Thinkpads Forum

I just picked up a T410. I'd like to remove the HDD, Battery, and Ultradrive as I will rarely, if ever, use them. I've read about Ultrabay Travel Bezels that I'm assuming I can use to cover the Ultrabay gap. Is there anything similar for the battery?

I casual search hasn't turned up anything so, as an alternative, I'm wondering if I can buy a dead T410 battery and open it to remove the innards. Does anyone know if this is even possible? Are there any hardware checks that might complain if I try to stick something in the battery slot that isn't a battery?

I tried searching both this forum and Google but didn't come up with anything. I'm not even sure what terms to use though...

Finally does anyone know if the machine can boot off the SD card reader? I didn't see any options in the BIOS but if it's some hidden functionality I wouldn't mind buying buying an SD card to avoid having a USB dongle sticking out.

no "dummy" batteries exist for thinkpads because they'll throttle performance without a battery installed.   on top of that, the battery acts as a UPS in the event that you inadvertently disconnect A/C.

you could gut a dead battery and create your own filler but i'd recommend against it for the above two reasons plus the fact that the housings aren't designed to easily come apart.

hope that helps.

chackoc wrote:... does anyone know if the machine can boot off the SD card reader?

Thinkpads older than the X200 did not boot off an SD card, but an X200 and newer machines boot just fine from an SD card ... so the T410, which is newer than an X200, probably does also.

Thanks for the reply erik. Since I'll be running diskless a sudden power loss probably won't be much of a concern. And running a lightweight Linux distro I can't remember the last time I did anything where CPU performance was critical.

I'll back burner the idea for now since it seems like it won't be trivial, but if I ever stumble across a dead T410 battery I'll have a go at gutting.

Shame about the SD, though.

chackoc wrote:Shame about the SD, though.

Perhaps you did not see my post above. Take another look ...

EOMtp wrote:Thinkpads older than the X200 did not boot off an SD card, but an X200 and newer machines boot just fine from an SD card ... so the T410, which is newer than an X200, probably does also.

Do you happen to know what the BIOS entry would be? There are a couple that aren't obvious to me but none of them look like they would point to the SD reader device.

I searched for a while and couldn't find any online references to booting off the SD reader for a T410 specifically. I did find a reference to the T510 NOT working and thinkwiki says that the T410 does not support PCMCIA boot, which is what I would assume the T410 card reader is. Maybe they updated the X-series behavior before the T-series behavior? Perhaps because the X series lack CD-ROM drives?

I don't really want to buy an SD card to test it out because I don't have any other use for such a card. If someone comes along and says "I have a T410 and I regularly boot using a XXXXXXX card" then I'll probably go out and buy that card but for now a small USB dongle works ok.

There is no BIOS setting for booting from SD drive -- press F12 at boot time, and if the SD card contains a bootable image of any kind, then you will be able to select it, from the menu that is presented, as the boot device.

Interesting. That might explain why there isn't a lot of online info on it since the lack of BIOS settings imply it's not even possible.

Do you know what would happen if the SD card is the only bootable medium in the machine? Would it be smart enough to boot from the SD card automatically or would I still need to use F12 to tell the machine to scan the SD slot? Either way I think I would prefer SD + F12 to a USB dongle.

Looks like I can get a Kingston 4GB MicroSD card for $5 shipped from Newegg. I'll just buy that and see what happens. Thanks EOMtp.

The SD card reader on newer generation ThinkPads are USB devices, so its boot order entry are located under the USB storage device entry (and only appear if you have a card in the reader when booting).

Good to know. I remember seeing several USB options in the BIOS setup but I never had a card in there so that probably explains why I didn't see any promising choices. Once the SD card arrives I'll test it out and report back for any future owners looking to do the same thing. I am growing more optimistic though.

Unfortunately I don't think this is possible. Got the card, wrote the image to it, but I haven't found any way to get the machine to recognize that the card is bootable from the BIOS. No new BIOS entries and no new entries when I hit the ThinkVantage button and then F12.

Card looks perfect from within an OS, so it's not the card or reader. I think this particular machine just can't boot from the SD card. A bit disappointing but c'est la vie.

chackoc wrote:Unfortunately I don't think this is possible. Got the card, wrote the image to it, but I haven't found any way to get the machine to recognize that the card is bootable from the BIOS. No new BIOS entries and no new entries when I hit the ThinkVantage button and then F12.

Card looks perfect from within an OS, so it's not the card or reader. I think this particular machine just can't boot from the SD card. A bit disappointing but c'est la vie.

Totally agree with chackoc. Tried all but no result. I tested with a Silicon Power SDHC 16GB class 10 card. With Diskpart feature from Win7....did partition, activation & drive letter assignment. Then had the boot image from Thinkvantage recovery software....attempted many times but BIOS just ignores the SD Card reader. But, if the card is connected to the USB port through an external USB card reader adapter .....BIOS recognizes, boots and all goes fine....which makes sense as the USB option settings can be found in the BIOS settings. This only directs our assumption to the fact that T410 can't boot from the built-in SD card reader. Shame. Would have been mega if it could.

If we missed something to make that work.....please do tell....eagerly waiting. Really wanted this to happen. SD cards are lightning fast. And the new SDXC cards gonna be super yummy...