XP reinstall / Bigger HDD for T43, general questions

[Norway Pad]

Hello

It's been a while since I have been here now, but the T's (42 and 43) are still running fine. I still love these laptops, and as long as they keep up with my need for data power and still work, I see no reason to buy any newer ones. Well, of course. If any of you have a mint T60 for sale, we can always talk.

My issue now is that the XP Pro installation on the T43 is becoming old, and I would like to reinstall the whole thing. So I bought a kit of recovery cd's from http://www.<promotion of site not allowed>.com/tseries.html for this purpose. I hope these cd's are approved by the Thinkpad "community", and that they do install all the Thinkpad specific drivers back. When I bought my used T42 it had a bare XP Pro install on it, so I spent several days on the Lenovo site reading, downloading and reinstalling the correct drivers for the HDD protection, the wireless card, battery indicator, power manager, etc. The goal is to avoid this extra work now.

But my T43 has the 55Gb HDD, and this isn't much these days. Even the T42 has a bigger one, that is 70Gb. So when I actually do the work of reinstalling anyway, I am considering buying a new and bigger HDD for it and put the new installation there. I tried to search for tips and tricks, and started reading through the thread about the 2010 failure, but after 7 pages I got confused and decided to post a new question. There seem to be some differences between the T43 and the earlier Tx's when it comes to HDD. What is different? The T43 still use IDE/PATA drives, or? No SATA?

And if I want to buy a bigger harddrive that will be just plug&play, and gives me no errors, where can I get these? I read about a 120Gb drive (Fujitsu?) that works, but I didn't see where these I can buy these. I also posted at the buy & sell section, so if anyone wants to sell me a drive, you can post there, or send me a private message. A secondary HDD in the Ultrabay is no option for me.

Thank you for any answer!

[ajkula66]

Fujitsu MHV2120AH (120GB/5400rpm) is the largest drive that won't trigger the "2010 error". These are no longer in production, so expect to pay a premium for a sealed NOS, or a properly tested drive from a reliable source. You're looking at $100 here in the U.S. and it won't get any cheaper by the time it reaches you.

Good luck.

[RealBlackStuff]

T43 uses PATA/IDE hard disks, same as other T4x models.
If you update the BIOS and ECP to the latest versions, you will get an option in the BIOS to ignore the 2010 Error for non-approved hard disks.
What this BIOS upgrade does is: it still shows the 2010 error, beeps, waits a few seconds, and then continues to boot automatically.
This actually means that you can put any size HD (up to a maximum of 320GB) in your T43, provided you are willing to live with the 2010 Error at bootup.
If you are not, follow George's advice.

[Norway Pad]

Thank you for the information. Exactly the answers I was looking for.

At some point I obviously got the impression that something changed in the T43 IDE controller, as opposed to earlier T4x's, but that was wrong then.

As for the Fujitsu, 100$ is not tooo bad. Anyway, today I use only 25Gb of my 55Gb drive, because I store all my music, pictures etc, on a Seagate USB HDD that goes with the laptop in the bag everywhere it goes. This is a solution that works fine, so if it's worth 100$ to avoid doing this, is something I need to consider carefully. And maybe another "non accepted" HDD is even cheaper? If the 2010 Error can be fixed like mentioned above with the BIOS upgrade only, I don't see it as the same big problem anymore.

EDIT: Just out of curiosity triggered by this thread, I checked my BIOS, and discovered that I had a very old BIOS version, 1.02. So I have now updated my BIOS to 1.29 and the ECP to 1.06. No noticeable difference in any way, but a useful experience and a good basis for a new XP install.

RealBlackStuff: I second you on the Guinness. I even went to the Guinness brewery when my wife and I went to Dublin last year. Awesome!

[Norway Pad]

I did a search online and came up with this one: http://www.computer-memory-store.com/ib ... 00rpm.html

The same site also offered a 100 Gb one: http://www.computer-memory-store.com/ib ... 00rpm.html with a nice price tag. A good upgrade from the 55Gb one, and 40Gb extra will probably give me all the space I need.

Anyone have any experiences with these drives? The 120 Gb one equals pretty much to the Fujitsu mentioned above. I can of course drop them an email, but I am not sure if online stores like this really can be trusted when it comes to compatibility issues.

[RealBlackStuff]

Those HDs don't even have a brand name... I can guarantee you a 2010 Error.
Better and cheaper is this WD Scorpio Blue from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136130

As to the Guinness, a pity they don't have a Guinness brewery in this country, it seems the nearest one is in Canada.
And traveling was never all that good for this type of stout.
Amazingly, the world's largest Guinness brewery is in Nigeria!

[Norway Pad]

I also noticed the lack of any manufacturer / brand name, that's partly why I was curious. But the HDD in your link is a way better (and even cheaper) option anyway. So if you or anyone else here know that this WD Scorpio Blue will work with no 2010 error, I think this is the option I will go for.

Thank you once again!

And for the Guinness. I have always assumed that they had a brewery here in the US. So that means that the Guinness we buy here is probably made in Canada. The Guinness I bought while living in Norway was shipped from Ireland, but that's a different story. But I had no idea they made it in Nigeria as well.. Wow.

Definatly the best beer I know of, anyway.

[ajkula66]

ANY WD drive will trigger the error, as will Seagate (unless IBM-issued with a FRU)...take it from someone who's gone through several hundreds of T43/p machines...

Fujitsu MHV2120AH is the biggest drive that won't trigger the error. Period.

[Norway Pad]

Ok, I have no reason to doubt your statement about that. I am glad to be informed now, rather than after I bought it.

But I am back to the starting point in my search for a HDD that won't trigger a 2010 error. I am even happy with a 100Gb drive, as long as the price stays below 100$ and it doesn't create any 2010 error.

So I guess I am down to a very basic question here: Does anyone know about a HDD in the 100Gb +/- area, below 100$ price tag that won't create 2010 errors? That you know for sure will work. And hopefully information on where to buy it.

[RealBlackStuff]

The only known one left on the market (or a used IBM-approved one) is the one mentioned by George.
The WD I mentioned also does give the 2010 error (read the previous posts again...)
Don't stare yourself blind on that 2010 error, it only happens at boot up, and has no effect otherwise!

[Norway Pad]

Sorry, I see how I interpreted the posts slightly wrong concerning whether any other than the Fujitsu (WD included) would give 2010 error or not.

I will put some thoughts into this and see if the "problem" concerning lack of space on this relatively old laptop is worth a 80-100$ upgrade to a HDD that creates an error. I can live with the error, no doubt, but it will probably annoy me slightly because "this wasn't the way my laptop was originally, I have introduced an error". If you guys see what I mean. I am maybe paranoid about this, I don't know.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I have got the input here to make my own choice based on my own knowledge, and that's what I was looking for to begin with.

[sktn77a]

Have you considered putting the 70Gb drive (presumably IBM with an FRU) in your T43 and getting a cheaper, larger drive for your T42? If the 70Gb drive is big enough, you don't need to limit yourself to a smaller, expensive drive for the T42 - it will accept any ISE drive.

[Norway Pad]

Hi

Yes, I thought about that. The problem is that I gave the T42 to my mom and left it for her to use back home. So it's not even here with me. By doing this, I have a machine that's as identical to my own as possible, and that has helped me a couple of times she has run into issues and I had to remote in and fix the problem with her on the phone.

BTW, I have just been offered a brand new IBM 100Gb 7200 drive by a member of this forum. So unless these HDD have some known issues, I might chose this option. I know there were some issues regarding IBM 7200 rpm drives some years back, but I don't remember if that was the laptop drives or the bigger ones.

[ajkula66]

It doesn't get better than IBM 100GB/7200 with a FRU, let alone brand new...

Go for it.

[sktn77a]

The 7200 rpm IBM drives that had all the problems were desktop drives (Deskstars aka DEATHstars).

The new IBM drive you've been offered is probably your best bet if it is, indeed, new.

[Norway Pad]

He, he. My wife also mentioned the IBM Deathstar drives once. She works in IT so she probably had to deal with those back in the days. Anyway, thanks for confirming.

Well, contact is just being made with the seller, so the 100Gb 7200 is to be purchased. I will be back with a last post here when the swap is done, to let you know how it turned out. I am half tempted to image my existing installation on to the new HDD, just to try the new drive immediately. But that will be an unnecessary step as I plan to reinstall anyway. So I will probably end up spending the christmas holiday reinstalling XP and the rest of the software.

[M-a-v]

Norway pad, GL
Let me know how it goes.. I just got a 15" T43 2668-83U with a 60GB HD, I want to get it to about 120GB

[Norway Pad]

Hi

Yes, I planned on posting an update here when the drive is installed and running. I went with the "safe" solution; an IBM HDD. So there will be no compatibility issues here. I am eager to try the new drive straight away, so I will probably just put an image of my existing installation on it. And take the job with the full reinstall later.

[Norway Pad]

Ok, here is the update.

Thanks to Brad here on the forum, I could install a brand new Hitachi, Lenovo FRU 100GB/7200 drive yesterday. So no 2010 errors on bootup. I put an image of my current XP installation onto it, extended my C: partition, and everything seems fine so far.

So thank you guys for advices and help on this one!

[kerryh8er04]

T43 uses PATA/IDE hard disks, same as other T4x models.
If you update the BIOS and ECP to the latest versions, you will get an option in the BIOS to ignore the 2010 Error for non-approved hard disks.
What this BIOS upgrade does is: it still shows the 2010 error, beeps, waits a few seconds, and then continues to boot automatically.
This actually means that you can put any size HD (up to a maximum of 320GB) in your T43, provided you are willing to live with the 2010 Error at bootup.
If you are not, follow George's advice.

Why is the max only 320GB?

I am looking into putting in a new drive if I decide to upgrade to Win 7 when it becomes available on campus...

[RealBlackStuff]

320GB is the largest 2.5" PATA/IDE HD-size available. It's NOT a size limitation from the laptop.
Because of a limited market, manufacturers don't bother much about PATA drives any more.
All newer laptops have SATA drives, which don't work in older machines.

[dcouzin]

The Fujitsu MHV2120AH is not so madly expensive in Europe: 39,50 new