X40 0200 failure fixed disk error

[Maliha]

Hey there,

While running some errands I left my X40 [2371-H8U + added 512MB RAM] sleeping for a while, when I came back it was not coming out of sleep so I forced hard reboot, but upon restart it stalled on IBM Thinkpad logo and subsequently gave me '0200 Failure Fixed Disk Error'. On going into BIOS I noticed there is no PATA HDD listed under boot order so I turned it off and took out the drive and reinstalled it. The X40 successfully went to Windows, thereafter I ran PC Doctor's and Hitachi's fitness test on the drive, it passed with flying colors.

However the error shows up every now and again, strange thing is that it remedies itself when I leave it turned off for a while. Do you guys think it's a sign of HDD going out?

Thanks in advance!

[Harryc]

This is a tough one since it's intermittent and it passes diagnostics. My gut feeling is that is a hard drive or more likely a southbridge problem. I'd borrow a drive to try....clone the existing drive to it. Also I would boot a Linux Live CD and see if the sleep problems persist in another OS.

[Maliha]

This is a tough one since it's intermittent and it passes diagnostics. My gut feeling is that is a hard drive or more likely a southbridge problem. I'd borrow a drive to try....clone the existing drive to it. Also I would boot a Linux Live CD and see if the sleep problems persist in another OS.

Thanks for your reply and suggestions. I think I should have been more explicit about the issue. Actually the problem doesn't pertain to just sleeping, it also happens sometimes when I cold start my X40. Usually it goes away if I leave the notebook turned off for a while or [when required] reinsert the drive.

I don't have a spare drive for it but I can try booting from a Live CD to test whether the problem remains in Linux. Another question, how common is southbridge problem on X4x thinkpad series?

Thanks!!!

[Harryc]

Can't comment on the frequency of X41 southbridge failures other than to say I do not recall it being discussed here.

[Maliha]

Can't comment on the frequency of X41 southbridge failures other than to say I do not recall it being discussed here.

Your gut feeling is right then, I also suspect it's probably the HDD which is dying slowly. Since this notebook is just a spare kitchen computer, I'll let it run until HDD replacement is really necessary.

Thanks again, Harryc!