T4x disks

[karotlopj]

Do all the T4x series use IDE disks? And is there any possibility, apart from an ultrabay adapter, of connecting up Sata disks using something like this adapter:-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-5-Male-44pi ... SwZd1VX-nI

[ajkula66]

Do all the T4x series use IDE disks?

Yes.

And is there any possibility, apart from an ultrabay adapter, of connecting up Sata disks using something like this adapter:-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-5-Male-44pi ... SwZd1VX-nI

There's a loooooooooooooong sticky in the T4x forum about using mSATA SSDs in these systems....recommended reading.

[kfzhu1229]

Don't forget to read about the SATA mods if you are into that kind of thing, there are plenty of results for that too, though this only applies to ThinkPad T43/p and R52.
And yes I have one of those Ultrabay SATA adapters for one of my T43 which has its IDE port broken. They work decently fine too, though they feel a bit flimsy which doesn't affect much since you aren't touching it all the time anyways, and just don't plug and unplug them all the time as those aftermarket things on eBay (and Taobao for China) are made with cheap materials that may not be able to withstand such abuse all that often. It is also best if you can also stick in a working IDE drive into the main HDD bay to avoid the annoying BIOS delay that I have (It takes 20 seconds to pass BIOS for that T43!)

[w0qj]

<< Comment self-deleted due to factual inaccuracy; please see RealBlackStuff's comments below, and his useful URL link! >>

[RealBlackStuff]

Last model made by IBM: T43.
T43 had SATA HDD interface, but its motherboard actually expects native PATA (IDE) HDD.
So they added a SATA-to-PATA interface (bridge) between the SATA HDD and the motherboard (which expects a PATA HDD),
so that the SATA HDD and motherboard can talk with each other.

The problem is, when you use Product Recovery Disks on T43 the Product Recovery program actually expected a PATA (IDE) HDD,
hence causing a problem since you actually have a SATA HDD.

Hence all these SATA mods for T43 Recovery.

Sounds confusing?
Avoid T43 if you can. Stick with either T42 (for its older PATA/IDE HDD), or a newer model (all of which uses SATA HDD of various flavors).

3. Don't know much about R52 to comment on its HDD interface...

Sorry, you got that all wrong.
Read my website: http://theboardroom.info/sata_mods.html for the correct T43/R52 SATA explanation.
And T43/R52 have NO problems with recovery under either PATA/IDE or SATA.

[w0qj]

Sorry, you got that all wrong.
Read my website: http://theboardroom.info/sata_mods.html for the correct T43/R52 SATA explanation.
And T43/R52 have NO problems with recovery under either PATA/IDE or SATA.

OK, I stand corrected