T43 HDD firmware requirements for drive bay?

[matthewjheaney]

I have a T43. A few months ago I upgraded the primary drive, and had to flash the firmware to avoid the 2010 error. All is well with my primary drive.

I have recently purchased the Ultrabay Slim drive bay adapter, so I can mount another HDD.

Are there are requirements for the drive that goes into the Ultrabay Slim adapter? This is a T43, so it needs to be a (P)ATA drive. Are there any firmware requirements, or size limits?

My desire is to be able to boot from the secondary drive (in case my primary drive dies). My question is really about whether I'll need to flash the firmware in the secondary drive. If I want to boot from the secondary drive (while it's mounted in the drive bay using the Ultrabay Slim adapter), then do I need to flash its drive's firmware?

Also, is there any size limit for the secondary drive? I know that on the T43 you can only have a (primary) drive that has a max capacity of 100 GB. What about the (bootable) secondary drive? Does it also have a max capacity limit? Suppose I just wanted to use it as a data drive (instead of booting from it) - would the capacity limit change?

Thanks,
Matt

[aaa]

I don't think there's the problematic bridge (that's what makes the primary so picky) on the Ultrabay interface. So there are no limitations on the Ultrabay side.

And the "limit" on the primary side is on drive model, not size. I think there are some larger (120gb) Fujitsu drives that will go in the primary as well.

[matthewjheaney]

I think there are some larger (120gb) Fujitsu drives that will go in the primary as well.

I see a 120 GB PATA drive listed here:

http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/comp ... 120ah.html

But I don't see the MHV2120AH listed here:

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

However, it says here:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_w ... hard_disks

that the Fujitsu MHV2120AH (120GB 5400RPM) works out of the box. Can you reconcile what appears to be a contradiction?

Do you know what is the max size drive for the T43 (2686 DGU) that can be used in the primary drive bay?

[aaa]

Again, there is no max size. Only drives that play nice with the picky bridge chip work. I believe the Fujitsus were discovered through trial and error, and thus are not on the offical IBM list.

[matthewjheaney]

I believe the Fujitsus were discovered through trial and error, and thus are not on the offical IBM list.

OK, that would explain things. Thanks for the info.

I just ordered the MHV2120AH. If it works in the primary drive bay that would be great (it would give me another 20 GB of space on my system drive), but I only really need it for the secondary drive bay.

Thanks again for your help.

Cheers,
Matt