Thinkpads Forum

I just got a gen-you-whine Lenono Ultrabay SATA adapter for my T61P. Directly from Lenono, who took two weeks to ship the wrong part, then more time to ship the right part, which is conveniently packed with instructions that say "Only for machine types..." and stop a couple of years short of thr 6xxx series. But support confirms this time the correct part number shipped and (tee hee) they'll think about just not including the wrong packing slips in the future.

Anyway...the bottom of the adapter is a sheet of bare metal, and the hard drive's circuit board sits IN CONTACT WITH THE BARE METAL when it is properly installed. I'm thinking, this can't be good, unless everything on the bottom (top) of the circuit board is at ground...one really doesn't ever, ever, want to install a circuit board with live leads so it contacts a metal case.

Does anyone know if there's some secret handshake in the drive industry, that says this IS safe to do? Or should I follow my instinct and install a sheet of plastic to insulate the drive from the case, which will make it run a smidge hotter--but prevent any electrical contact?

Lenono tech support says "Don't worry be happy" but of course, they're not the ones who'll be buying new hardware if it arcs out and dies.

Shouldn't you install the (insulated) drive caddy on the HD, before you put it in the adapter?

Lenovo support says no, just put a drive in the adapter. The printed manual just shows removing the rubber bumpers from a drive and putting it into the caddy--which leaves the invisible implication that the drive would still be IN a caddy, since that's normal for an internal drive.

You might have something here, a combination of poor docs and worse support?

I've had no problems. Drive slips right into the UltraBay adapter, no caddy needed on mine.

I'd go with something which insulates the bottom of the hard drive from the bare metal of the HD Ultrabay adapter:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 32#p384532

Most, if not all, HDs should have "feet" at the corners where the screws mount the caddy to the drive. That should be enough to lift the bottom of the drive away from the sheet metal, but you never know...

Thanks, Ray. The corners of the frame casting might actually extend below the circuit board's level, "might" not being how I like to rely on things.<G> Putting the mounting screws into the holes probably would raise the drive up high enough to take care of things, so I'll try that to see if there's enough clearance above the drive that way. And meanwhile chase down a decent piece of mylar or something similar.

To sidetrack the original question a bit: This is Vista Ultimate 32. Each drive (old and new) was formatted as sole drive in the computer's internal bay. If I stick one of those in the Ultrabay and Vista boots from it (because of the boot device sequence in the BIOS)...Would it? And would it do something treacherous like reach out and mess with the boot information on my internal drive?

I've seen MS OSes, especially the NTs, go out and screw themselves up this way too many times over the years. Kinda curious to know what I can *safely* do, if anything, with both drives in the machine, with or without changing BIOS settings.