SSD in the HDD bay as a storage device, have a look at the link, the user has installed 4TB HDD.
    https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/44216606
  • Solingon
    Solingon Member Posts: 5 New User
    Any settings I should check ?  The so called unknown configuration reported by intel rapid storage seemed to be solved through the delete metadata option in intel 'optane' and memory storage management, the drive would read and write.
    But as I said the next boot failed and things are ok with the drive removed.
  • brummyfan2
    brummyfan2 ACE Posts: 28,457 Trailblazer
    Solingon said:
    Any settings I should check ?  The so called unknown configuration reported by intel rapid storage seemed to be solved through the delete metadata option in intel 'optane' and memory storage management, the drive would read and write.
    But as I said the next boot failed and things are ok with the drive removed.
    Are you trying to replace the HDD with this new 2TB SSD? If so, have you cloned the old drive to the new drive? Where is the OS resides at the moment? 
  • padgett
    padgett ACE Posts: 4,532 Pathfinder
    If you have a UEFI machine, you need to clone the existing boot drive to boot easily. If making a new boot drive without cloning, it is quite complicated and needs three partitions: boot (MB), data (GB) and recovery (MB). Cloning a UEFI drive will create these.
  • Solingon
    Solingon Member Posts: 5 New User
    No I was just adding a drive. It was a boot drive from another machine, with all partitions reformatted. I've just deleted all partitions and made 1 big simple partition, I'll try it back in the laptop later.
  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,065 Trailblazer
    Solingon said:
    I fitted a Crucial MX500 2000 GB drive and had an error on boot from the Intel storage software (unknown configuration). Once booted up I went to the Intel memory and storage management, found the drive, it was  reported as being offline, I then deleted its metadata which appeared to work, windows found the drive and it was available.
    On the next boot, boot up failed and I tried all the automated recovery options, all failed. I removed the 2000 GB drive and now all is back to normal.
    When connected via USB the 2000 GB drive works (obviously slower).
    I am guessing the drive is incompatible in some way - too large ?

     If your drive is offline then go to "Disk Manager" and right click on the MX500 drive and put it "Online" as that will fix that problem, also it could be that you haven't formatted this drive properly? As you should have done it through "Disk Manager", also and if you haven't got valuable data? Then reformat this MX500 through "Disk Manager" again into GUID (GPT) format as that should work, as MBR is suspect at 2TB and not secure.

    Also and remember that drive capacities/formatting rules in windows depends on the format that you are using? MBR format is up to a max of 2TB and GUID (GPT) format is beyond 2TB. Btw, I've just installed a secondary 2.5" Seagate BarraCuda 2TB spinner HDD drive into a new AN515-56 and formatted through "Disk Manager" into GUID (GPT) format to be certain as this is my valuable data backup and did this format to make sure that I can extend this to a bigger drive capacity with copying this drive to a bigger drive in the future if need. 
  • Solingon
    Solingon Member Posts: 5 New User
    Thanks for the help all.
    It was just a case of removing all the old partitions and reformatting the new single one as a GUID drive.
    I had initially used diskpart but reformatted using "Disc Manager".