Hitachi website - 7K100, 100 GB PATA HD is unavailable

[cmarti]

This comes from the seller:

I purchased these drives on ebay and selling them because they are not compatible in lenovo thinkpad T43 units but will be fine in other models and other brands of laptops.

Strange because my T43p came with one from factory and it worked perfectly

[sjthinkpader]

The factory drives have different ID in the firmware.

[cmarti]

Oh well, Thanks!

[davidspalding]

Sorry I missed this thread last year ... though my T43's original 5400 RPM (I think) 80 GB drive is doing fine, I had bought a 7K100 100 GB in 2006 for a second drive (UltraBay Slim 2nd HDD adapter) for video/Photoshop work.

Though it gives the 2010 error in the T43 as a primary drive (I was trying to wipe it to a factory install in the T43 as a caddy), I'm using it in a late-2005 X32 with ear-to-ear-grin inducing performance. The 5400 RPM 60GB drive that came out of the X32 just started dying in the T43's UltraBay Slim adapter this weekend. So I'm shopping for a compatible drive to use as a second in the T43 ... or maybe upgrade the T43 when I wipe it to reinstall and refresh in May.

Any tips on where the HD FW "white list" of drives that could be flashed to clear the 2010 error is?

[closersource]

The complete list as of 1/2009 is here. Unfortunately, as discovered earlier by several forum members, for all non-IBM/Lenovo branded Hitachi drives the firmware update is useless as the memory PROM is read-only and thus are non-flash-able. You are welcome to try and report back.

[XCoalMiner]

The complete list as of 1/2009 is here.

Where exactly is "here"?

[davidspalding]

I couldnt' find it either. Please be specific (thread topic, sticky, FAQ, or...?).

[closersource]

Sorry I forgot to paste the link.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 62282.html

[davidspalding]

A-ha!!! Thank you sir. I had never really delved into this as I preferred my 7200 rpm drive as a second, data drive. I think I'd tried that firmware update on my 5400 rpm original drive, but never thought to try it on the second drive .... 7K100 HTS721010G9AT00!

So I can probably get a new <strike> 7200 rpm PATA drive </strike>, larger 5400 RPM PATA drive for my X32 to work with, and use the older 7200 in my T43 when I wipe it this summer, with no 2010 error. Good news for me.

Thanks for helping me connect the dots.

[XCoalMiner]

...
So I can probably get a new 7200 rpm PATA drive for my X32 to work with,
...

As I learned after starting this thread, new 7200 rpm PATA notebook drives are nowhere to be found. That is because they are not manufactured any longer.

5400 rpm PATAs are readily available.

[closersource]

You can find the 7200 drives on EBAY. They are out of production, but so are all the firmware-upgradeable drives on the list. Any new 5400 drive will exhibit the 2010 error.

[schen]

You can find the 7200 drives on EBAY. They are out of production, but so are all the firmware-upgradeable drives on the list. Any new 5400 drive will exhibit the 2010 error.

Which is why I keep a few NOS Hitachi and Fujitsu 5400rpm drives in the closet for a rainy day. As an aside, what I ended up doing to to run my 80Gb/7200rpm drive as a main drive and use one of those UltraBay Slim SATA adapters from China with a Hitachi 7200rpm drive for a data drive.

[davidspalding]

Corrected above. Obviously I'm still confused.

I can see the 7200 RPM drives on eBay, most of them used ... ... but it seems that the WD Scorpio drives are the best bargains at the moment. 250 GB or so for < $100? At that size, they ought to be as fast as an old 7200. "More than a match for poor [X32]," as Khan said.

[LegendaryKA8]

Wow.... to be honest, I didn't know what I was sitting on all this time... and now I know why my 100GB 7200RPM drive was about $200 when I bought it new in '07. I only used it for a few months and now it's happily churning away in my T41. Guess I should look for a spare.

IIRC, I remember seeing a discussion on the T2x/T3x forum about a specific 160GB 5400RPM drive that handily outperformed any 7200RPM unit... anyone have any info on that?

[closersource]

As for "speed" it depends on what metric you are referring to. For sequential transfers the 5400 drives are more than a match for the 7200 drives because of higher density. Unfortunately the 7200 still comes up faster on random access and that is by far how "responsiveness" can best be gauged by the average user.

The drives on EBAY are indeed almost all used, but if you choose the right seller with the later date codes (post 2006) you can still get a very reliable drive. After all, new drives fail all the time. So in the end it depends on how much you need the speed. Then again there is always PATA SSD.