Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

I have one doubt about stallation of a new Hard Disk on my laptop. At the moment I have a 100Gb Hitachi hard disk attached (the default one), and my idea is to buy a new one, exactly this one: http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/e ... 4eac4f0a0/ the 320gb version.

Do you know if it's possible the installation? I mean , Will I have problems with the BIOS blacklist?

Thanks

Javier

You should not have a problem. I think a lot of people here routinely put other (non-Lenovo-sourced) hard drives in their ThinkPads. I am running one as I type this.

Let us know how the drive works out.

There are no problems with hard drives being on a blacklist and or posting errors on boot outside of T43's and R52's.

Just replaced the 160gb 5400 rpm Hitachi HDD that came with my T61p with a 320gb 5400 rpm Hitachi HDD. Works fine.

Here is what I did.

1. Cloned the original HDD, including the recovery partition, using Acronis True Image Workstation. The 320gb hdd was in the ultrabay.

2. Checked the cloning by booting from the HDD in the ultrabay. Hit F12 during the boot process to choose the boot device.

3. Replaced the original HDD with the new one. Had to do this a couple of times before the HDD seated correctly. Then everything was fine.

4. Plan on storing the original HDD in a safe place---just to be on the safe side.

Hope this helps.

Best
Reddy

What I do is buy replacement hard drives in pairs and use one for making a cloned back up with Acronis TIH in similar manner as explained in the preceding post. Then I clone my new cloned primary hard drive to the second one for backup on a regular (weekly) basis. This way I always have a back up replacement primary hard drive ready to go at a moments notice.

Then I reformat the original smaller hard drive and use it for extra storage in the ultrabay. No need to retain the original image because I have an exact clone of it already on both my new primary and backup hard drives.

crg7 wrote:Just replaced the 160gb 5400 rpm Hitachi HDD that came with my T61p with a 320gb 5400 rpm Hitachi HDD. Works fine.

Here is what I did.

1. Cloned the original HDD, including the recovery partition, using Acronis True Image Workstation. The 320gb hdd was in the ultrabay.

2. Checked the cloning by booting from the HDD in the ultrabay. Hit F12 during the boot process to choose the boot device.

.........
Best
Reddy

I've read everything I can find on the forum regarding cloning, and I "think" the above post might be what I need to do. However, to avoid major screw ups, which I can easily do, let me state my objectives and would those smarter than me please advise if this is the correct approach, or if I've overlooked anything that would corrupt either my cloned HDD or the original source.

1) We have 2 Thinkpads, a T60p and a T61p that serve 2 different purposes, both run XP however. Both have HDD passwords which I want to preserve in the cloning process.
2) I've have an Ultrabay HDD adapter, and I purchased a new Hitachi 320GB hard disk and have it formatted.
3) When traveling, I often have a need for both systems (not at the same time however). What I would like to do is have an exact cloned image of the T60p (source) installed on the new hard drive in the Ultrabay (target), then, use the target in the T61P Ultrabay when I need to operate the T60p environment when traveling (meaning, boot off the Ultrabay). Any updates made to the T60p cloned disc under this condition would be "temporary" (no need to have them reflected back at the original T60p source drive.
4) I do not want to remove the original drives in either system under any operating conditions
5) I would clone using Acronis True Image Home 2009 from the internal T60p (source) to the target drive in the Ultrabay.
-Does this require a "reboot" on the T60p in order for Acronis to complete the "bootability" of the target disc in the Ultrabay. Would cloning be run under Windows or off the CD ?
- Will the source HDD password be copied to the target drive ?
6) When I need to run the T60p environment on the T61p, I would "... boot... from the HDD in the ultrabay. Hit F12 during the boot process to choose the boot device."
7) For each trip, I would "reclone" using the above process.

I hope I made my objectives clear enough in order to mine the depths of this forums wisdom.

Thanks !
Viz

Hi,

I recently purchased a Seagate Momentus 7200 RPM 320 Gig hard disk - http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datashe ... 7200_3.pdf

If is use the drive in the media bay it works perfectly - Vista sees the full 320 Gig and it definitely operates faster than my primary 5400 RPM 160 Gig drive. However, if I install the drive as the primary, the laptop will not boot at all - the BIOS does not see the disk. I have checked in the BIOS - the only SATA setting I have is to toggle between "AHCI" and "Compatability mode" and in either setting I get the same result - the BIOS does not recognize the primary drive.

Model T61p - 6459-CTO
Intel IC8HM controller
Vista Ultimate 32bit
latest available BIOS and system drivers installed

Any help would be much appreciated.

stupid suggestion, but make sure that the HD is properly connected when you install it internally (not being recognized by the BIOS usually means that the HD doesn't sit right in the laptop).

Not a stupid suggestion at all ... in fact this Seagate is a few millimeters thinner than the Seagate 7200.2 that I want to replace so it does take a little wiggling to get it in properly. I can hear the drive spin up, so I know that (at least) it has power. There are several beeps, and then I get "ERROR: 2100 HDD0 (Hard Disk drive) initialization error (2)"

Have you tried googling the error message? This link came up as one of the top hits.

You're one step ahead of me - this is the first time that I actually wrote down the error message so I was about to google it. I am downloading the IBM firmware update now to see if that will help, although it appears that users have had mixed results with it and I don't necessarily want to screw up this new hard disk. But I will give it a try and report back in the post. Thanks for your help!!

Well I eventually figured out the issue - the new hard disk wasn't seating 100% correctly. It was getting power but not all the SATA connectors were aligning properly. After some careful maneuvering I now have the new Seagate running as my master.

Thanks for all the help basketb!!

glad it worked out well for you. Enjoy the speedy HD.

No comments on my Ultrabay clone questions ?

5) I would clone using Acronis True Image Home 2009 from the internal T60p (source) to the target drive in the Ultrabay.
-Does this require a "reboot" on the T60p in order for Acronis to complete the "bootability" of the target disc in the Ultrabay. Would cloning be run under Windows or off the CD ?
- Will the source HDD password be copied to the target drive ?

In my experience with Acronis disk cloning, it will ALWAYS require a reboot to make the cloned (target) disk bootable

ViziG wrote:No comments on my Ultrabay clone questions ?

Several days/a few weeks ago I saw a post here that mentioned cloning a T60 to be used in a T61 (or vice versa). You may want to search for that one.

A different suggestion would be to use a VM to achieve what you want to do. This might be less hassle.

ViziG wrote:- Will the source HDD password be copied to the target drive ?

No.