A few months back I had an X40 hard drive die. The replacement was a reconditioned used part, denoted by an orange sticker on the drive. None too pleased, I nonetheless understood that these drives were likely not in production any longer given that they are pretty custom.

More recently had one of our X41 hard drives die. The replacement from Lenovo differs from the original in an important fashion - it is a "iPod"-style 1.8 inch hard drive with a ribbon connector on the narrow edge, which then feeds to the 40 pin IDE connector on the wide edge. The drive comes enclosed in a metal cage which lends it approximately the same size as the old style drives.

So, never fear - it would appear that there will be replacement drives for the X4 models into the future...

Is there is a part number on the ribbon cable and caddy? That would be useful for those who want to try a zif drive on their own.

FRU on the entire apparatus is 42T4451. The "ASM" part number is 42T4450. No markings beyond that.

I was pretty sceptical that such a construction would fit, but if it does, this is great news. The latest generation 1.8" drives can be pretty speedy, probably due to the higher platter density (I saw HDTunes transfer graphs for the 80GB 1.8" MacBook Air drive go from 35-20MB/s, IIRC, the old X40 drives did something like 20-10MB/s).

Could you post a picture of the adapter perhaps?

This information is huge. It means that larger drives, if/when available, can be used. It also means that solid state drives with ZIF connectors can be used...and those exist now!

Please post a picture or picture link. Thanks for the news!

Great news ... X40s are sexy machines, the only reason I decided against one was beacuse of the slow HDDs ... being able to use zif connected HDDs is really good news!

has anyone contacted IBM regarding this matter?
I have ordered a Sandisk 5000 1.8" 32GB UATA ZIF SSD and was going to make my own converter, but if IBM has these in available i would be very interested!

Here are some photos of a x41 tablet that shows:
1. ZIF-IDE converted hard drive(60gb, 4200rpm). I couldn't find the casing and the adapter/converter kit anywhere online. IMO it's a very well designed case. Anything that I decide not to take apart is well designed.
2. 2gb+512mb memory configuration: XP shows 2gb, Linux(2.6kernel) shows 2gb, MacOSX Leopard(10.5.1) shows 2.5gb.
3. Some misc. info. Ex. hard drive geometry info and benchmeark in both windows and linux, three antenna customization for abgn wireless card before I found out about the white list, the 2gb memory module I got from newegg, 915gm vga wiring hack to solve "blue screen hang" for MacOSX, etc.

teetee

I have a thinkpad x41 tablet #1869 with a 40gig internal HDD, I need a bigger one and was told by lenovo that 40 is the largest supported.

I'm running xp tablet 2005 and would like to find a economical way to get a new bigger HDD pref 60gb or bigger
120 would be even better.

Can you lead me in the right direction

question, whats going on in here with the pin in the vga out port?

On machines with 915gm vga chip, the MacOS X shows blue screen and freezes at startup when the secondary display is not detected. The paper clip trick is to fool the OS X and make it think the secondary display is connected.

It took me a while of cursory search online before I was able to install the Mac OS from DVD so I thought it deserve a photo record.

teetee

Can you disassemble it? I want to see what inside is it...

me too, to be honest...
what does lenovo charge for a spare X41 HD?

I can't disassemble it without some tools and forces. The factory must have made it hard to disassemble so that people won't be able to put a bigger (ex. 160gb or larger) IDE/CE/ZIF hard drive in it to replace the original one.

The inside is just a ZIF drive with the cable coming out. You can get those photos on any of the ipod drive replacement tutorial websites.

My drive was free from lenovo since it was a replacement under warranty.

teetee

Does the ZIF drive have any buffer on it? That quite low burst speed hints that...

It would be very interesting to fit a 32GB SSD inside the adapter, that's why i'm asking. So the extra casing is hard to open, that's a shame. I think i'm going to contact IBM for a spare so i can try to fit an SSD. Should make the x41 a very fast machine.

Thank you for the great pix. All the X4x owners can now reset their goals on extracting performance and achieving the ultimate upgrade.

P.S. That paper clip in the VGA port is very high tech! I used to use a paper clip to keep a voicemail system operational several years ago.

I think it use Hitachi 08K1571 (1.8" ZIF 60GB, 2mb cache)

I just understand C4K60 have ZIF too ...

From this screenshot it looks like it has no buffer. Since hdparm program couldn't identify the buffertype so the drive might actually have 2mb buffer according to the C4k60 datasheet as ALPHONSE2501 pointed out.

teetee

But the burst rate... it should be somewhere near the used ATA mode speed limit and it is near max drive transfer mode... And why would the drive hide the cache to hdparm (or generally ata interface) if present? I have actually some programs reporting unknown cache on my Hitachi 60GB, but burst rate is around 100MB/s...

Thank you for your wonderful post, this thread really made my x41 worth something!.

Can someone post me a schema for the conversation and i could try to convince a my friend of mine to make such adapter. i wanna have a 4200rpm 120gb disk!

Best regards

Hi all,
I have been following this thread with great interest.
I have immediately looked up this part number (42T4451) at my national Thinkpad parts reseller (I live in France) - which, to my great surprise, I found (with description "1.8 40GB R")

Price is outrageous : 263 EUR exc. VAT (314 EUR inc.VAT).
That translates into 415 / 496 USD !

Assembly alone p/n (42T4450) was unavailable and impossible to find unfortunately.

I would have loved to upgrade my X41t...but not at any price !
Joscelyn

The US price for a 42T4451 is $461.16! Anyone who can get the ZIF/IDE adapter part of the assembly down to half that or less will have a little market on their hands...

Hi you guys, can you tell me whether this ZIF hard drive makes any sound? If yes, is the sound as loud as that of a regular 2.5" notebook hard drive? Besides, after you replace the "clicking" 1.8" HD with this ZIF HD, does your X40/1 become faster? Thanks!

I have installed a Toshiba 6008 ZIF drive (ipod drive!) in my X41 using a cheap ebay ZIF - IDE adapter, so different drive and adapter, but...

The drive seems very quiet, certainly less noise than a 5400rpm 2.5", there is a very slight click when the drive parks the heads, but you have to really listen for it. There is a slight whine from the drive which you can hear if the cpu fan is off (and in a quiet room), but if the cpu fan comes on, even at the lowest setting, you cannot hear the drive.

Bear in mind that this is a 2nd hand drive from a few years back. I can only gues that a new, more modern drive would be quieter.

edwardoneale, can you please post some pictures and what adapter did you use?
does the hdd fit perfectly inside the laptop or is some part left out?

thanks,
dorin

I used this adapter from ebay, about £5: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/iPod-TOSHIBA-1-8-ZIF-Hard-drive-HDD-to-2-5-IDE-Adapter_W0QQitemZ140218100971QQihZ004QQcategoryZ90964QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItem?_trksid=p1638.m122

I actually used two different adapters, as I broke one just as I was finishing, but they both worked. One came with large LEDs and a jumper on and these needed to be de-soldered to fit it in the case.

The adapter is designed to use 5v to power a 3.3v drive and uses a small chip to step down the voltage. The X41 delivers 3.3v so the chip needs to be desoldered. There is a guide here: http://www.riovolution.org/post/12086. (My soldering skills are pretty low, and I managed it without too much difficulty!)

There is plenty of room in the drive bay of the X41 to fit the drive and the adapter, the adapter justs sits above it.
http://i32.tinypic.com/2nr3eat.jpg

Fitting the drive in is alittle more fun. The ZIF drive I used was less wide than the stock drive (no ide pins), and 1 or 2mm longer (ZIF interface?), also it has no screw holes to fix the caddy to. This means that the drive just sits in the bay without being held in. There are plastic guide rails within the bay for the normal caddy. I found that with these in place it was a bit of tight fit and the drive needed to sit diagonally in order to fit. I next removed the plastic rails completely, and this left the drive fairly loose within the bay. It would need some foam or something to stop it banging around. I settled on a compromise and cut away one side of the guide rails, and now the drive is held in place snugly.

The ZIF cable that came with the adapter was just about long enough to reach, but I wouldn't have liked it to be much shorter.

Generally it seems to have worked ok. I did this as my stock ard drive was broken, and the replacement drive I used is still a 4200prm drive so no great performance increase. But it should work for 5400rpm or SSD drives as long as they are ide.

MOD EDIT: Over-limit picture has been converted to link, please follow forum rules.

@Edward, great photo and write-up. I believe everyone wants to know if the ZIF drive+ ZIF-IDE adapter fits in the x41/x41t hd housing. You just unclouded lots of uncertainties.

The links are very helpful too. Thanks!

Just bought a 60GB new style harddrive (case type) on ebay. I think it is good price for £49 ($100). Hopefully I can upgrade to use any ZIF drive in the future.

Any good tips on how to open the case

Would you mind sharing the auction link?