Thinkpads Forum

I just got my T60, and to my horror the hard drive connection uses some kind of proprietary plug I've never seen. No chance to swap it out for my far superior 80 gig 7200 RPM hitachi drive that I got for my T43. I guess if I want to be able to use a 7200 rpm drive I have to pay the outrageous lenovo markup... Unless they are kind and sell some kind of adapter.

T43 uses PATA drives (with a PATA -> SATA bridge).
T60 uses SATA drives.

Are you sure it's a non-standard SATA connector?

I have no idea what the hell I'm doing, I only know that the connection is unlike anything I've ever seen. Is there any adapter or passthrough I could apply to my hitachi to make it work with the thinkpad, or did I sink $150 into the toilet?

it's a totally different connector. The T4x used PATA (old fashion IDE) connector. The T60 uses the newer SATA (serial ATA) connector which is supposed to be faster. You can buy SATA drives separately and swap them with the T60 drives. Your only option is to sell the older hard drive, return it, or keep it as a spare for use in the ultrabay (you'll have to buy an adapter).


sorry to break the bad news.


here's what I found from zipzoomfly
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... e=100524-4

The T60 uses a standard SATA connector and I'm delighted to say that it is the same connector used in desktops (data and power). No more 2.5" to 3.5" drive adapaters - yea!

-darren

Darn; I can't even find the Hitachi 7k100 with a SATA connector. Oh well

umm, re-read my previous post.

This is probably a good time to say either buy the HDD after you have checked out the system or get the larger HDD to begin with.

Although I *have* seen proprietary connectors on laptops before. Generally they aren't actually new protocols, but rather hardware sticks that act as extenders to the HDD so it can connect to the IDE connector in the back. Last laptop I saw this on was an HP ze5170, it needed to physically extend the connecting to reach the hidden IDE connector and so it had a little bar that would do this.

Fortuanately, I have never seen bizzare stuff like that on Thinkpads and we probably never will. It would involve too much to change from the bare HDD+Cover+Tray Assembley to something different.

So, just to be sure, the drive bay adapter listed here is for an SATA drive and NOT for the old PATA drives??

Do IBM make a PATA Ultrabay adapter for the new T60 range (ie so you can slip in an old PATA drive?)

[censored]! I will have to sell this thing off then and buy the appropriate model.

I'm using the PATA UltraBay Slim adapter from my T42p in the T60 and it works just great. I didn't even know that there was a SATA tray. The photo covers up the connectors but perhaps that caddy uses the new center-mounted connector that serves the natvie serial/parallel port insert.

Of course, the trim on the PATA caddy that I have doesn't match the case because it's tapered at the bottom for the T4x case, but functionally it works fine.

Thanks Darrenf!! Great to confirm that the old tray works fine.

So we have:

40Y8725 T60 range SATA Adapter

62P4554 T40 range PATA Adapter

meanestfish wrote:[censored]! I will have to sell this thing off then and buy the appropriate model.

You could also spend some of the money you'll earn for a course which could provide you a better kind of language for writing in favour of your selected vulgar approach.

Some other time you could benefit from studying the conditions for your purchase before you manifest your purchase.

Please don't start a flame here. Maybe be a little more conservative with the french.

hdahl wrote:

meanestfish wrote:[censored]! I will have to sell this thing off then and buy the appropriate model.

You could also spend some of the money you'll earn for a course which could provide you a better kind of language for writing in favour of your selected vulgar approach.

Some other time you could benefit from studying the conditions for your purchase before you manifest your purchase.

Ehhh? "[censored]!" is that vulgar a word? I should think it is the lesser of the evils considering some words that I have heard people shout when they discover something on the order of magnitude of a SATA/PATA HDD mis-match.

Perhaps we should start c*nsor*ng w*rds li*e th*s? But that get*s a**oying af*er awh*le.

It is always a good idea to check out stuff such as the connection type before you purchase two pieces of hardware to hook together; in this case, nothing too bad...As long as the hardware didn't fry, consider yourself lucky. Just recoup some of the cost.

I did check it out. This was the drive from my T43 Worked flawlessly in that. Oh well.

meanestfish wrote:I did check it out. This was the drive from my T43 Worked flawlessly in that. Oh well.

Does it mean you've used your T43 to check which drive you should use for your T60?

Stop trolling this thread dahl, Jeez louise. Thanks everyone for your help. I'm really a knucklehead when it comes to computers.

We don't want any trolling or flamewars to start up over this, particularly considering that this is a simple topic.

Simple SATA/PATA HDD mis-match, could have happened to more people.

RaysMD wrote: here's what I found from zipzoomfly
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... e=100524-4

Ordered! I'lll report how it works out.

Also consider to put your PATA 7K80 into an external USB enclosure for external near-offline storage... such as back up your data...

You would definitely notice the faster seek times of your 7K80 over 5400 RPM HDD's, although the total USB throughput would remain the basically same (ie: when you copy gigabytes of data it would be almost the same 7200 RPM vs 5400 RPM...)


I've put my 7K60 into one such USB external enclosure...
(a waste i know, but for lack of a better 2nd computer