Probook 6560b does not recognize my SSD

Question

hi, i recently purchased a hp probook 6560b and wanted to give it an upgrade by replacing the standard 500gb 7200rpm hdd with a 120gb force gt ssd. but the notebook doesn't recognize the ssd at all, it says no drive is installed. the notebook has the latest bios available and the ssd has the most recent firmware. i know the ssd isn't defective because it works just fine in my desktop pc. hopefully one of you guys can help me out. thanks in advance.

Answer 1

############################################################ Update from January / 2012 # to everyone reading this and having the same issue:# There is a BIOS update F.22 available that fixes the recognition problem! ## Sata-III speeds are still not usable, but it is a big step forward. See page5 and onwards.########################################################### Hello fellow 6560b owners,I decided to enter this support forum to inform you of an important correlation concerning the SSD-Problem I observed: Every non-recognizable SSD-drive mentioned here had a native SATA-III (6Gb/s) Interface.  Every working SSD* had a native Sata-II or Sata-I interface.(*exception: the Crucial M4 mentioned by Slym, which seems to be recognized, but fails on system-level none the less. That does not count as 'working'.) The correlation to recognizion/Sata-II dawned on me after my 6560b did not recognize a brand new Kingston Hyper-X 120GB (Sata-III), but did correctly recognize an OCZ 180GB Agility 2 (Sata-II), which is almost identical to the OCZ Vertex 2/LE. The OCZ drive worked without problems until this week, when it suddently failed without warning. Totally bricked, all data lost. OCZ is aware of that problem, the forums are full of it, but they obviously don't want to start a recall. (Corsair did that with their failed Force3-Series, as well as Intel should do with their 310-Series repeatedly reverting to 8M size.)  Which means, I'm back to zero and have to find a new drive that is reliable and recognized in the 6560b. For any SSD-user out there: backups will save you a ton of frustration. Most mayor manufacturers had serious problems with their SSDs dying, so be warned. Some details about my machine: new 6560b, 3 months old (as was the OCZ drive), HW 65 B3 stepping.(->no Intel Sata-chipset failure possible.) Search for explanation / reasons to the 6560b's SSD-problemHWinfo reports 2 Sata-III Ports, which I suppose are those on the main drive slot and the optical drive.The HW 65 as well as the QB67 (which both seem to be very identical according to wikipedia) both reportedly support 2 SATA-III-Ports, which were not affected in the B2-stepping-Sata-II-failure-thing that hit Intel in Jan/Feb 2011.So why should a Sata-III-link from a Sata-III-capable mainboard to a Sata-III-capable drive not work, but a sata-II does?And why can't the Sata-III drives just revert to Sata-II capabilities and work slower, but recogizable? general issues that I can think of:
1) hardware/software-based problem concerning the chipset improbable after that sata-II-issue. I assume they checked everything, and as most Sata-III drives are SSDs, they must have tested our models as well. Oh, and other Sandy-Bridge-notebooks accept Sata-III just fine, don't they?
remaining possibility: the B2-bug-aftermath produced this Sata-III-bug in the 6560b's configuration. That may be a hint to why the Sata-III Corsair M4 worked for the user Switched2HP and his B2-stepping-board, but similar M4-Corsair-SSDs did not work in B3-stepping-6560b notebooks. I'm not convinced of this explanation, though, as Switched2HP had also had problems with the Kingston-HyperX Sata-III drives. Important question @Switched2HP: did you test the Kingston Hyper-X in the same B2-stepping laptop the M4 runs fine in?
 2) hardware/software-problem on the SSD sideWith us trying almost every Sata-III drive out there? Which work fine on other Chipsets & notebooks? Almost impossible..
 not improbable cause no. 3:- hardware-problem on the electrical link side [eg. bad connectors/cables which prevent Sata-III from working, while not allowing downwards compatibility to Sata-II to jump in] this problem would IMHO only be fixable with complete replacement of the mainboard probable cause no. 4:- bios/HP-hardware-software-based problem concerning the chipset  eg. it's HPs fault because they deactivated/bricked something. See point 1) for B2-stepping-aftermath-scenario.
IMHO quite possible. HP would earn a ton of respect if they manage to solve that problem with a firmware update.  As the 6560b was built to be upgraded in a few minutes, an issue prohibiting modern SSDs and HDDs to work is a complete deal-breaker. As we, the users, have no access to the deeper configuration options, hardware-level-logs or even just knowledge about the inner workings of our chipsets, this would be the perfect time of some expert from HP to join in this thread, which is running for over 3 months now.  I'm sorry guys from HP, but this is a serious problem, as soon there will only be Sata-III drives left, so I'm not doing this for fun.  The HP Probook is not just any cheap throwaway-laptop.