Replacing original 60 GB HD in T60

[Muse]

I'm finding 60 GB to be a bit cramped. I'm going to be in the vicinity of Microcenter in Santa Clara in a couple of days and just got this link in an email from them:

http://cps7.00b.net/498/content_load/64 ... line2.html
- - - -
I'll sum it up here, Western Digital drives:

2.5" Scorpio 120GB SATA-150 Notebook Hard Drive
• 8MB buffer
• 5400RPM
$69.99

2.5" Scorpio 160GB SATA-150 Notebook Hard Drive
• 8MB buffer
• 5400RPM
$77.99

2.5" Scorpio 250GB SATA-150 Notebook Hard Drive
• 8MB buffer
• 5400RPM
$99.99

I'm in no way affiliated with Microcenter!
- - - -

4 questions:

1. Would those 2.5" HDs work in my T60?

2. Would they be a good choice?

3. Are those good deals?

4. How would I install one of those? I've never dealt with restore or any of that functionality with my T60. I do have a couple of desktops and an external 500 GB USB 2.0 HD with most of its space available, some flash drives too. Hints, links, advice, etc. appreciated.

[steveg47]

4 questions:

1. Would those 2.5" HDs work in my T60?

2. Would they be a good choice?

3. Are those good deals?

4. How would I install one of those? I've never dealt with restore or any of that functionality with my T60. I do have a couple of desktops and an external 500 GB USB 2.0 HD with most of its space available, some flash drives too. Hints, links, advice, etc. appreciated.

1. Yes

2. Yes, but I personally prefer 7200rpm drives from Hitachi or Seagate. They cost more but 7200rpm performance is very superior.

3. Yes

4. Search the forum for ghosting hard drives. Lots of info here.
I personally prefer Norton Ghost v. 11 (Vista compatible) and have been very successful with it over the years but it's a very complex techie product with many commandline options and many forum members have had problems using it so I would recommend it only to the most technically astute.

[Paul Pavlik]

I would reccomend this kit to transfer the data to the new HD.

http://apricorn.com/product_detail.php?type=reg&id=1023

Set the CD as boot priority and boot with the Apricorn CD.

WARNING: Mount the new HD IN the Notebook and the orignal HD in the USB enclosure and be sure to select the USB drive as the SOURCE and the new HD (mounted in the notebook) as the DESTINATION (This is NOT the Default setting).

This "Reverse" Data Transfer is required in Lenovo Notebooks to insure that the new HD is bootable.

[ZaZ]

If you get a Seagate drive, you can get a free download of DiscWizard from Seagate's website, which is essentially Acronis True Image, a good ghosting software. I have the Seagate 7200.2 7200RPM drive in my R60. It's a good drive and quiet though that can vary a bit. Some of the larger 5400RPM drives offer very good performance though access times are a bit slower compared to 7200RPM drives. All depends on your needs I suppose.

[DenTP4rm]

Hi Muse,
I would just like to second steveg47's opinion and encourage you to go for a 7200RPM drive. You may not feel you need the extra speed now but if you ever do any video editing or other types of heavier media tasking you'll notice the difference. The price difference isn't that significant. I saw a 200GB Seagate 7200RPM drive over at Cost Central for $155.

Also, what Paul Pavlik said about cloning is good advice. I have personally used the Apricorn enclosures for several years and been very satisfied with them. When you are done with the clone you have a nice, portable USB encosure to keep your older spare drive in. You can read some more of Paul's experiences with cloning at Cloning T60 With Apricorn (Update)
Good luck,
DenTP4rm

[Muse]

If you get a Seagate drive, you can get a free download of DiscWizard from Seagate's website, which is essentially Acronis True Image, a good ghosting software. I have the Seagate 7200.2 7200RPM drive in my R60. It's a good drive and quiet though that can vary a bit. Some of the larger 5400RPM drives offer very good performance though access times are a bit slower compared to 7200RPM drives. All depends on your needs I suppose.

Thanks to everyone for their comments, suggestions, advice, etc.

I haven't gone to the links yet, but will. I'm wondering if it's possible for me to use the Norton Ghost I already have. I have a Ghost boot CD that supports NTFS, an older version of Ghost (maybe 5 years old!). I used to use it some, never with command line switches, IIRC, but I had good luck cloning and restoring so I'm wondering if I can just use that or do I need a special or updated version, or possibly the recommended Acronis.

I suppose (please confirm) that there's no way I'm going to be able to do this without an external 2.5" HD enclosure, is that right? Is a special one necessary, or will any one do?

Concerning 5400 RPM vs. 7200 RPM, my personal thoughts are this: presently I'm actually (and at this very moment) using this T60 as a laptop (i.e. it's on my lap, as I'm lying in bed), and I'm concerned that with a 7200 RPM drive in it, the T60 will give off more heat, more often turn on the fan and thus be uncomfortable, both from the standpoint of giving off warm air and making noise. I don't anticipate doing video editing with it (although you never know), because I regularly use a midtower for that. I could (and hope I do) start using the T60 for onsite database development chores, which could include some processor intensive querying, but it's not the case presently. For that, possibly a faster HD would be a benefit, but in that event I could very probably justify upgrading to another HD. Right now, as long as this Western Digital 250 GB is satisfactory, it seems maybe a good thing to get now.

I have one other question, being how necessary is it for me to upgrade my HD now, IOW why am I getting those fairly frequent messages that my HD needs to be defragged. Properties for the 60 GB HD that came with this T60 are currently 32.3 GB used, 22.9 GB free. I'd think that defragmentation wouldn't be much of an issue. Is the stock defrag program dodgy?

If I am going to buy the WD 250 GB, I'll order it today online for instore pickup tomorrow afternoon. I don't know that they'll have them until I call. Thanks for your comments.

[aamsel]

If you get a Seagate drive, you can get a free download of DiscWizard from Seagate's website, which is essentially Acronis True Image, a good ghosting software. I have the Seagate 7200.2 7200RPM drive in my R60. It's a good drive and quiet though that can vary a bit. Some of the larger 5400RPM drives offer very good performance though access times are a bit slower compared to 7200RPM drives. All depends on your needs I suppose.

Thanks to everyone for their comments, suggestions, advice, etc.

I haven't gone to the links yet, but will. I'm wondering if it's possible for me to use the Norton Ghost I already have. I have a Ghost boot CD that supports NTFS, an older version of Ghost (maybe 5 years old!). I used to use it some, never with command line switches, IIRC, but I had good luck cloning and restoring so I'm wondering if I can just use that or do I need a special or updated version, or possibly the recommended Acronis.

I suppose (please confirm) that there's no way I'm going to be able to do this without an external 2.5" HD enclosure, is that right? Is a special one necessary, or will any one do?

Concerning 5400 RPM vs. 7200 RPM, my personal thoughts are this: presently I'm actually (and at this very moment) using this T60 as a laptop (i.e. it's on my lap, as I'm lying in bed), and I'm concerned that with a 7200 RPM drive in it, the T60 will give off more heat, more often turn on the fan and thus be uncomfortable, both from the standpoint of giving off warm air and making noise. I don't anticipate doing video editing with it (although you never know), because I regularly use a midtower for that. I could (and hope I do) start using the T60 for onsite database development chores, which could include some processor intensive querying, but it's not the case presently. For that, possibly a faster HD would be a benefit, but in that event I could very probably justify upgrading to another HD. Right now, as long as this Western Digital 250 GB is satisfactory, it seems maybe a good thing to get now.

I have one other question, being how necessary is it for me to upgrade my HD now, IOW why am I getting those fairly frequent messages that my HD needs to be defragged. Properties for the 60 GB HD that came with this T60 are currently 32.3 GB used, 22.9 GB free. I'd think that defragmentation wouldn't be much of an issue. Is the stock defrag program dodgy?

If I am going to buy the WD 250 GB, I'll order it today online for instore pickup tomorrow afternoon. I don't know that they'll have them until I call. Thanks for your comments.

You can clone without an external drive if you bought your T60 with the DVD burner. In that case, Acronis or other utilities will make an image to DVD that you can restore from. Take the number of Gigs that you have used on your drive, divide by 4.7 and that's about how many DVD blanks it will take (single layer).

The 7200 rpm drive will not generate any more perceivable heat or vibration on your lap. The engineering has improved since your drive was created. Again, recommend the Hitachi or Seagate models.

Andrew

[Muse]

You can clone without an external drive if you bought your T60 with the DVD burner. In that case, Acronis or other utilities will make an image to DVD that you can restore from. Take the number of Gigs that you have used on your drive, divide by 4.7 and that's about how many DVD blanks it will take (single layer).

The 7200 rpm drive will not generate any more perceivable heat or vibration on your lap. The engineering has improved since your drive was created. Again, recommend the Hitachi or Seagate models.

Andrew

Don't have the DVD burner, just DVD play, CDRW burner. I figure I am not going to worry about my data, I can back that up to my external 500 GB USB drive. I suppose I can't set things up to ghost back from an image on a USB HD, eh? I had instructions to make a flash drive bootable in XP Pro, but gave up... couldn't get it to work. It was rather complicated and it never worked. I don't like to give up, but I realized thinking about it that being able to boot from my flash drive has no immediate use to me!

Since you say that the 7200 drives are just as quiet and cool and you recommend a different brand and I'm not really needing more space right now (just getting frequent suggestions to defrag, for some reason, after all I'm only 55% full), maybe I'll wait and get a Hitachi or Seagate. There's no hurry, I think. Thanks!

[aamsel]

You can clone without an external drive if you bought your T60 with the DVD burner. In that case, Acronis or other utilities will make an image to DVD that you can restore from. Take the number of Gigs that you have used on your drive, divide by 4.7 and that's about how many DVD blanks it will take (single layer).

The 7200 rpm drive will not generate any more perceivable heat or vibration on your lap. The engineering has improved since your drive was created. Again, recommend the Hitachi or Seagate models.

Andrew

Don't have the DVD burner, just DVD play, CDRW burner. I figure I am not going to worry about my data, I can back that up to my external 500 GB USB drive. I suppose I can't set things up to ghost back from an image on a USB HD, eh? I had instructions to make a flash drive bootable in XP Pro, but gave up... couldn't get it to work. It was rather complicated and it never worked. I don't like to give up, but I realized thinking about it that being able to boot from my flash drive has no immediate use to me!

Since you say that the 7200 drives are just as quiet and cool and you recommend a different brand and I'm not really needing more space right now (just getting frequent suggestions to defrag, for some reason, after all I'm only 55% full), maybe I'll wait and get a Hitachi or Seagate. There's no hurry, I think. Thanks!

A better defrag program is PerfectDisk:
http://www.raxco.com/home_office/home_o ... sk_buy.cfm
for $39.99
(you can probably find it for less money somewhere.)

Andrew

[steveg47]

I haven't gone to the links yet, but will. I'm wondering if it's possible for me to use the Norton Ghost I already have. I have a Ghost boot CD that supports NTFS, an older version of Ghost (maybe 5 years old!). I used to use it some, never with command line switches, IIRC, but I had good luck cloning and restoring so I'm wondering if I can just use that or do I need a special or updated version, or possibly the recommended Acronis.

Older versions of ghost such as ghost 2003 will work fine with XP and older OSs. Vista uses a new MBR (Master Boot Record) format which is only handled properly by ghost v11. In any case you should always use the -ib commandline switch when ghosting Thinkpad drives. I believe you can also set this switch in ghost under options. I forget exactly where since I find it much easier to simply type Ghost -ib at the dos prompt. Anyway you look at it you risk nothing trying since you will be ghosting to a new drive and leaving the old intact. The only caveat I can think of is be careful not to ghost in the wrong direction. This is a very common mistake.

[LacquerHead]

I would reccomend this kit to transfer the data to the new HD.

http://apricorn.com/product_detail.php?type=reg&id=1023

Set the CD as boot priority and boot with the Apricorn CD.

WARNING: Mount the new HD IN the Notebook and the orignal HD in the USB enclosure and be sure to select the USB drive as the SOURCE and the new HD (mounted in the notebook) as the DESTINATION (This is NOT the Default setting).

This "Reverse" Data Transfer is required in Lenovo Notebooks to insure that the new HD is bootable.

So after you load the new HD (without OS) into the laptop and the old one (with OS) into the USB Enclosure, you should boot through USB to complete the file transfer? How do you get around the fact that the new HD has no OS or anything else on it? Or does Apricorn load an imagine of the old OS onto the new HD.

I basically just want about 30 GB of data saved onto my new HD, but dont want an image of the old HD with all of its inherent junk. Please give some advice. Thanks.

[Muse]

4 questions:

1. Would those 2.5" HDs work in my T60?

2. Would they be a good choice?

3. Are those good deals?

4. How would I install one of those? I've never dealt with restore or any of that functionality with my T60. I do have a couple of desktops and an external 500 GB USB 2.0 HD with most of its space available, some flash drives too. Hints, links, advice, etc. appreciated.

1. Yes

2. Yes, but I personally prefer 7200rpm drives from Hitachi or Seagate. They cost more but 7200rpm performance is very superior.

3. Yes

4. Search the forum for ghosting hard drives. Lots of info here.
I personally prefer Norton Ghost v. 11 (Vista compatible) and have been very successful with it over the years but it's a very complex techie product with many commandline options and many forum members have had problems using it so I would recommend it only to the most technically astute.

Recommended are Hitachi or Seagate 7200 RPM drives. So, I'm wondering what you think of the deal I found out about today, a newspaper ad on page A7 of today's S.F. Chronicle for Central Computers (S.F., Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and Newark) that says they are offering the Seagate ST9250421AS 250 GB 2.5" SATA 7200 RPM 16 MB DRISEA92502S for $89.95.

Will this work in my T60?

Is it a smart one to get?

Is it a good/great price?

I'm tired of the prompts I frequently get to defrag my 60 GB drive. It has ~20 GB free, but I still get the messages pretty frequently. Thanks!

[BeeJayEmm]

So after you load the new HD (without OS) into the laptop and the old one (with OS) into the USB Enclosure, you should boot through USB to complete the file transfer? How do you get around the fact that the new HD has no OS or anything else on it? Or does Apricorn load an imagine of the old OS onto the new HD.

Mr. Pavlik already answered your question:

Set the CD as boot priority and boot with the Apricorn CD.

Attach the old drive to the computer via USB, boot from the Apricorn CD (or the bootable rescue CD you can burn in the program) and clone the old to the new. Remove the CD and USB drive and reboot. You're downtown!

[Muse]

1. Yes

2. Yes, but I personally prefer 7200rpm drives from Hitachi or Seagate. They cost more but 7200rpm performance is very superior.

3. Yes

4. Search the forum for ghosting hard drives. Lots of info here.
I personally prefer Norton Ghost v. 11 (Vista compatible) and have been very successful with it over the years but it's a very complex techie product with many commandline options and many forum members have had problems using it so I would recommend it only to the most technically astute.

Recommended are Hitachi or Seagate 7200 RPM drives. So, I'm wondering what you think of the deal I found out about today, a newspaper ad on page A7 of today's S.F. Chronicle for Central Computers (S.F., Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and Newark) that says they are offering the Seagate ST9250421AS 250 GB 2.5" SATA 7200 RPM 16 MB DRISEA92502S for $89.95.

Will this work in my T60?

Is it a smart one to get?

Is it a good/great price?

I'm tired of the prompts I frequently get to defrag my 60 GB drive. It has ~20 GB free, but I still get the messages pretty frequently. Thanks!

So, can anyone answer my questions? I passed right by the store yesterday but having no assurance that the drive (Seagate ST9250421AS 250 GB 2.5" SATA 7200 RPM 16 MB DRISEA92502S) would even work in my T60 I had to pass. Searching online I found an even better price, though. So, is this a good drive for my T60 (currently with a 60 GB drive that it shipped with), and is a $88 shipped & taxed price fair/good/excellent? TIA.

[BeeJayEmm]

Yes, the Seagate drive will work. Any 2.5" SATA drive will work. It is a smart one to get, IMO. I have had good luck with Seagate drives and they have a 5 year warranty (longest in the industry). It's an OK price, not great. I found several retailers online selling the drive in the $75-78 range, then add $8-10 shipping, so right in the same ballpark. Does that cover it?

[Muse]

Yes, the Seagate drive will work. Any 2.5" SATA drive will work. It is a smart one to get, IMO. I have had good luck with Seagate drives and they have a 5 year warranty (longest in the industry). It's an OK price, not great. I found several retailers online selling the drive in the $75-78 range, then add $8-10 shipping, so right in the same ballpark. Does that cover it?

Thanks! Note, we both just now have the same postcount (143)!

How did you find those retailers?

Once I have the drive I'm uncertain how to replace the current one. I do have Ghost from 2003, I believe, by virtue of having Norton Systemworks 2003 CD. I have some experience with Ghost, not command line, but with the interface, both running off CDs and floppies. Haven't been using it lately, although I think I really should. Can I use it to somehow swap the drives without going the route of getting a USB HD enclosure for the 2.5" drive? I do have a 500 GB 3.5" HD enclosure (with HD, of course), that I could use to facilitate the swap. I just don't know if it's possible to do that. My optical drive doesn't support DVD writing.

I really think I should do something. I did a defrag just a couple of days ago and today brought the T60 out of suspend and it asked me to defrag again! The 60 GB drive has 20 GB free.

[BeeJayEmm]

I did a Google search on "Seagate ST9250421AS" to find the dealers. I have never used Ghost but others here have reported success with it. Some have also reported problems. Search for more info. I have used Acronis 9 and its cousin Apricorn EZ Gig, which worked perfectly. Many others report similar success. Some have had problems cloning with it. Again, search for more info. As Mr. Garvin mentioned above, the Seagate program is also Acronis and will work with a Seagate drive. If you don't want to buy a 2.5" USB enclosure, you don't have to. I believe there are USB cables available which plug directly into SATA drives, but they cost about as much as an enclosure. I think your 3.5" USB drive should work, but you will backup and restore, not clone.