Thinkpads Forum

Has anyone installed a Hitachi Travelstar 7k200 200 GB drive in a T61p yet?

What's the experience?

Yeah, running fine (T60p), but I am a bit disappointed with performance. The difference is only on the benchmark and on the paper. In reality, there is really no difference at all. I always measure my computer performance with a startup of a few applications in my vmware. (Oracle jboss eclipse ...). e.g. Startup for my j2ee application in jboss is about 57 Seconds. With the 7K100 I had 56 seconds.

So at the moment I have 2 x 7K200 in the machine.

Regards,

Wolfgang

well i suspect coming from a 7k100 is the problem. How much more performance you expect to get? I'm sure coming from a 5400RPM drive you'd notice the big boast but i'm not sure what you expected with a 7200RPM one already.

The 7k200 has a higher data density on the platters compared to the 7k100, so transfer rate is higher. Access times is the same, of course. During boot / application startup you are mostly accessing small files (libraries, configuration, icons, etc) so the raw transfer rate is not so important. Grinding trough lots of video data or searching through very large databases should benefit noticeably.

Hi, I'm rude and coming to mess around your thread without asking permission to do that :-p

I'm about to get my new T61p during next weeks. I've planned to put there 2 x 200 GB hard drives.

Does anybody have experience of Seagate Momentus® 7200.2? Seagate has also released 200 GB version of that drive. During last 4 years I have owned just Seagate drives and so far none of them has gone broken...

If you compare 7k200 and 7200.2 Seagate is going to consumpt less power but lose seek time with 1 ms. Impact values go 300 vs. 350 G for Hitachi. Warranty 3 vs. 5 years goes for Seagate. Somehow feels stupid to buy 3 year warranty drive to 4 year on-site warranty laptop :-p

SetTainte wrote:Hi, I'm rude and coming to mess around your thread without asking permission to do that :-p

I'm about to get my new T61p during next weeks. I've planned to put there 2 x 200 GB hard drives.

No problem; please let us know your experiences, as it is specifically for a T61p, and not a T60p.[/b]

jeroenp wrote:

SetTainte wrote:Hi, I'm rude and coming to mess around your thread without asking permission to do that :-p

I'm about to get my new T61p during next weeks. I've planned to put there 2 x 200 GB hard drives.

No problem; please let us know your experiences, as it is specifically for a T61p, and not a T60p.[/b]

Yes, I've already ordered ThinkPad T61p NH05GGE / 6457-5GG. Also took 3 GB memory and 4 years on-site warranty for it :-p

We received two T61p systems and I replaced their drives (160GB 5400RPM) with the 7k200.

I ran Acronis Image Drive 10 on the brand new units before their first boot to Windows - I booted from the Acronis CD. (I used a Vantec NexStar 3 USB SATA enclosure).

When the T61p systems booted with the imaged 7k200 I got a message that Windows could not start due to a detected hardware change. No Bios setting would address the issue and the systems would not boot into Vista Ultimate (The 7k200 was detected OK in the BIOS).

I then restarted the unit with the Blue Thinkpad button and went into Recovery mode and followed the prompts to restore the system to the way it was shipped from the factory.

The process ran for over an hour - but all was fine. The t61P is now running on the 7k200 fine. I cannot compare it to the 160GB 5400 as I never used it on the unit.

Both units are identical and exhibited the same issue. I wonder if running the image after the first boot and windows setup would have been better, but this way I started fresh.

mientras wrote:We received two T61p systems and I replaced their drives (160GB 5400RPM) with the 7k200.
....
The process ran for over an hour - but all was fine. The t61P is now running on the 7k200 fine.

So basically the trick is:
1- Acronis the full disk to the target disk (maybe use an intermediate medium for backup purposes in between)
2- Insert the target disk
3- With the blue access button, do a factory restore.

Any idea how big the service partition is?

When the T61p systems booted with the imaged 7k200 I got a message that Windows could not start due to a detected hardware change. No Bios setting would address the issue and the systems would not boot into Vista Ultimate (The 7k200 was detected OK in the BIOS).

I then restarted the unit with the Blue Thinkpad button and went into Recovery mode and followed the prompts to restore the system to the way it was shipped from the factory.

The process ran for over an hour - but all was fine. The t61P is now running on the 7k200 fine. I cannot compare it to the 160GB 5400 as I never used it on the unit

I was going to use Acronis to move my Vista 64 with a log of installed applications to a 2K200. So, I have some questions.

After you created the Acronis image, did you have the new disk in the TP HD bay when you tried to boot it the first time after creating the image?

When you did the factory recovery, did it preserve your applications?

In my case, I installed the Vista from retail DVD onto a new HD.

The factory recovery option I chose was to restore the disk to the way it shipped from the factory. I had no applications or data installed in the thinkpad.

In the past I have used Acronis to image drives and always worked without a hitch - applications and all. I have not used it on Vista until now with the results I mentioned. I am not using the Vista 64 version.

There is a factory recovery option to preserve applications, but as I said it is not the one I used or needed.

mientras wrote:When the T61p systems booted with the imaged 7k200 I got a message that Windows could not start due to a detected hardware change. No Bios setting would address the issue and the systems would not boot into Vista Ultimate (The 7k200 was detected OK in the BIOS).

This problem has to do with the mechanics of the booting process of Vista, during which any hardware change (including the signature of the boot drive) is seen as a problem which prevents normal completion.

Two workarounds are known; the first requires a bootable Vista OS disk, the second does not.

1) AFTER cloning, boot with a Vista installation disk and do a "Repair Windows installation" on the cloned disk.

2) BEFORE cloning, issue the following commands from the command prompt:

BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice boot

and then proceed to clone the disk. The cloned disk will boot successfully.
See here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ht=#281663
for more details.

mientras wrote:I wonder if running the image after the first boot and windows setup would have been better

No difference at all, you would have had exactly the same problem.

Regards
Neb

Nebzar wrote:

mientras wrote:When the T61p systems booted with the imaged 7k200 I got a message that Windows could not start due to a detected hardware change. No Bios setting would address the issue and the systems would not boot into Vista Ultimate (The 7k200 was detected OK in the BIOS).

This problem has to do with the mechanics of the booting process of Vista, during which any hardware change (including the signature of the boot drive) is seen as a problem which prevents normal completion.

Two workarounds are known; the first requires a bootable Vista OS disk, the second does not.

1) AFTER cloning, boot with a Vista installation disk and do a "Repair Windows installation" on the cloned disk.

2) BEFORE cloning, issue the following commands from the command prompt:

BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice boot

and then proceed to clone the disk. The cloned disk will boot successfully.
See here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ht=#281663
for more details.

mientras wrote:I wonder if running the image after the first boot and windows setup would have been better

No difference at all, you would have had exactly the same problem.

Regards
Neb

Thanks for this information. My T61p has a ship date of Aug 28, 2007, but I've already got Acronis Trueimage 10, a 7K200 Travelstar, an external eSATA house for the extra drive, and a Vista Express Upgrade DVD. I'll follow option 1 by

placing the original hard drive in the eSATA house.
placing the blank 7K200 drive in the ThinkPad
booting from the Acronis TrueImage 10 drive
imaging the original (source) drive to the new (target) drive
booting from the Vista Upgrade Express DVD and repairing
and I should be good.

When do I readjust the partitions? After all this? I've bought the Acronis disk partition software for this part.

Please further explain option 2.

When and how do you execute those commands? After booting from the Acronis TrueImage CD? Sorry for being so newbie.

I really REALLY appreciate your posts on this.

Barry

barrywohl wrote: When do I readjust the partitions? After all this? I've bought the Acronis disk partition software for this part.

Yes, you can readjust the partitions once the cloned disk has successfully booted.

barrywohl wrote:Please further explain option 2.

When and how do you execute those commands? After booting from the Acronis TrueImage CD? Sorry for being so newbie.

No, within your original Vista OS (booted from the original disk) and BEFORE beginning the cloning operation. Look here for details:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ht=#322959

Regards

Nebzar wrote:

mientras wrote:When the T61p systems booted with the imaged 7k200 I got a message that Windows could not start due to a detected hardware change. No Bios setting would address the issue and the systems would not boot into Vista Ultimate (The 7k200 was detected OK in the BIOS).

This problem has to do with the mechanics of the booting process of Vista, during which any hardware change (including the signature of the boot drive) is seen as a problem which prevents normal completion.

Two workarounds are known; the first requires a bootable Vista OS disk, the second does not.

Thanks!

I ordered a T61p with two 7k200 disks (and an extra SATA Ultrabay Adapter) so I can run the machine with 400gig of diskspace.

Ulitmately I want to run the machine in 64-bit Vista, since most of my work is going to be inside Virtual Machines (and then I can use 4gig of ram). That probably requires some 64-bit driver investigation first, but I'll ask those in a separate thread.

life performance is always disappointing in real life.
some people cannot even tell the difference between 5400rpm to 7200rpm. so between two different 7200 ... i doubt you can really feel anything .

danny_isr wrote:life performance is always disappointing in real life.
some people cannot even tell the difference between 5400rpm to 7200rpm. so between two different 7200 ... i doubt you can really feel anything .

I can already feel the difference on my T42p with 7k100 disks in it.
Disk 0 has the Physical OS + Physical pagefile, and a separate VM partition
Disk 1 a partition with installation software and a seperate VM partition.

When I run a VM on Disk 0, it is slower than when running it on Disk 1.
When I run two VM's, it is much much faster when they are on different disks (i.e. Disk 0 and Disk 1) than when they are both on the same disk (Ddisk 0 + Disk 0, or Disk 1 + Disk 1).

SetTainte wrote:

jeroenp wrote: No problem; please let us know your experiences, as it is specifically for a T61p, and not a T60p.[/b]

Yes, I've already ordered ThinkPad T61p NH05GGE / 6457-5GG. Also took 3 GB memory and 4 years on-site warranty for it :-p

Holy cow!, 3000+ euro for T61p? That's $4000 right?(at least 50% if not 100% more expensive than the price in U.S.) Is Thinkpad really that expensive in Germany?
I am moving to Germany from U.S. in November for a 3+ year appointment. Maybe I should buy as many electronics as I need before I leave and take them with me?

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