hard drive help please?

[snaggle]

i have t43 1871 model and looking to upgrade the 80 gb to a 250 or higher can anyone recommend a hard drive and let me know if it is sata or pata drive i have?

[ajkula66]

Your T43 has a PATA drive.

Before upgrading, you may want to read the sticky at the top of this forum on issues with non-OEM drives in T43 units.

[snaggle]

im sorry , the sticky post? where can i locate this?

[ZaZ]

Basically any drive without the Lenovo firmware on the drive will cause the 2010 error. It's an error message that come up on boot and is related to the SATA to PATA bridge employed by Lenovo in the T43 and R52. There's a BIOS update that disables the beep and continues on after a few seconds, but the machine will function normally with any drive. The largest drive that will not cause the error is the 120GB Fujitsu 5400RPM. I can't remember the model number, but I'm sure it's posted here somewhere.

[poshgeordie]

im sorry , the sticky post? where can i locate this?

A link to the sticky is here: http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... =2&t=11059

[lukee]

Fastest drive, which not produces the 2010 error is Hitachi HTS721010G9AT00 (100 GB 7200rpm), real velocity about 50MB/s for read. For this drive with OEM firmware exists hack, which will replace OEM firmware with IBM's official firmware. See the 'No 2010 error on aftermarket drives' thread or something like that. If 100 GB capacity of this drive isn't enough for you, you can use UltraBay SATA adapter and attach additional SATA drive in any capacity, of any vendor, with any firmware you want .

[dcouzin]

lukee, I just bought a Hitachi HTS721010G9AT00 for my T43 hoping the Blapp method (strand here at date Dec 21, 2006) would work. My drive manufactured Dec 2008 has firmware MBZOA60A; Blapp's had firmware MCZOA51A; so his method didn't work for me.

He updated the OEM firmware MCZOA51A to IBM firmware MCZIA51A. Then do I need to update my MBZOA60A to MBZIA60A? Does there exist MBZIA60A? Where is it?

July 8 on another strand you reported success with a Japanese [Chinese] scheme like so:
copy MB4IA60A.bdr MBZOA60A.bdr
copy MB4IA60A.bdr MBZIA60A.bdr
hfui14 OA60A-pm MBZIA60A.bdr / f mpbA60Ab.tbl
hfui14 IA60A-pm MBZIA60A.bdr / f mpbA60Ab.tbl

This requires finding, besides MBZIA60A.bdr, also MB4IA60A.bdr and mpbA60Ab.tbl. Are you getting all these from Lenovo fwhd42? The Chinese links to you mention fwhd42.part1.rar and fwhd42.part2.rar don't seem to work anymore.

Has anyone reported success getting IBM firmware into a HTS721010G9AT00 (MBZOA60A)?

[lukee]

dcouzin:
For the 7k100 series don't use Lenovo's firmware distribution (my post from July is about 5k100 series), but try Google search for this file: 5k7k100.iso. Probably you'll find it on RapidShare. Burn that image to a CD or DVD disc, boot it, and then perform upgrade. Required files for firmware update of Hitachi 7k100 should be there

For sure, pls post a list of files which you will find in 5k7k100.iso file before you perform anything with it. Thanks.

[dcouzin]

Thanks lukee. I did use 5k7k100.iso following Blapp's instructions. For his 7k100 with firmware MCZOA51A he executed two instructions:

hfui15.exe OA51A MCZIA51A.bdr /F mpcA51Ab.tbl
hfui15.exe IA51A MCZIA51A.bdr /F mpcA51Ab.tbl

For my firmware MBZOA60A, do you suggest I modify the first instruction to:

hfui15.exe OA60A MCZIA51A.bdr /F mpcA51Ab.tbl

If this makes Blapp's method work, then my 7k100 will have had its firmware MBZOA60A changed to MCZIA51A. Is that OK?

I have some elementary questions. Why does my HTS721010G9AT00 have firmware MBZOA60A while Blapp's HTS721010G9AT00 has MCZIA51A? Is this just a firmware difference or are the drives different? In other words, would firmware MCZOA51A have worked on my drive and will MCZIA51A then work?
Your July post describes your 5k100 drive as having firmware MBZOA60A, exactly the same as my 7k100 drive has. Can that be? And you went through some effort to put firmware MBZIA60A into your drive. I can't do that with 5k7k100.iso which doesn't include MBZIA60A.bdr.
If my drive needs the same job as yours then I have to find the two files MBZIA60A.bdr and mpbA60Ab.tbl somewhere else.

There seems to be two separate problems about burning IBM firmware into an OEM drive. Problem #1 is finding the IBM firmware that works for the drive. Must it be the firmware with name exactly like the old firmware's except "O" changed to "I", or can it be other firmwares? Problem #2 is doing the burning using IBM supplied hfuiXX.exe. Are there other ways to burn the firmware into a 7k100 drive, perhaps using Hitachi software?

[lukee]

So the 5k7k100.iso not contains MCZIA60A.bdr file? If not, try to find this file (with correct tbl) in newest fwhd56 compilation and compose your own boot-CD to be able to apply newest firmware directly. But you can try first apply older firmware, I guess it should work.

Try run these commands:

[1] hfui15.exe OA60A MCZIA51A.bdr /F mpcA51Ab.tbl
[2] hfui15.exe IA51A MCZIA51A.bdr /F mpcA51Ab.tbl

Error 2010 should disappear now.

Next try to apply fwhd56 from Lenovo site. It should allow apply newest firmware as the drive should be recongnizeable as IBM's FRU then.

Answers:
#1: 'O' means that drive comes from normal distribution, 'I' means that a drive is genuine IBM's FRU. So firmware with 'O' in Hitachi drives will trigger 2010 ERRROR everytime. Error 2010 "works" like this: BIOS sends ATA command to a drive and acquires 512 byte identification string back. Then it searches in that string for some magic values and based on these values BIOS decide if a drive is genuine FRU. If not, triggers ERROR 2010. Actually I'm investigating the BIOS's code in this time but without success currently. There don't need to be 'I' in firmware name for 100%. Important is IDENTIFY DEVICE string, which values contains.
#2: No way there to use some Hitachi tool, hfui14.exe is for 5k100 series, hfui15.exe or hfui15a.exe is for 7k100 series. These burning programs were made by hard drive manufacturer itself as well as firmware binaries.

You are going on your own!