Thinkpad T43 dead after 2 days... is hard drive to blame?

[Chrispy43]

Hello all. I have a question regarding my thinkpad T43. I had it for about 36 hours and I was installing some drivers when the computer went to a blue screen and would not boot to windows anymore. I attempted to re-install XP pro but it would not read the CD and kept giving me read errors. I attempted to use my external DVD-RW and it had read errors too.

I then tried to use my Rescue and Recovery CD and restore a backup point from a few weeks ago (when I had my first T43 that was replaced). The backup would load but when windows went to boot all I got was a blue screen again.

Now, I installed an 80GB 7,200 RPM hard drive on the computer when I got it and loaded XP pro. Could my hard drive have killed the computer?? I removed it an put the factory drive back in as well as factory memory. The problem still exists. I even tried different memory to be sure the RAM sent by IBM was not bad. Problem still exists.

Has anyone had a similar experience? It seems my motherboard died (IBM said today they replaced the mainboard so this is the case so far) and could my hard drive be to blame? I'm getting it repaired and when I get it back should I not put my 7,200 drive back in it? When I got the blue screen I was removing the IBM thinkvantage password software so could that have something to do with it? Sorry for all the questions just trying to figure out what happened and if it has happened to anyone else.

Also, is there any way to get the computer to stop telling me I have a non-IBM hard drive in it at startup? I keep getting an error message that says I have an incompatible hard drive installed. Thanks.

[christopher_wolf]

Hello and Welcome to the Thinkpad Forums

The latest BIOS gets rid of the visual cue portion of the 2010 Error, but there still exists a beep yet there is no need for a user prompt. On my old, now defunct, HP laptop, that is almost exactly what happened. I installed Windows XP, wouldn't boot without a BSOD; I then trid Linux, that worked...For awhile. Another install I did on it threw some read/write exceptions from the Optical Drive when non-existed and the drive was in perfect working order. It turned out to be the HDD that had problems and not the System Board, Memory, or the CD Drive. As far as I know, anything from a main board problem near the HDD to the HDD itself can cause an error like that, even though the Optical Drive might be fine. The install acts almost like a LiveCD, it installs itself onto the drive by reading off scripts; these scripts have checks built in like "Did I write that successfully?" and queries the HDD, if the HDD doesn't indicate a successful I/O operation (and this can again be caused by a bad HDD connection, a bad HDD itself, or a System Board problem) the install process will throw a read/write error. I have also come across cases where the CD could write to the HDD just fine, but the BIOS couldn't boot from it (That happened on an old HP, old firmware for the BIOS was the problem).

HTH

[Chrispy43]

Thanks for the reply I hope when it comes back all is well. Does anyone know a number I can call to get ahold of customer relations or something of that nature. I want to call and try to get some money back since I bought my T43 back in December and I still do not have a working unit. In addition, they said they would use Sat delievery so I would have my computer this weekend and they did not I really want to let someone know my problems and I was hoping someone had a number I could call. Thanks!

[Chrispy43]

Well it must be the hard drive. It is strange as the HD works fine in my Dell Latitude C800 series but it kills any IBM I put it in. The hard drive is an Hitachi Travelstar Model number HTS721080G9AT00

IBM/Lenovo's site lists this as an acceptable hard drive for use in the T43. I even tried to run the firmware update but it says the hard drive is already up to date. IBM also said the BIOS was up do date on the motherboard as well. I'm very confused by this. Now the factory hard drive and the Hitachi both bring up a blue screen on boot and neither can be restored. I'm afraid this is the end of IBM/Lenovo for me. Nothing but bad luck.