Yet another funny X61 problem!

[SmallWalrus]

Ok, I seem to be on a roll, after that last funny X61 problem, I got yet another weird one!

This one really got me stumped. Got the system and it looks good, it was pictured on its auction page with it booted up into Windows, so chances are all's good right?

However when I tried to power it up, it would stall with a hard drive installed. The hard drive indicator light would light up and the system will just stay in that state and not boot. I removed the hard disk and tried invoking the F12 boot menu and booting from a USB key, and it works instead. To rule out that the hard disk was at fault, I tried putting another known working disk into this machine and tried booting up again, and to no avail.

Thinking that maybe it is the SATA connector that is somehow broken inside, I replaced it with a spare one I've got, and no go. It does the exact same thing. Lastly, I have also tried updating it's BIOS to the latest version, and clearing all BIOS settings by disconnecting the CMOS battery to flush out whatever settings it had. Still no go.

Now I am quite ticked. This is the first time I have ever seen such a weird problem.

Why wouldn't it boot from a SATA disk?!

[SmallWalrus]

Waiting on the bootup logo long enough yielded this error message: ERROR 2100: HDDO (Hard Disk drive) initialization error (3)

However the hard disk is definitely not faulty!

[RealBlackStuff]

See this: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=99948

[SmallWalrus]

What's the difference between (2) and (3)?

[Brad]

The motherboard SATA interface has probably failed sorry to say.

I would requrest a refund from the seller.

Brad