HELP! Need to replace X40 HDD

[smittendevil]

Hello All,

I'm new here so forgive me if this is a topic that's been discussed already ... I've done a search through the forums but haven't completely been able to find what I'm looking for.

First of all, any and all help is GREATLY APPRECIATED.

---

I have had my X40 for about 3.5 years now and it's been solid all this time - nothing spectacular, but very stable and reliable, which was what I was looking for. Anyway, it's been through a lot of travel and wear, so time is finally catching up to it.

Recently, my hard drive has been acting up and I am pretty sure that it's on its last legs. I have problems opening various applications (e.g. MSN Messenger; MS Excel); the HDD light is constantly on during those times and more often than not, the program fails to load. I can also hear the hard drive struggling to read, as if it's stuck on one particular area. My most recent shutdown of Windows took over 5 minutes!

Question 1
I know from reading through the forums here that the largest capacity HDD is 60GB, they only come in 4200rpm, and only certain drives (Toshiba? Hitachi? I forget off the top of my head ...) are compatible. Besides lenovo.com, where would I be able to find these online?

Assuming I can purchase the HDD, the next thing I'd like to do is just copy the old one onto the new one. Because I don't have an optical drive, I'd prefer to avoid R&R (and I've never really used it, so I wouldn't know where to start). I've found this thread, but I don't really understand it (although that may be due to the fact that I don't have Ghost). I've also found this but I don't have a dock and have ZERO inclination to spend money on such.

Question 2
Is imaging/cloning my current HDD the best way to go? If so, what else would I need besides the software - i.e. is there an enclosure or adapter that I can buy to connect the new HDD to ghost? Should I connect it directly to the X40, or would it be better to connect them both to my desktop (FWIW, I've never upgraded/repaired a laptop before, so I would feel more comfortable working via desktop)? And can I run a boot version of Ghost (or other applicable software) from a USB/External HDD?

Question 3
Is there anything else I need to know? Is it worth doing this myself or should I send it in to Lenovo (no warranty left though ...)? Or is it simply time to pony up for a new laptop altogether?

Again, any help/experience would be greatly appreciated!!!

[gator]

You don't have to get a new laptop just because your HDD is failing. You can replace the HDD yourself (very easy to do!) and clone your existing setup to the new drive using Acronis Truimage.

X40 takes in 1.8" PATA drives, and you can find them on newegg.com (where prices are much lower compared to Lenovo). For a detailed explanation on HDD cloning, please see the below thread:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=27721

Have a look at it and get back to us with further questions, we'll be happy to help! If you want assistance locating a compatible drive for the X40, PM me and I'll be glad to help you out.

[smittendevil]

Gator,

Thanks for the encouragement! I'm itching to get a new laptop, regardless, but I'd certainly like to salvage this one.

Anyway, I looked through newegg.com but haven't been able to find a 1.8" HDD from the Internal>Laptop section. The "form factor" drop box only has 2.5" and there is also no PATA under "interface." Maybe I'm looking in the wrong spot? Could you provide/pm me a link please?

Thanks!

[gator]

Newegg does not seem to have any 1.8" drives at the moment, but I'll look at other sites and post some info here tomorrow.

Well, I don't know whether hitachi makes 1.8" HDDs anymore. but our friend Yak (brainpicker on the forum) seems to have one available:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=43942

Maybe you can try contacting him (don't worry, he is a highly trusted member here - just look at the +ve feedback thread for his name!)

[pxa270]

A few remarks:

- The ONLY hard drives that fit inside the X40 are the Hitachi C4K40 and C4K60 with IDE connectors (the C4K60 is also available with the incompatible ZIF connector). Toshiba 1.8" drives will NOT work, and neither will the newer Hitachis with ZIF connectors.

- If you haven't done a fresh Windows install, you may have a software rather than a hardware problem. If that is the case, you will find that cloning the current setup will result in just as many problems on the new drive. I'd try to verify if it is indeed a hardware problem first.

[smittendevil]

Newegg does not seem to have any 1.8" drives at the moment, but I'll look at other sites and post some info here tomorrow.

Well, I don't know whether hitachi makes 1.8" HDDs anymore. but our friend Yak (brainpicker on the forum) seems to have one available:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=43942

Maybe you can try contacting him (don't worry, he is a highly trusted member here - just look at the +ve feedback thread for his name!)

Thanks for the heads up ... at this point, I'd prefer to go with a 60GB drive. I'll keep this one in mind though!

A few remarks:

- The ONLY hard drives that fit inside the X40 are the Hitachi C4K40 and C4K60 with IDE connectors (the C4K60 is also available with the incompatible ZIF connector). Toshiba 1.8" drives will NOT work, and neither will the newer Hitachis with ZIF connectors.

- If you haven't done a fresh Windows install, you may have a software rather than a hardware problem. If that is the case, you will find that cloning the current setup will result in just as many problems on the new drive. I'd try to verify if it is indeed a hardware problem first.

What is the difference between the drives? I'm looking here and it wasn't the size of the drive, as I'd thought ...

Is this the drive? What about this site (scroll down)?

Oh - and is the correct drive the slim or regular one?

As for the software vs. hardware problem - I haven't done a fresh install of Windows, mainly because I don't have the proper disks and don't have an optical drive either. Regardless ... I'm about 99% sure that it's a hardware problem!

Thanks!

[pxa270]

The C4K60 slim has a ZIF connector so it won't fit. The regular C4K60 can have either IDE or ZIF so you have to check that. All C4K40 will fit as they all have IDE AFAIK.

[akao]

One way to connect a new HDD to your X40, for copying over an image of your old HDD, is to use a IDE <-> USB cable. These are cheap (~$12), and you don't need to buy a dock or anything else. Another option is to buy a 2.5" or 1.8" USB enclosure.

Here is the USB <-> IDE cable I bought and used for upgrading my X40's HDD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812186015

[smittendevil]

First, thanks for the replies. You have all been a great help so far.

I feel like a moron asking this, but does anyone know where I might find any of the compatible drives available online? I've done a lot of searching but I haven't been able to find a single vendor who has any in stock ...

Suddenly I'm in desperate need for my X40 to get back on its legs (currently so bad that I can't even install updates for my software anymore) because I'm hitting the road soon. If anyone knows ANYWHERE that I could get my hands on either the 40GB or the 60GB, please post or PM me.

Thanks again.

[EDIT]
And as lame as this sounds, I don't even see them available on lenovo.com.

[pphilipko]

You can buy it from an online retailer in Canada. Here's the link:

http://www.anitec.ca/product/6691/hitac ... drive_oem/

It's $160 CDN for the 40 GB version and $190 CDN for the 60 GB version. If you need it shipped to you, I have quite a few friends there who can ship them to you for a nominal fee.

Hope this helps.

[smittendevil]

Thanks ... i came across them (anitec.ca) as well but haven't been able to get through yet, since the product is also only available as a special order. Any experience with them?

[pphilipko]

I have actually dealt them last year when I bought an LCD monitor. Smooth transaction and fast shipping. I would have no hesitations dealing with them again.

[akao]

I bought mine of a person on this message board. Check the marketplace forum, and you can consider posting a request.

[smittendevil]

I bought mine of a person on this message board. Check the marketplace forum, and you can consider posting a request.

Good call - I should have done that earlier. Thanks!

[smittendevil]

Thanks for all the help so far.

I'm in the process of imaging my current hard drive but have already run into problems. At the moment, I'm just trying to copy some important files onto a USB drive but have been receiving some error messages:

1. Cannot copy [filename]: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).
2. Cannot copy [filenmae]: Cannot read from source file or disk.

What do you all think? Any ways around this so that I can backup these extremely important files of mine? Also, will these errors basically preclude my ability to image the drive?

[EDIT] I'm thinking that these errors will indeed preclude me from imaging the hard drive. I will, however, need the use of my laptop in the coming few weeks, as I will be on the road. Two questions. 1.) Has anyone sent a hard drive in for data recovery or hard drive repair, and if so, where? 2.) If I just put my new 1.8" into a USB enclosure, I should be able to install windows onto it from a desktop, right? There shouldn't be any problems with reading the 1.8" geometry differently if I'm not cloning anything, correct?

Another question: after reading this post about hard drive imaging, I noticed that there's no mention about IBM's hidden partition. My question, then, is whether TruImage automatically images that partition as well, or would I have to "unhide" it in BIOS?

I know this has been a really long post, but thanks for reading and all/any help is much much appreciated.

[pxa270]

Sounds like your hard disk is physically damaged. If you have very important files on damaged sectors, there's little you can do. There may be some software utilities that can help (I have no experience with them), but I wouldn't get my hopes up. There are also companies that specialize in recovering data from damaged/erased drives, but they tend to be VERY expensive.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but backups are made BEFORE disaster strikes, especially if the data was so important to you. Companies have regularly scheduled backup policies (often every night) for a good reason: hard disks are inherently unreliable. They may work great for 10 years, but they may also just stop after a month, and failure is pretty much unpredictable. Unfortunately most consumers only think about backups until they learned it the hard way (i.e., until it's too late). They tend to think the valuable part of a personable computer is the hardware or software because they paid for those in real dollars, while in truth, the most valuable parts are almost always the personal files because these are often irreplaceable.

[smittendevil]

Sigh, I know. I used to make backups of my important info quite regularly, but got lazy after a while ... Trust me, I'm kicking myself right now for getting out of that good habit.

[pxa270]

Sorry for the bad news. There are in fact a lot of "bad sector repair" software and such on the market, but most of them work on the filesystem level, i.e., they repair corruptions in the FAT/NTFS structures, which are software errors. If your harddisk imaging software is reporting damaged sectors, it's usually a hardware error (since most imaging software bypass the filesystem structure altogether). You'll need real experts (with very expensive equipment) to help you with that.

If you have a second computer available, you might want to try to boot it with a Linux live CD (like Ubuntu or Knoppix) and try to read out the files from the X40 hard disk through an USB adapter. But again, it sounds like a hardware error, in which case I don't think any software can help you out.

[smittendevil]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a bad sector(s). I'm going to look into HDD recovery tomorrow and see what the prices are.

I should be able to install an OS onto another 1.8" via my desktop, right?

[pxa270]

If you're talking about installing Windows XP, the most foolproof way I found is to format it as FAT32 and make it DOS bootable first (using the DOS portion of a Win98 boot disk), copy the i386 folder to it, and then start the XP installation from DOS on the X40. Installing XP on the HD on the desktop and then plugging it in the X40 may also work, but I think it can have more issues.

[smittendevil]

Yes, I am thinking XP ... I don't think I have any Win98 disks around anywhere ... my plan was simply to plug the 1.8" into a USB, connect to desktop PC, install XP (I don't even know if that is possible), and then plug the 1.8" back into the X40 (I don't have any optical drives for the X40 so can't do it directly).

I'll give it a shot later (too late/early now ... 6:15am) and report back.

[pxa270]

XP might refuse to install on removable drives (such as USB hard disks). You can hack around it by following this guide:
http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176
which is probably even more involved as going the DOS route.
Anyway, good luck!

[smittendevil]

Thanks again pxa270 for the guide. It does look complicated but hopefully will work! I'll post back.

[mfbernstein]

If your desktop has ATA support and an extra drive bay, you can get a 3.5" -> 2.5" ATA adapter, and that should be able to power your 1.8" X40 drive (the X40 drive actually uses a 40-pin connector like standard 2.5" drives do). That should avoid the nastiness of trying to get Windows onto an external USB drive.

[smittendevil]

If your desktop has ATA support and an extra drive bay, you can get a 3.5" -> 2.5" ATA adapter, and that should be able to power your 1.8" X40 drive (the X40 drive actually uses a 40-pin connector like standard 2.5" drives do). That should avoid the nastiness of trying to get Windows onto an external USB drive.

Oh, good call! Thanks for the idea ... that makes things a LOT easier =D

[Goetterdaemmerung]

By installing XP onto the drive using your desktop machine, the installation may not function (boot up) when placed in the laptop. I would instead (using the desktop machine) create a small (~2gb) FAT32 partition with the i386 folder and make that partition bootable. Once you run i386\winnt.exe on your laptop to start the installation, create a new NTFS partition and install onto that. The FAT32 partition will have to remain, as the machine will boot onto it (I don't know if you can change this).

Another alternative is to do it the way you plan on doing it, then follow this guide in the event of any problems: (you're essentially replacing the motherboard by installing on a machine and running on another)

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/for ... 1400925745

[xtypestereotype]

Question 3
Is there anything else I need to know? Is it worth doing this myself or should I send it in to Lenovo (no warranty left though ...)? Or is it simply time to pony up for a new laptop altogether?

There is something else you can try before throwing it away - if its not too late...
IBM had a very handy utility to check a Hard Drive's integrity called DFT, or Drive Fitness Test. Hitachi bought IBM's hard drive division a while ago, but they kept updating the utility to their latest hard drive models. Anyway, that little program is one of the coolest hd tools around, and the reason I only buy Hitachi hard drives - even for my desktops. It can not only check for defects, but it can also most often repair damaged sectors, unless the hard drive is in real bad shape... I myself fixed a LOT of hard drives with that tool. Most often the HD only has one or two "mis-aligned" sectors, and the reason why the problem might seem worse than it actually is that there might be a vital windows system file sitting right there at the mis-aligned section, hence the struggle. The program most often fix these minor problems, and everything is again OK as it should be...
Another really cool feature of the program is the ability to totally wipe out the HD with zeros. Very handy when it comes to re-selling a machine - for privacy reasons I always zero my HDs, and then reinstall a fresh copy of Windows.
Note that when the utility is "zeroying" the drive, it also checks for defects... Also, if you have the rescue partition set as hidden in the BIOS, the program will not overwrite it... So after wiping out the disk, all you need to do is press the Thinkpad key during boot and your Windows re-install will automatically start from there...
Anyway, I'd recommend you'd give the tool a try...
You can download it from here:
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#DFT
The only problem is that you need an USB floppy since you don't have an optical disk, or perhaps you can use the floppy image file on a USB flash drive and boot it from there...

Hope that helps... (I might sound like a sales man, but I really like DFT and Hitachi

BTW, one obvious thing you need to know is if you actually have a Hitachi/IBM hard drive... DFT only works with those... All Thinkpads used to ship with Hitachi HDs, but I don't know how it is these days... Plus you could have bought your unit second hand with a different hard drive perhaps?

Anyway, good luck, and sorry for the long post...

[celiac]

A new query on the same thread - I am confused about just which 40GB Hitachi 1.8" drive will be right for my x40 2371 GHG. Is it the HTC424040F9AT00 or the HTC426040G9AT00?

And a second question - any idea where to get hold of one? They seem rather rare ...

many thanks

[sjthinkpader]

Welcome to the forum.

The G9AT00 has a ZIF connector instead of pins. You will need a IDE-ZIF adapter to use it in X40.

Other than finding a directly replacement 60GB, 40GB pin type HDDs; the newer Samsung HS082HB, HS122JB and HS122JC plus an adapter are much better choices today.

[celiac]

Much appreciate your help