MBP13 optibay SSD issues

[InfinitySquared]

I've got the 2009 model 13 MBP, 2.26ghz.

Recently (Black Friday), I took advantage of a good deal on an SSD, and ordered that and the MCE optibay. (By the way, the enclosure MCE gives you is a terrible setup. I've seen a few of the other companies in that service give nice-looking aluminum enclosures that most importantly don't use 2 usb slots.)

When I got the SSD, I installed it in the hard drive space just fine - the efi wouldn't recognize it at first so I made a fresh install of SL on a spare hdd, cloned it to the SSD, and it worked fine. But that's not the issue. A day or two later, when the optibay came in the mail, I tried to configure things so that my 640gb hdd was in the apple-designated spot so it could take advantage of the sudden motion sensors.

On bootup, it would take more than a minute for rEFIt to load. Then I could select the operating system, but it would load for like three or four minutes (the apple and the rotating circle), before finally stopping any pretense of loading, and just freezing. No bootup.

I tested it with only the ssd in the optibay. Problem persisted. With only the ssd in the hdd-spot, as per my original setup, and it worked fine again.

As a compromise, I've installed the hdd in the optibay slot and the ssd in the primary, and that seems to be working fine so far. But I'm concerned about the hdd's vulnerability in this setup.

So I'm basically asking two questions:
1. Is this issue familiar to any of you, or do you have any advice in troubleshooting it?
2. How significant of a risk do you think I'm really taking by leaving the hdd where it is right now?

Oh, and as a side-note, system profiler was saying that my optibay hdd's negotiated link speed was 1.5 Gb/s yesterday (I've seen a few other people notice this, and it doesn't concern me), but today it's back at 3 Gb/s. Any ideas on why it would be reading differently?

 

[tjb1]

1. Ive read alot where the Macs have trouble booting from the optibay.
2. I personally dont think you will have any problem, I disabled my sudden motion sensor anyway. It will take quite a bump to screw the drive.
3. Checked my optibay(currently using two hdds, still waiting for my ssd) and it says negotiated is 1.5 also.

 

[TheBaconKing]

Isn't the sudden motion sensor located on the motherboard? If it is then it should work for both right?

Also I just checked my negotiated for the optibay and it is 3. I will keep an eye on it now though.

Also with your comment on the enclosure it came with. I have successfully watched a DVD (for a few min to test it out) with just the one USB cable (not the power one) plugged in.

 

[InfinitySquared]

1. I've read a lot about the efi irrelugarly booting from the wrong drive, but not about any actual issues during the boot. Also, I haven't heard anything about a slow efi. Could it be that the system is searching for a bootloader on the first drive, times out, and then finally notices one on the second? I don't really have that great of an understanding of the underpinning processes here.

2. Good news. I should probably be fine then. Then again, knowing me, maybe not. I've dropped my laptop more than once, and have a few nicely-sized nicks and dents to show for it. (Fortunately they're not particularly visible.) Despite all of that my hdd has held up, but I'm less sure it would have without the sensors.

3. Yeah, I've seen a lot of people reporting that. While that's strange in itself, my interest is in the fact that mine jumped back up to 3 Gb/s.

 

[InfinitySquared]

Isn't the sudden motion sensor located on the motherboard? If it is then it should work for both right?

Also I just checked my negotiated for the optibay and it is 3. I will keep an eye on it now though.

Also with your comment on the enclosure it came with. I have successfully watched a DVD (for a few min to test it out) with just the one USB cable (not the power one) plugged in.

You may be right about that. I've heard people referencing that as a reason to install the hdd in its original spot, so I had assumed that it only sent the signal to the first SATA, or something like that.

As for the enclosure topic: That's great news. I often have an external hdd and/or a mouse hooked up, and it's good to know I can get away with only one usb port.