HELP! Need to replace X40 HDD

[iThinkPad]

Buy this drive: IBM X40 Hard Drive 120GB ZIF (CE) to IDE it is not the fastest drive at 4200 rpm but in stock and I know the ebayer, I bought from him.
Should work perfectly in your X40.

You should do a clean install of Windows XP. It sounds like your current install is pretty old and corrupted -> disk image makes no sense. Just backup the files you really need (if still possible).
For the new install buy a IBM X4 Ultrabase Dock + DVD-CDRW Combo for X40 X41 on ebay or buy an external CD-Rom drive, this makes your life a hell lot easier.

Good luck.

[celiac]

Thanks, iThinkPad.

I was going to go down the 120GB line, but then I read Harryc's post about upgrading an x41, and it seemed so complicated (to me, though probably not to you) with the soldering and bending back little pins, that I thought it would be safer to go for an old 40GB drive, and just put it in. But it seems from the ebay description that this offered part really is "plug and play". Is this likely, or is there something else that would have to be done to install it that might be obvious to the seller, but not to a complete klutz like me?

really appreciate your help

Celia

[iThinkPad]

You are welcome.

It is plug and play. Just take the old drive out, put the new one with the adapter in and you are ready to go.
If you can find a Samsung drive with 5400 rpm, I would go with one of them.
They are a bit noisier but for sure faster.

I tried a lot of different replacements for the original drive of my IBM X40

Compact Flash Card by Transcend
They get really slow after some time, even slower than the original drive.

SSD by PhotoFast
Was not recognized by the BIOS, who knows why -> maybe dead SSD

ZIF Drive by Samsung HS122JC
Pretty fast in my opinion and you know what you have. It will stay as fast as it is.

Plug and play adapter without drive -> for Samsung/Toshiba drives
Plug and play adapter without drive -> for Hitachi drives

[sjthinkpader]

...
Compact Flash Card by Transcend
They get really slow after some time, even slower than the original drive.
...

You need to clean the non-one free space on your card. I use a software called Eraser and make a new data pattern with all "1111". Then do a single pass write to free space and directory. This will bring the speed back to new card state. This is because writing "0" to a field of "111.." is fast and writing "1" to any cell that has "0" requires an erase operation first. Erase operation in NAND flash is very slow.

Windows7 has a TRIM function that does this automatically in the background. But your flash memory may not get recognized by Windows7 to trigger the TRIM function and after this kind of erase back to "11111..." operation, un-erase cannot work.

[sjthinkpader]

... but then I read Harryc's post about upgrading an x41, and it seemed so complicated...

I agree with iThinkpad, it's pretty straight forward. When Harry did his project, the newer adapters had not appeared yet. Just be careful and not to use these 3.3V HDDs with adapter in 5V Ultrabay trays.

[iThinkPad]

...
You need to clean the non-one free space on your card. I use a software called Eraser and make a new data pattern with all "1111". Then do a single pass write to free space and directory. This will bring the speed back to new card state.
...

Thank you for the hint.

How long does this take for a 16GB CF card? Or is it done automatically in the background? If it is done in the background how does it affect the speed of the CF card?

[sjthinkpader]

Since this is done only on free space, not that long on a 8GB, kind of like a defrag.