T43 supported hard drives without the 2010 error

[ricard]

Ok, this subject has been up several times before, but as far as I can tell most of the threads have been a couple of years old.

Story is, I've been considering replacing my trusty T43 which has been with me since its one year birthday six years ago, purchased as a refurbished business machine. A T400 seems to be at a reasonable price/performance break point in the refurbished market, but after having tested a T61 (widescreen) I'm not convinced that's the way to go - in particular I like the 4:3 format which gives me a screen I can read comfortably without glasses, with a significantly larger default font size than the 16:10 format, and will probably hang onto the T43 for a couple of more years and see what the situation is then. (Have been considering a T60, to get at least dual core and better graphics, as well as the ability to use any hard drive I want, but they seem hard to come by and I don't really know if it's worth migrating to a machine that's just a couple of years younger. But I digress...).

So I'm considering upgrading the T43, mainly the hard drive. A couple of years ago I managed to located an 80 GB Hitachi drive that could be reflashed with IBM firmware, which has worked fine since then. It is getting rather tight though.

As far as I can tell from all accounts, the Fujitsu MHV2120AH (120GB) will function out of the box without the dreaded '2010' error at boot. (Yes, I know that the error can be bypassed and can be considered mostly an annoyance, and yes, I've read of a hacked BIOS that bypasses the 2010 error entirely. I may go that route eventually but want to explore other possibilities first.)

So my question is, will larger Fujitsu drives work without the 2010 error; can anyone confirm a particular drive that works? Do Fujitsu drives in general work out of the box, or is it just related to a certain series of drives? (I could well imagine that when IBM came to Fujitsu and asked them to do special software for them they responded, "Fine, but then we'll include that firmware together with our standard firmware to avoid fiddling with different versions for you"). 120 GB seems a bit tight in this day and age, but 160 GB would be fine with me.

[ajkula66]

You're going to walk into several issues here:

a) While Fujitsu drives (MHV2100AH and 2120AH) worked "out of the box" with no error, Fujitsu sold its HDD operations to Toshiba and the youngest of these drives would be about 3-4 years old now.

Samsung and WD drives work fine, but will throw the error on boot.

A modded BIOS that gets rid of the warning is also available and I've been using it for quite a while now without any issues. YMMV.

b) T43/p is one of my favourite platforms, but it's getting a bit long in the tooth. I've had a couple of them SATA-modded (click on the link in my signature to find out more) but upgrading to a T60/p is a much easier solution...PATA drives - even the very best of them - are way too slow by today's standards...

[ricard]

Thanks for the info. Yeah, I've been looking into replacing the T43 with a T60, but they don't seem to be as plentiful as I hoped; I'm specifically looking for a 14.1" 1024x768 model with ATI graphics; there seem to be a lot of 15" machines out there though. I guess people are hanging on to them. Also my logic has been to hang on to the T43 until something reasonably modern turns up. I can get a good deal on a refurbished T400, but I'm not mad about the widescreen setup, which actually results in a smaller screen height-wise, and the build quality doesn't seem to be as good as the older machines (altough I don't know if there are any issues in practice). So, a bit of a dilemma there... I guess one day I'm going to have to give up the ship, so why not now, on the other hand, a couple of years down the line there might be something better available which would suit me better.

I guess it's only the MHV2100AH and MHV2120AH that work; I've seen the MHV2120AT sold in various places, but I don't know if the AT suffix denotes a significant change that means it is not 'out-of-the-box' compatible (if at all)?

Your point about compatible drives being old by now is a very valid one; I just went through my box of old HD's and there were a few that had failed despite having worked a couple of years ago. Admittedly the ones that had failed probably weren't in any great shape when I packed them away, but still...

[RealBlackStuff]

If you want to stay with the T43/T43p (and why not), you have 2 options:

1) Apply the "No Error 2010" modded BIOS. Then you can install ANY 2.5" PATA hard disk (up to 320GB).

2) Also have a SATA-Mod done, which allows you to run cheaper, faster, widely available SATA drives, up to 1 TeraByte!
Contact forum member poshgeordie in the UK, who can do this Mod also. Send him my regards, when you do.

[ricard]

Why is there a limit at 320 GB ? (I'm not surprised that there is one, especially in older systems I know there were all sorts of HD size limits, but I wasn't aware of one at this size. Is it related to PATA, to the T43 itself, or the PATA-SATA bridge, BIOS, or something else?)

[RealBlackStuff]

Sheer technical, nobody produces any 2.5" PATA HD over 320GB.

[ricard]

Well, that's a simple one at least ...

Judging by my HD needs over the past years, 320 GB would be plenty on a laptop. Of course, once the space is available it will be used up ...