Hard Drive Needed for T23 Ultrabay

[BakedandPacked]

I recently purchased a refurbed T23 in excellent condition.
It came with a floppy disk drive and CD burner for the Ultrabay.

I copied (or cloned) a highly customized version of 98SE from
an old desktop onto the T23. It wasn't as difficult as you might
think. A batch file deleted all the drivers specific to the desktop
hardware during a reboot. After imaging the system it was
restored to the T23. All I had to do was install the drivers for
the T23, and update the BIOS and Embedded Controller. (Lenovo
has everything except the chipset drivers. Get those from
the Intel website.)

Being a ThinkPad newbie, I'm a little confused about how (or what)
to purchase, so I can add a second hard drive to the Ultrabay
for backup purposes.

There are a lot of eBay listing like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-ThinkPad-T20-T2 ... 19ba920386

This guy is selling a hard drive caddy and cover set. I asked
about this item, but received no reply. What exactly is a hard
drive caddy and cover? The caddy appears to be a tray that
holds the hard drive. I assume the cover completes the assembly
by protecting the hard drive when it is stored outside of the
Ultrabay. You add your own 2.5" laptop drive to the caddy.
Is my description of this caddy and cover correct?

I would be much happier if I could purchase a 20GB hard drive
that was already installed in a caddy. It's obvious that the
floppy drive and CD burner I already have, are designed with
great precision to fit the Ultrabay. I'm concerned that some
of these aftermarket caddy and cover assemblies may not
fit properly. I'm sure the Ultrabay could easily be damaged
if the assembly didn't fit perfectly.

I need advice from a forum member who is not a ThinkPad
newbie like me! Where can I buy a decent hard drive assembly
for the Ultrabay?

Thanks guys.

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

The eBay seller is offering a caddy (the metal frame which fits underneath the notebook hard drive and is secured by four tiny screws) and the plastic cover which attaches to two of the screws on the hard drive/caddy combination that covers the hole on the left side of the T23 system where the hard drive bay exists. What you appear to want is an Ultrabay 2nd HDD adapter (also sometimes called a caddy). This generally is known by the FRU of 08K6067 or 08K6068, details of which can be found here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... JW4XW.html

Note that you are probably looking for an Ultrabay 2000 PATA 2nd HDD adapter. You should NOT get one that says "Ultrabay Slim". You could use a SATA (Serial ATA) adapter but you would also have to have a SATA notebook hard drive. The standard hard drive in your system is PATA (Parallel ATA) and the two cannot be freely exchanged (the connectors are different). Normally, one should have the metal caddy (what you see in the eBay listing) mounted to the hard drive when it is installed in the Ultrabay adapter. This prevents the circuit board of the drive from coming in contact with the metal plate that exists on the genuine IBM Ultrabay adapters. Some "knockoffs" are plastic or even have a huge hole in the frame so there's no chance of the drive shorting out. I don't believe that I have used any aftermarket Ultrabay 2000 HD PATA adapters; the ones that I have appear to be real IBM components. Genuine adapters can be found on eBay for around $20 (shipped); knockoffs for maybe $10. Note that if there's a label that says "Made for IBM" on it, it's probably a knockoff.

ref: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0408381973 (not associated with this seller, just used 08K6067 to search)

[RealBlackStuff]

You can put ANY 2.5" laptop HD that is 9.5mm high, and has an ATA/IDE/EIDE/PATA interface in the T2x model.
These HDs are available up to 320GB.
Just make sure it is NOT a SATA drive.
The caddy is a tray that protects the electronics on the underside of the hard disk.
It's mounted with 4 screws. To keep the HD properly in place, you need the HD cover, which nicely matches/covers the opening on the side of the T23 where the HD slides in.
This caddy/screws set, as well as the ATA/IDE/EIDE/PATA type hard disk, is universal for all A2x, A3x, T2x, T3x, T4x, R5x (and probably a few more) laptop models.
The hard disk cover is laptop model specific.
For the ultrabay in the T2x series, you need an Ultrabay 2000 PATA hard disk adapter, such as e.g. http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-08K6068-2nd-Har ... 0053268352
In there you stick the HD with caddy/screws.

To confuse you even more: you can also buy Ultrabay 2000 SATA hard disk adapters, which take same size SATA hard disks.
Have fun

[BakedandPacked]

WOW!!

Thank you very much RealBlackStuff and rkawakami!

All those listings for a caddy and cover really puzzled me.
They looked nothing like the floppy drive and CD burner that
came with the T23.

I'm very glad you both provided those links to an Ultrabay 2000
HD PATA Adapter, because that's exactly what I was searching
for on eBay. I'm almost certain I used the words "ThinkPad Ultrabay"
during my search, but all I got were listings for those weird caddy
and cover assemblies.

I'm a partner in a small business. Years ago, we started our business
using 98SE. Several of us customized the system with all sorts of
logos, icons, applets, and shells that reflected the business we all
hoped would be successful.

I kept one of our original Gateway desktops at home. I wanted to
preserve the system without keeping that enormous desktop around
forever!

I was lucky enough to have a friend who refurbishes old desktops
and laptops. Without hesitation, he recommended an early model
IBM "T" series laptop. I'm very impressed with this T23. The design
and contruction is very thoughtful and rugged. So many modern
laptops these days are flimsy junk.

Finding this forum probably saved me from purchasing the wrong
hardware for my T23.

Thanks again.

[jronald]

If you like the T23, you will love the T30.

Ron

[eyestrain]

I've bought the plastic version of the ultrabay 2000 caddy on ebay from notebookelite for under $7.50 shipped to U.S. and from powerbluetech for $8.25 shipped. Takes a while from China but arrive in great condition and perfect quality. These do not require a little metal caddy like linked in the first post, as some ultrabay caddies do. Some ultrabay caddies made of metal are wide, and a hard drive would have too much room if you bounce your laptop around alot, and since the bottom of those ultrabay caddies is metal, drive might short on it. The plastic one can't short, and it's a tight fit. You can't use a caddy in the plastic caddy. If you know what i mean.

[eyestrain]

If you like the T23, you will love the T30.

Ron

How is it better? I avoided it because of the CPU, thought it would run hot/loud vs the speed.

T23 is slow, but at least it is pretty quiet. Looks like both have great form factor, little wasted space to sides of KB and bezel around screen, which is a little worse in t4x and t6x 4:3.

Love the unibody-ish-ness of the t23, feels like you can safely pick it up with one hand in ways you wouldn't dare pick up a comperatively fragile and flexible t4x or even t6x. Such as when battery out and screen open, from the front right corner

[rkawakami]

<snip>..., feels like you can safely pick it up with one hand in ways you wouldn't dare pick up a comperatively fragile and flexible t4x or even t6x.

I would definitely NOT recommend that you pick up the T23 (or any other T2x system for that matter) by one corner as that can lead to some "common" problems with one (or more) of the parts coming loose from the motherboard. Case flexing, along with some relatively brittle lead-free solder, means that some of the surface mounted inductors can pop off. This leads to power problems with the system.

[eyestrain]

Did I make you cringe?

To tell the truth I baby my laptops, and get made fun of a little for it. First TP Jan1999 was my only computer for 8ys, still sometimes use it. But my T23s both feel so amazingly solid and inflexible, it's as if the whole bottom is one solitary piece of rock hard plastic! They seem so indestructible.

Thanks for the advice. In actuality I only lifted them that way once or twice.

With each laptop, 95% of the time I use 2 hands, and when 1 hand, I usually try to get my hand underneath the middle or back of the middle to hold/balance it. Don't know if there's an acknowledged least bad 1 hand method.

[jronald]

Grossly over simplifying the issue.
The T30 is the enforcer for the T2?'s family. It does everything, a little better, a little faster. It also gets you onto a faster bus speed. I started on the T22, moved to the T23 then fell in love with the T30. It is the perfect size for everything I do. I have R40's and A31ps but keep finding myself drawn back to the T30. Some jerkwad needed 2 of T30s worst than I did and stole them. Rather than using one of the other 6 or so machines I have sitting, I cobbled together a 1.6 T30, and Im typing on it now.

Ron