T4x Hard Drive Upgrades! Final Solution/Facts Needed.

[Delmarco]

I'm about to upgrade my T41 from it's original HT 40GB @ 5400rpm to an HT 100GB @ 7200rpm. I did a site search and got dozens of threads each giving 100s of different solutions that either overlapped, made not much sense or cancelled each other out.

The only thing I gathered and what seemed to be the MOST agreed upon way to do it is;

1. Get an external USB to IDE HD adapter or IBM Ultrabay HD adapter.

2. Use Acronis (Not Ghost) True Image 8.0 software.

3. Copy the old Hard Drive to the new one.

4. Insert new Hard Drive into T4x's Hard Drive bay.

5. Boot 'er up and your Thinkpad will be all good. Thats it.

However, some folks were mentioning BIOS upgrades that will be needed? and flashing the OEM portion of the original hard drive? also there may be a T41 incompatibility problem with retail Travelstars that are over 60GB and running at 7200rpms?

at that point in most of the threads the information and opinions got too cluttered to tell who was right and who was wrong and what the facts were.

Can someone, anyone, whose done this process clear this up in one simple easy to read post,

Surprisingly it's a topic that is not stickied but comes up way too often and it seems there is no clear consensus on what to do and what will work with HD upgrade on the T4x thinkpads.
Thanks.
Del

[bill bolton]

Surprisingly it's a topic that is not stickied

If you want a simple-to-implement solution above all else, buy an HDD from IBM, as listed in the on-line IBM accessories information for your ThinkPad, and it will be guaranteed to work.

If you want some other outcome.... rather than complain, what are you going to do about creating a good-enough-to-sticky general solution?

Cheers,

Bill

[anglerpd]

Your steps will work. Did for me anyway. Important thing is to use Acronis and not Ghost.

Angler

[GomJabbar]

Can someone, anyone, whose done this process clear this up in one simple easy to read post,

Surprisingly it's a topic that is not stickied but comes up way too often....

As a matter of fact, AlphaKilo470 has just posted a sticky Hard Drive FAQ in the ThinkPad - GENERAL HARDWARE/SOFTWARE questions forum. As this is a recent work, additions will probably made as questions such as yours come up.

However, you have heard the phrase: "There is more than one way to skin a cat"? That is the case here. People use different methods depending upon what they have available and the money they want to spend. There are different solutions that all work. One solution may be the best for you, but may not be the best for someone else.

Just some examples: You can use Acronis or Ghost to clone the drive to another drive in a USB enclosure. Or you can clone to a drive using an IDE to laptop adapter cable. You can use Acronis 8 or Acronis 9. You can use Ghost with the -IB switch. You can use your Product Recovery Disc set along with backup software - Rescue and Recovery, Backup MyPC, or other. You can buy a Ultrabay Slim 2nd HD adapter that comes with cloning software that has to be run from a USB floppy drive (I just recently chose this option).

[Delmarco]

Thanks GomJabbar,
I appreciate it. That's pretty much along the lines I was thinking.

As for bill bolton,
I wasn't really complaining so much as asking for help. I want to do this and I want it to work so that I can submit it for a sticky. Mods always tell us noobs to do searches, but sometimes searches yield so much incomplete threads/discussion that create more confusion and questions than one had before searching.

thanks mods.

[chicomark]

I've been reading the posts and I'm totally confused as to whether I need to image the drive or flash the firmware, or both.(Perhaps my brain is fried from the World Cup - we have to watch it at 2am here in Oz!!!)

Symptom:Problem 1
- Have purchased a retail Hitachi HTS721010G9AT00 100GB drive and slotted it into my trusty T41.
- The BIOS doesn't see it (it normally lists the serial number of IDE0 next to the drive, or puts a + sign next to it, both missing)
- Win XP install CD doesn't see it either (of course.. as not visible in BIOS), nor Linux qtparted boot CD (just a live Linux distro that can partition drives)
- I've slotted the it into an external USB2 case, Windows XP can see it no problems. Have formatted (NTFS) and played with the drive, so its operational
- Do I need to flash the firmware before the BIOS will see the drive? If so, does the BIOS need to see it first, or can I flash the drive's firmware while its installed in the external USB2 enclosure? Does the drive need to be in the T41 drive bay to be flashed?

Problem2: Problems copying the image with Acronis True Image 9.0.0.3633
- Acronis runs through all the wizard options nicely, but upon reboot it fails to find the source disk (Error "disk not found")
- I suspect this is because of the now notorious hidden partition
- So how do I get around this?

With many thanks
Mark

[tim S]

The main difficulty with cloning a hard drive seems to be finding software that will take the restore partition along with everything else and puts it on a new drive. I use Ghost and it doesn't clone the partition. I've tried Acronis and had a hard time with the interface, so I didn't use it.
But here's the deal! I still have the restore partition on the original 4200 hard drive which I don't use any more. Using the 2nd hard drive adaptor in my T40 I cloned my old 4200 onto my new 7200 with Ghost. The restore partition is still safely tucked away on the old drive so my 7200 can use the complete drive without partitioning. I keep my old 4200 out of the laptop and restored to day one so should my new drive ever crash, I'll simply re-clone it.
After cloning and rebooting with Ghost, wait for the "Windows needs to.......etc" popup to appear (in XP), then reboot again. Otherwise the cloned drive will/may fail to boot.
Tim S

[christopher_wolf]

You can usually clone the hidden partition, now note that it really isn't a physical partition on the models past the T41 and T40 (i.e. the T42 and T43). Disable the hiding option for it in, that should make it visible. After that, a bit-level clone of the HDD onto another should copy over everything, including the Type 12/Partition. After that, reset it to the "normal" mode.

[thibouille27]

Ghost 9 did the trick hapily

[chicomark]

Thanks for the advice! Couple of questions:

- Any idea as to why the T41 BIOS doesn't see my 100GB Hitachi 7200rpm HTS7100 drive? Has anyone had this problem and fixed it?

- christopher_wolf, what software did you use for the bit level copy, is this an option in Acronis? (Can't seem to find it anywhere in Acronis 9, I guess Ghost must have this but all the above threads say "Don't use Ghost! This is so confusing...)

Thanks again.

[thibouille27]

I can only say I used Ghost a couple times. I made a backup of the Recovery Partition. Sometimes ago I srewed it and was happy to restore it with Ghost. Worked perfectly. That's it.

[shadowlight]

I made a backup of the Recovery Partition. Sometimes ago I srewed it and was happy to restore it with Ghost.

On which Model have you done it? T41, T42, which kind of HPA/PreDesktop/WinPE?
Sorry to ask you so precise, but there are so many different types - its confusing me! Some tricks which are workin on my A31p wouldnt work on my X31 and vice versa.

[thibouille27]

X60 ... It is indeed a FAT32 partition identifying itself as a "Compaq Ididntremember" But it really is just a FAT32...

[christopher_wolf]

X60 ... It is indeed a FAT32 partition identifying itself as a "Compaq Ididntremember" But it really is just a FAT32...

Yup; it will identify itself as such. Actually, in a related note, some distros of Linux pick that up and report it as either an "IBM Thinkpad Diagnostics/Swap" partition or a Compaq Diagnostics" partition.

[thibouille27]

Yeah "Compaq Diagnostic", this is it
In fact it is FAT32 but the fake partition type makes XP not able to see it. Nothing more.