T42p won't boot everytime on the HD

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livevil · #1 Post by **livevil** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:01 am

Hi all !

I just bought a used T42p to replace my ... T42p I had to give away to my former boss. This 'new' T42p is still under warranty till May 08, but also comes with problems.
A short description first: the mainboard and the screen have been replaced recently, before I bought it. The HD has been replaced just when I bought it by a "serviceable used part" from IBM (the former one didn't allow a factory reinstall owing to cluster errors).
So, now I have it in my hands (and I also have IBM replacing the CD/DVD burner since it was making a lot of noise and couldn't burn DVD anymore). Even if it isn't brand new, it is supposed to have a lot of 'new' parts in it...

The big problem is that it doesn't boot on the hard drive all the time. At first I thought the hard drive was not properly placed and I try to remove it and to put it back in place several times without success.
I found out that when it doesn't boot (i.e. the boot sequence goes on with the LAN boot, which also subsequently fails beacause no LAN is installed), if I let it try again, it will never boot on the hard drive (just as if the boot sector didn't exist since I can see the HD in the BIOS setup).
If I turn it off by pressing the power button for 5 sec, then turn it on right after, the boot on the hard drive is OK.

Yesterday, I also found out somethjing else : it seems to happen mainly when on the battery. When I'm plugged on the AC, the hard drive seems to boot fine.
Any idea on what could be the problem ?

#2 Post by **Harryc** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:15 am

Try another drive as a test. If that fails call Lenovo to service the system board or return it back to the seller.

livevil · #3 Post by **livevil** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:24 am

Unofrtunately, I don't have any other drive to test

Do you think it would be the mainboard rather than the HD itself that would cause this problem ?

Except from that problem, it works perfectly (at least for now...), and given the time I spent finding an affordable model like this one, I think I'd better keep it...

#4 Post by **Harryc** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:22 am

Sure it could be the IDE controller on the mainboard, but unless you figure out a way to test it you'll never know. Try PC Doctor 5 IDE tests.

livevil · #5 Post by **livevil** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:35 am

I already tried the HD test with PC Doctor, but nothing came out. I'll test the other components...

#6 Post by **richk** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 10:19 am

Run Drive Fitness Test (DFT) available free from Hitachi site.

#7 Post by **GomJabbar** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 10:51 am

I am fairly sure your hard drive is failing. It is failing to spin up when you boot up.

To aid in diagnosing, you need software that can check the SMART data on the hard drive. IIRC, Hitachi Drive Fitness test mentioned by richk does this. Fujitsu and Samsung also have drive testing software. Generally you need a floppy drive to run this software.

Hitachi Drive Fitness Test

Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool

Samsung HUTIL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monit ... Technology

#8 Post by **richk** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 1:46 pm

DFT works on other manufacturers' drives. That and many other disk diagnostics are on something called "the ultimate boot CD". If you search for it, you can find a free download that lets you boot dos-type diagnostics from a CD. It is a big download, however (about 200mb) and you need software to burn a CD from an iso file.

livevil · #9 Post by **livevil** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 3:59 am

OK , I'll try the drive fitness test as soon as I can put my hand on a CD (I'm in holidays with a 50kbits/s connection, not the best for troubleshooting...)

livevil · #10 Post by **livevil** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 11:17 am

I've just run the Drive Fitness Test and the test went OK, nothing was found on the hard drive.

Since the probleme seems to occur only when not plugged to AC, couldn't it be a battery problem or something like that ? (I'm at 12.13V, 1.19A, 14W and something, 61 cycles)

#11 Post by **richk** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 7:19 pm

I have never heard of that kind of problem from a bad battery. When it doesn't boot, what happens?

livevil · #12 Post by **livevil** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 3:45 am

It's just as if the HD didn't exist (I can't hear it spinning), though it is found in the BIOS. The boot sequence then goes on until it reach the boot on LAN (then I got the boot failure message since it couldn't find anything to boot on).

When I switch the computer off and turn it on right after, the boot on the HD is OK (still on battery only).

#13 Post by **richk** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:26 am

I wonder if the disk is really bad and the problem is that it sometimes doesn't respond fast enough to the "spin-up" request at startup. Diagnostics might not catch that.

livevil · #14 Post by **livevil** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:29 pm

Maybe, though I never had this problem with my former T42p (which was supposed to have the exact same HD inside).

I changed the boot sequence so that it could lauch the Drive fitness test if the HD couldn't boot (this way, if the test is run, it means that the boot fromthe HD failed) and the test couldn't find the HD at all...
The second time is still OK (or when I plug the AC).

livevil · #15 Post by **livevil** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 4:13 am

Today I couldn't even boot on the battery. I definitely suspect the HD to be failling...

sktn77a · #16 Post by **sktn77a** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:46 pm

Long shot here, but look under ThinkVantage or Thinkpad Configuration (whichever you have), Power Management, Battery Information and look at the capacity of the battery - if it only has a couple of Wh available, it may not be providing enough juice to spin up the hard drive (especially if it is a 7200 RPM drive).

If it's reliable when plugged into the AC, then it doesn't sound like a hard drive problem (?)

livevil · #17 Post by **livevil** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:30 am

In fact it's not that reliable : I had to reboot three times this morning before I could boot on the HD (with the AC plugged).

Concerning the battery, it is said 77.76Wh, so it should be fine...

livevil · #18 Post by **livevil** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 1:09 pm

A little update of my problem: I order a spare hard drive last week (anyway I wanted to upgrade to 100 Gb) and I installed it on the T42p... with no problem. I could only test it for few hours, but with all the IBM and Microsoft updates, I had to reboot a lot of times, and I couldn't detect the problem I had ---> failing HD seems to be the cause.

I also tried to connect the old drive with an IDE/USB connector. I can hear some noise in the hard drive, but I had to disconnect and reconnect it 4 times before windows could detect it (and actually hear the disk spinning) ---> failing HD confirmed.

Since it's still under warranty (it has already be changed a month ago !) I will ask another exchange by IBM. Hopefully I could use this one in an ultrabay !

T42p won't boot everytime on the HD

T42p won't boot everytime on the HD

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