A CE Hard Drive Converter for X40 X41 (PIX Warning)

[guanghua19]

I saw those in a Chinese forum and borrowed the photos . Some people in this forum may be interested in the converter. This converter looks like the one used in a Lenovo replacement HD part. According to the seller, the converter supports both Hitachi and Samsung 1.8 CE drives.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_gNllIxaFDoI/SmYLa ... G_4396.JPG
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_gNllIxaFDoI/SmYLb ... G_4397.JPG
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_gNllIxaFDoI/SmYLb ... G_4398.JPG
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_gNllIxaFDoI/SmYLb ... G_4400.JPG

[tim S]

Yes that certainly does look like one of the 3 pieces that go into the complete
IBM/Lenovo HD container/caddy. Assuming that's all you're getting there are
2 other pieces you'll need to make it whole.
The piece that you're getting is the most important one of course.
There is a flat piece with 2 tongues that fit into the two slots, it has a flange on
the other end that is held in place with the two screws. It essentially covers the
exposed ribbon cable on the outside.
The last piece covers the open top slotting into the flange on one side and the two
tabs on the other.
Without these pieces it will be hard to hold the hard drive in place and difficult to
install in the laptop. But as I mentioned earlier you do have the most important piece
and I look forward to your progress report.
Tim S

[john518]

Is this e-bay item the same one that you are talking about
260437559318 . The url is to long for the page.
P.S. Thx for shipping the hrdvs

[guanghua19]

Is this e-bay item the same one that you are talking about
260437559318 . The url is to long for the page.
P.S. Thx for shipping the hrdvs

It looks like the same converter.

I received the 3 adapters today and installed a Hitachi C4K60 1.8'' ZIF Hard Drive 60GB HTC426060G8CE00 in my X41.
It works well. The nice thing about the hard drive is that there is no 2010 error any more (I was using a 32G Kingspec SSD).
The adapter does not fit perfectly. But, not that bad, I used a little tape.

I also tried a Samsung 1.8'' 80GB ZIF hard drive.
It seems to me the adapter does not fit the Samsumg interface. Need others to confirm this.

[john518]

Hi,
where did you get your units from?
John
ps hard drives arrived this after noon.

[sjthinkpader]

...
I also tried a Samsung 1.8'' 80GB ZIF hard drive.
It seems to me the adapter does not fit the Samsumg interface. Need others to confirm this.

The flex cable end would be too thick for Samsung and Toshiba drives.

[mofotech]

Hey wussup guys,

I have been following a lot of the forums topics as I recently purchased a x40 for my sister. The unit did not come with a hard drive. I steered towards the cf card solution and bought a 4gb transcend 300x. Whoa the x40 flys on that unit. Only thing is sometimes it slows down to a halt where u just have to wait a bit and it resumes then it is fine.(I may have to run that flash software I have seen on other forum topics) I have been looking for other solutions but the other routes are expensive. Until I saw this post about the zif converter that's all ready to use with the x40. The only thing I want to know is how will the performance be with this conversion? I saw that the usual ssd has a .1 seek time and most ce drives like the toshiba have 15ms! I really wanted to get the ce drive for the space. But I don't know how will this perform? What is it comparable to? Like a regular 4200rpm 2.5" hd or closer to a 5400rpm 2.5"? or its going to be very very very slow? I mean my sister is going to use it for school. Also I have been eyeballing on the SUPER TALENT FEM16GF13M 1.3" 16GB IDE ZIF on newegg. You guys think that will work on there? Is it better to get that then the 4200rpm? Let me know your feedback.

[sjthinkpader]

Welcome to the forum.

Although benchmark numbers doesn't equate to experiences in actual use, the performance numbers and comments on various solutions may help you in determining the desired results:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 1&start=30

[bapatterson]

...

The flex cable end would be too thick for Samsung and Toshiba drives.

This one on E-Bay specifically says it will fit Toshiba and Samsung drives:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Upgrade-IBM-X40-X41 ... 286.c0.m14

[mofotech]

Ya I just bought that one right now from ebay. Ya I have seen the benchmarks. I just wanted to know if the speed of the ce drives are bare able to be used daily? I saw there is a 40gb zif ce toshiba 8mb buffer. I am wondering how that will work!

thanks guys

mofotech

[sjthinkpader]

ZIF CE drives are based on SATA. They have fewer contacts than PATA ZIF drives. So you have to check. Be fore warned, sometimes the seller would state it incorrectly.

[sjthinkpader]

sjthinkpader: "The flex cable end would be too thick for Samsung and Toshiba drives."

This one on E-Bay specifically says it will fit Toshiba and Samsung drives:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Upgrade-IBM-X40-X41 ... 286.c0.m14

I think the original converters were made for Hitachi ZIF drives, which use a thicker FPC. They may have revised it to fit the Samsung, Toshiba drives that take thinner FPC. It would be interesting to know if it works out for you.

[bapatterson]

Works fine with the Samsung drive.

[johnn31]

I used the Chinese adapter (for $20 it saves a lot of work):

http://cgi.ebay.com/Upgrade-IBM-X40-X41 ... ertor_W0QQ

I installed a 120gb Toshiba GAH ZIF harddrive in my X40. Install was a breeze. Fit perfectly, no error on boot, and bios recognized harddrive immediately. I've been using win 7 on the X40 for the past two weeks with no problems.