Help me with buyer's regret...

[miamirice]

Hi all,
Glad to have found the forum...though maybe a little late. I'm a newbie when it comes to forums, so thank you for any advice. I just purchased a T42 1.7Ghz Pent M 1GB ram with a 40GB hard drive. It's basically a 2373-L4U with a 512mb ram upgrade. I paid $1300.

Well, in addition to feeling that I paid about $150-200 too much, I already feel clausterphobic with this 40GB hard drive. The fresh install has already used over 9GB!! That means...only 11GB more and I'm already at half of my capacity.

SO...I'm looking for storage solution(s), including replacing the hard drive with a bigger one, adding a drive to a bay and maybe keeping the 40GB one, hooking up the hard drive from a desktop to my Thinkpad, and I'm wondering if it is possible to push the "Access IBM" and the other compressed system restore files in the secret partition onto CDs or a DVD data disk, and so perhaps make the 40GB somewhat usable.

What are your thoughts on what to do here? Good and better solutions? Caveats?

[christopher_wolf]

Well, you could make an image of the 40GB HDD; then install something along the lines of a 100GB drive in there and put the image on it. hte Ultrabay HDD isn't exactly the best solution to this as you give up your Ultrabay for another Hard Drive. You can hook up the drive on your Desktop to your Thinkpad by making it a shared Network Resource. The Access IBM Button can come in real handy when it comes to quick restores and such. I would, however, go with using it to make a bunch of Backup disks (CD or DVD) and then to transfer your important data over to your desktop. After that, you would simply install the larger hard drive and "restore" the system using the restore disks that you made; then you would just put the important data right back on. This approach helps get rid of system cruft buildup. Again, there are many ways to do something like this, and this is only one of the many...it really depends on what you want to do and what benefits you would want to get out of it.

[ZaZ]

You could get an external case and put a laptop drive in it as a way to increase your storage capacity. They you wouldn't have to mess around with installing windows.

[xaverin]

I also think that a external USB drive is not a bad solution. Especially if you take a 2.5" HDD which needs only few power, you can connect it via USB without additional Power supply.

I myself currenly have an eye on the Trekstor 2,5" USB Drives - they come in 40 to 100GB and are very small good to transport and have a nice leathercase.

The option of changing the harddrive itself offers better speeds and less additional messing around with cables. But you mustn't be affraid of opening and screwing around in your TP. Besides it helps if you know a bit about taking Images of whole Partitions or Drives with p.e. Acronis, Ghost or the Rescue and Recovery (im not sure if R&R does this) to portate your Data to the new drive.

But for whatever you decide im sure you'll get help with some of the Details here.

Greedz Xavi

[wolfman]

On the buyers remorse front, sounds like you have a very nice machine! Is this your first Thinkpad? I think after you've used it for a while, as many here will agree, you'll appreciate the thoughtful touches and quality of the machine that in the long run will outweigh $150 or so (if you did over pay, which I can't really say based on limited specs).

Do you have 11 gig worth of data/applications to install on the machine to get the drive to 1/2 full? If so, there are a number of good suggestions above. If not, relax, you have a good machine and it's expandable in the future if need be - the capacity of notebook drives goes up slower than desktops, but it does go up...It'll be a long time though till you can get a 500 gig drive or anything approaching the desktop size drives in a laptop. Currently I think the highwater mark is a Toshiba 120 gig (4200 rpm) and 100 gig for a 7200 rpm.

Good luck and enjoy your Thinkpad - I think they are worth every penny.

[DIGITALgimpus]

You could get a Hitachi 7k100 HD and put it in an external enclosure like this.

That enclosure doesn't need external power. Uses USB2. This way you get the added performance of a 7200 RPM drive, and don't need a power cable. Of course this will lower battery life if your using it when on battery.

[miamirice]

OK, great...thanks everyone for the good feedback and advice!

Re: what Chris wrote - when I install the new hard drive, will I even be able to "restore" the system using the restore disks from the CD drive? Without any drivers for the CD/DVD drive, can the HDD access it?

Any how does one make an image? What is an "image"? Excuse the elementary questions...

Btw, it's my 3rd Thinkpad. They're good.

[kyrotech]

2373-L4U for $1300 is a great value

create the rescure disk set first, then delete de recovery partition to free up space.

you can also upgrade to 80 GB or 100GB hard disk and use the 40 GB drive with an external 2.5 usb enclosure, works greats, thats what I did