Need help/advice on replacing my T60 stock drive

[nlkccom]

I want to replace the stock drive (WD 250GB) on my T60 with the Hitachi 500GB 7200RPM drive. I've been searching for info on this site and others, and I'm still a bit confused.

Before I open the package of the new hard drive, I have a few questions:

1. Will this Hitachi drive work on the T60?
2. What's the best software to use to clone my stock drive to the new drive, including the hidden partition?
3. Is it necessary to flash the firmware on the new drive before it will work on the T60?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[richk]

Welcome to the forum.

2 questions are easy. The answer to number 1 is yes; the answer to number 3 is no. I have never been able to move the service partition reliably. I have had the best luck doing a full backup using Rescue and Recovery to another device (not the one you are going to end up with) connected via USB, making the backup disk bootable. Then I remove the original drive and install the new drive. I then boot from the USB drive and do a full restore. Having said that, you are probably better off creating a set of CDs to restore to factory image and forget about the service partition.

[brucehe]

Hello all,

I have had good luck cloning drives with a recovery partition using CloneZilla. It is freeware, and boots up from a CD you create. it is a bit cryptic so you have to be careful but I used it with the t42's and T60's. I use a USB to SATA or PATA interface converter and clone the drive on the laptop to the one on the USB port. It worked and then you can run the recovery application to do a clean install if you like. You can also use the CD's you create but it just takes a bit longer. Have fun.

Bruce

[nlkccom]

Thought I'll give an update to my original questions. I've downloaded Acronis True Image Home 2010 Trial. Using True Image, I was able to clone my current drive to the new Hitachi drive without any problem, even the hidden partition copied just fine. The process was pretty easy. Just select Clone Drive from the menu, select the source and destination drive, and the application did the rest. Pretty painless. Next, I just swapped out the old drive with the new drive, and all booted just fine.

The entire process was much easier than I expected.

[aviography]

Thought I'll give an update to my original questions. I've downloaded Acronis True Image Home 2010 Trial. Using True Image, I was able to clone my current drive to the new Hitachi drive without any problem, even the hidden partition copied just fine. The process was pretty easy. Just select Clone Drive from the menu, select the source and destination drive, and the application did the rest. Pretty painless. Next, I just swapped out the old drive with the new drive, and all booted just fine.

The entire process was much easier than I expected.

Just about to start doing this, did you created a boot CD from Acronis first or you left the OEM drive in the laptop and put the new drive in an external USB case?

Thanks

[aviography]

Just did the clone onto a Hatachi Travelstart 320GB, 7,200RPM drive with Acronis True Image Home 2010, however I could not get the trial version to work, the bootable media disk generated with the trial version will not allow the cloning operation to proceed, so I bought it, $50 is not unreasonable.

I bought a 2.5" SATA drive external USB ensclosure for $10 for this purpose.

The steps I took are:

- Purchase, download, install, and activate True Image Home 2010
- Select "Tools & Utilities" and create Bootable Rescue Media, I burned a CD using the optical drive on the laptop
- Power down laptop and swap drives, i.e. OEM internal drive to external enclosure, new drive into laptop, keep the bootable media in the optical drive
- Power up, system will boot from the CD, select "True Image Home" option to run
- Select "Tools & Utilities" and select Clone Disk option
- Select Automatic option
- Select Proceed, my drive (which occupided 100 GB of the 120GB drive) was cloned in just over 50 minutes
- Disconnect external drive, remove the rescue media, shut down and restart laptop
- You are good to go!

The aspect that gave me a good scare about 50% into the cloning operation is that the software never asked me which drive is source and which is destination before it started the cloning process, perhaps it's because the sofware recognized there was a blank drive and made the assumption I want to clone the drive with content to the blank drive.

I had a cold sweat moment 50% through the process: "What if the software is clonging the blank drive on to my original drive?", it was too late to stop so I let it finish, fortunatley everything is good.

One stumbling block I had to address is how to remove the new drive from the bay once you install it? I had to make an extraction tab with some tape similar to the factory drive, how did you guys/gals address this issue?

The system is clearly faster and snappy in loading programs or pulling up images etc., I am a very happy camper!

[sjthinkpader]

Apricorn sells a kit with a USB to PATA/SATA interface and an OEM version of True Image (called EZ Gig) for about $40.

[eyestrain]

One stumbling block I had to address is how to remove the new drive from the bay once you install it? I had to make an extraction tab with some tape similar to the factory drive, how did you guys/gals address this issue?

You didn't reattach the original caddy?

Because of the tab you mention, I really like the design of the T60 HD caddy, the one that comes with rubber rails. Even if using in another model without the rails. Some other IBM caddies had tabs too, but none as long or strong, that I've seen.

They can be had on ebay from Asia for $4 easily, just have to wait. The one I ordered looked and felt just like the real thing, couldn't tell the difference. (Some knockoffs are great, some not so great. Some aren't even knockoffs, but the real thing!)

If you're in a hurry, there is/was a NY seller on ebay with an aftermarket caddy with a blue tape on the end, almost as nice as T60 caddy, at the time was a couple dollars cheaper. Quick look just now I couldn't find it.

Or there's US sellers of T60 caddies for under $10. They probably get their product from China.

If I had a caddy meant to be held only by screws (ick) but with a slot to add tape, I'd probably add my own tape, such as a reinforced glass tape or regular packaging tape, two strips, one in each direction on top of each other.

Not that screws are bad, but they don't fully attach on the caddy doors I've seen. Makes it easier to take apart, more bad than good IMO.

Anyone who can't afford Acronis/wants free: I believe there's free Linux tools that can get the job done. I posted a link elsewhere on the forum once.

[aviography]

"Caddy"? I didn't have no stinking "caddy"!

The OEM hards drive in both my personal T60 and the T60 at my former company had rubber end caps on the two sides to build up the thickness and width in order to properly fit into the hard drive recess space, so I had to transfer the rubber end caps to the new drive before I could put it in the T60.........

Sounds like the home-brew tape trick is acceptable so I will just use that, I had just bought a Sharp plasma air purifier the same day, and it had a number of pieces of the light blue color tape to keep the various parts in place during shipping, so I made up a strap mimicing the OEM tape, and it's working just fine.

Now I have to go find out what these "caddy" look like!

[RealBlackStuff]

Caddy with rails attached: http://newmodeus.com/shop/images/tp-60%20copy.jpg
with rails separate: http://www.newmodeus.com/pics/TP60rails.jpg

[aviography]

Thanks for the images, I think I understand now, I guess I didn't realize the caddy was attached to the OEM drive, so I only used the two rubber cap/rails.........., will take another look when I get a chance.