T43 HDD Problem

[misky]

Hi, I'm fairly new to thinkpads and just got my hands on a T43, but whenever I turn it on,
I get an error 2010 saying it cannot recognize the hard drive.
I figured the solution to the problem is to update the bios, but there's not operating system on the computer.
I am not sure how to go about this as I have not done anything remotely similar to this before and I don't know if an os is required for the bios update,
or I can just start doing it as it is. Can anyone please answer my question or link me to some kind of a guide? I've had trouble finding any.

[dr_st]

Welcome to the forum.

The T43 has a whitelist for hard drives and non-approved ones will throw this Error 2010. However, you should still be able to press Esc and continue booting.

There is no official BIOS to remove this limitation, but unofficial modded BIOSes exist.
Read more here:
https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=92115

[misky]

Hi, I've already checked out the forum post before but it didn't prove very useful since the link doesn't work anymore.
And just pressing esc doesn't help me since the computer cannot find the hard drive and I cannot boot into anything, tried multiple operating systems,
but got stuck at the parts where i need to partition disks in the installation process.
I need some kind of help with the hard drive not being recognized.

[dr_st]

Error 2010 typically means that the hard drive is detected, but 'unsupported', not that it is not detected at all.
Perhaps you are dealing with a different issue?

What is the hard drive? Is it detected in the BIOS at all?

[RealBlackStuff]

Go to that link that dr_st gave you, then go to its page 4 and the very last post there from Tasurinchi.
Both 'here' links work...

[misky]

Thank you RBS!
And to dr_st, the hard drive is detected but I'm unable to use it for some reason, now I actually think it might be failing.
Also I think the bios battery is dead since every time i restart the computer the date resets in the bios.
I'm not sure but thanks for your help!

[dr_st]

And to dr_st, the hard drive is detected but I'm unable to use it for some reason, now I actually think it might be failing.
Also I think the bios battery is dead since every time i restart the computer the date resets in the bios.

Both are likely possibilities for a machine so old. A BIOS battery is inexpensive, but a bit of a hassle to replace on these particular systems. I would start with checking the hard drive first. The simplest thing would be to boot some lightweight Linux or Hiren's boot CD of a USB stick, and running hard drive diagnostics.