Thinkpad T41p mSATA to IDE route

[thinkpadt41p]

Struggling to get the BIOS to accept my mSATA setup.
The disk is not popping up in the BIOS nor anywhere else. I do not have any sort of equipment to verify it works either.

The Thinkpad has the latest 3.23 BIOS from 2007.

I bought
https://www.proshop.no/Kontroller/DeLOC ... me/3346319
which seems to be identical to the guides that pops up for the SSD upgrade.

I also bought
https://www.proshop.no/SSD/Transcend-23 ... TA/2806928
which I think is the cause of my misery(?)

Background:
Trying to get the Thinkpad T41p up and running, the latest HDD coughed blood so I thought it might be time for an upgrade.
The mSATA to IDE route looked the most promising.

[thinkpadt41p]

I got it to work; somehow.
Either the connector was off or something else was happening.

What I did was:
I removed the mSATA ssd from the adapter, then installed it again.
Also I didn't mount the adapter to anything, just put it straight in with the shield. Suddenly the IDE0 option popped up

I have no clue why it works, but it does.
The 32 bit Linux Mint is installing as we speak, in snail pace.

The 256 GB SSD is fully available, in the Linux Mint installer at least.

[dcfbf]

Some of these IDE to mSATA converters have switches or jumpers on them to either accept 3.3v or 5v.
There may be one on yours.

Also, make sure you've plugged it in correctly into the computer. I've had issues lining up IDE pins before on these T4x laptops when using these converters. They are usually thinner and smaller than regular ide hdds and seem to never plug in correctly on the first go.
A sure fire way of getting it plugged in correctly is take off the palmrest and plastic hdd bracket and visually make sure that all pins have lined up correctly.

Edit: You may want to put in your location before one of the admins complain: more info

[thinkpadt41p]

I do not see any jumpers for the voltage on that particular converter, however, I do have to take the disk out again.

I suspect you are correct when you are mentioning the IDE pins.
Tested it now, and with the palmrest and plastic hdd bracket, the disk is not lined up properly.
Had to really pay attention when I put everything together again, but now the entire thing is assembled with the palmrest and plastic hdd bracket + it works.

For a while I thought I was screwed.

[Glaurung-quena]

There seem to be only two options for msata to IDE: adapters that mimic the form factor of a 2.5" hard disk, but in a *very tight fit* (the one time I tried one on a T42, which are a tight squeeze for regular HDDs already, it refused to go in the slot when mounted in its caddy) and adapters that are smaller than a regular disk (leading to the woes you've experienced). Ones that fill out the form factor without being ever so slightly too big? Might exist, or might not.