First cable failed but they shipped a replacement

Mi Problema

Mid 2011 mini is boot camped to run Windows Media Center for my home, three xboxes extended from that, all fed by a Windows Home server with 21TB of drive space. Since I keep my security videos from the security system on the mini, as well as my 8 year old's cartoons, I wanted more space. Toss in the desire for a quicker SSD system drive, and viola, instant need for two drives in this thing.

Mi Solución

Physical work went fine the first time, kind of slow as I followed the guide here (which was outstanding and showed everything clearly). Except I learned after the fact that apparently SSD drives cannot be boot camped from the second position - so I had to disassemble everything again, this time swapping the drives around so the new SSD was in the original drive spot on the original drive port. Then it went fine. Got everything going, and the next day my system locked and wouldn't boot. Further troubleshooting showed that as soon as I unplugged the new cable from the motherboard, I could boot. If I left it plugged in, it wouldn't even give me the apple on the screen - just the dirty white screen, not getting past the initial diagnostics. Pulled the drive and tried another, same thing. Using the original cable only, I could see any drive in any position. Using the new cable with this kit, I could not see any drive in any position. So clearly something failed with the cable. They were cool enough to overnight one for me (since this is my security system as well, kind of important for me to have). New cable arrived the next morning (a little bit ago) and assembled everything again (I'm down to just over 7 minutes to put this together from totally pieced out on my table, had lots of practice the last few days), and everything works like a champ again. I'm hoping there was just something flakey with the first cable, and this one won't do the same thing and stop working after a day or two. So far, so good.

Mi Consejo

Adding an SSD as a faster boot drive? If you plan on using boot camp, swap it to the original drive position, otherwise boot camp will be unable to actually create the partition. You'll get everything else fine, Mac OS X, etc, but boot camp assistant will pout and throw a hissy fit and refuse to do what you tell it.