T60 issues

[grimmster]

So was working on my T60 when the battery light started flashing orange and status shows that the battery has failed. OK, it is 5 years old, so fine, order a new one. 1 day later my game freezes and I hear the dreaded clicking. Great, HD is probably one its way out also, reboot and get some strange lan adapter errors and such, but computer boots up fine and working, will get to saving off files.

Question now is, do I sink $200 into this 5 year old laptop (if it is just a battery and hard drive) or do I go get something else in the $400 range new?

Looking around for HD's, seems it is hard to find drives for this anymore. Was looking to get part number 41N3013 (100GB 7200 drive) but seems only sites I have not heard of are selling it, so, what drive can I get for this thing and should I get a new drive or am I looking at a MB failure with all the issues in 36 hours?

[ZaZ]

Any SATA drive should work. There seems to be little point in paying more for the IBM part You can probably get a bigger hard drive for less than $50.

Unless you're pushing the CPU a lot, I don't think a newer machine will offer you much better performance. You're not really in the quality segment of the market when you're paying $400.

[grimmster]

Good news to hear that any hard drive should work! I was afraid I would get messages like you do with the battery that it is not genuine.

I am up for any recommendations on a hard drive then. Need not be a big capacity, but would prefer the 7200 over 5400 (hate the boot time on this thing.)

[grimmster]

Looking at one of these two drives I guess:

Western Digital Scorpio Black WD2500BEKT 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s

or

Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9320423AS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s

Either one is bare bones and $50

[ajkula66]

I've got two Seagates 320/7200 and am very pleased with them.

YMMV.

[ZaZ]

I doubt there's much of a practical difference between them. I like WD because they've got the best return system. If you're drive fails and you give them your CC, they'll send you a new drive right away whereas most others make you send the drive in first.

[grimmster]

Thanks everyone, probably go the WD route as they have a 5 year warranty on the drive.

As always this site rocks.

[nfotis]

I did the upgrade myself and it was painless (just a bit slow) to a WD Scorpio Black 500 GB:

Got a USB drive enclosure off Ebay, I put the WD drive in it and then downloaded and installed the Acronis True Image from the WD site (free) - it will not be installed if the WD disk is not present.

Then I created a bootable CD of Acronis and read the PDF with the instructions.
Shut down the T60.

Then, I swapped the original disk with the WD, and booted from the Acronis CD.
It gave me various options in cloning the original drive (keeping original partition size, or resize partitions, etc.).
The format/cloning process took nearly 2 hours (it seems they do also a full format).

Hope this helps.

N.F.

[grimmster]

Just an update.

New drive and fresh install, boots into usable state in about 55 seconds now, used to be about 90 seconds before, and new battery giving me 3 hours of work time.

Here's to 5 more years!