T42 - issue with 160 GB Samsung HM160hc hard - HELP PLEASE!

[Rondon73]

Hi Folks,

I was looking for some advice on an issue i'm having with a T42. I was running windows 7 without issue on a Samsung MN160HC HDD.
The LCD was smashed by my Mrs closing it with an external HDD on the keyboad. I was using it with an external monitor till I got a replacement laptop. Tonite I pulled out the HDD and put it in a USB caddy and plugged it into a HP PAvilion Athalon. The USB drive was not detected, I tried it with another LT a toshiba satelite..same issue. I put the HDD back into the thinkpad and booted it and it no longer detects the hard drive. I've tried a couple of spare Seagate HDD I have and the Thinkpad boots with out any issue. Does anyone have any ideas..why the thinkpad would not see the HDD when it was working fine previously..I worked in tech support for IBM for a decade and pulled hdds thousands of times and never seen this issue. It only seems to be with this samsung drive which has no faults.

Any advice, ideas or comments would be much appreciated. I just need to get it botting to get data copied off it on to my new HP laptop.

Many Thanks

Rondon

[RealBlackStuff]

Make sure the HD is in its caddy, attached with 4 screws, and inserted upside down (label to the bottom of the laptop).
It's easy to incorrectly insert it without caddy/screws.

Inside the T42, the HD is always Master, perhaps your USB enclosure needs to be Slave or CS?

[Rondon73]

Cheers Real..It's deffo..in the right way..in the caddy it will only fit one way.....it seems to be an issue with this particular drive..cheers for feed back bud.

[kge420]

Bent pin on hdd?

[ggene]

Definitely could be a bent pin, generally if they bend on the way in there will be either 2 or 4 (almost always in pairs it seems) and located to the right if you are looking down at the label. Thinkpad has one of the poorest HDD insertion methods in the industry. Have had dozens that Thinkpad could not detect the HDD and a great many of them were recognized with a simple method - as the HDD approaches plug in, wiggle it what little you can side to side and then tap it in for good contact. I know that sounds a bit ridiculous, but quite often it works. Read on a post on here months ago and it works more often than not. Good luck with it.

[Microspeed]

+1 on the bent pin, I have done it myself. A trick I learned to straighten pins on harddrives and CPU is to use an empty mechanical pencil.
Good luck