250GB OPAL-capable FDE hard drive?

[PsychBiller]

I'm going to order a W520 this week.

I want to get the Lenovo 250GB 7200RPM SATA OPAL-capable FDE hard drive, part number 0A33985. The Accessories sheet says that it can be used as the primary system drive. But how?

There doesn't seem to be a W520 model number that includes this drive standard. So that would mean buying it and somehow putting everything on the new drive. If someone knows how to order one with the drive already installed, I'd love to hear about it.

Normally, I'd just use the appropriate recovery disks just like replacing any old hard drive. But this is FDE. What would I need to do differently, if anything?

Also, I've read about SecureDoc. Do these drives come with SecureDoc? There's no part number for that.

My reseller isn't knowledgeable enough about FIPS 140-2 security, and because this is a single system purchase, Lenovo won't help him.

Thanks for your collective wisdom!

[awolfe63]

It is not nearly as complicated as you might think. I have one in my W500. You can't order it online/built in - but you might be able to order it if you call. I added mine later.

When you put the drive in, the BIOS lets you set a password. The drive comes with directions. After that, you can install from recovery disks or put the old disk in the ultrabay or on USB and clone it back to the main disk. Once the password is set up - it works like any other drive.

It is a great drive and makes me feel far more secure when I travel.

[PsychBiller]

Thank you, Andrew. Do you remember if you cloned your old drive on the FDE drive, and if so, what tool did you use? I want to clone everything--the hidden Lenovo partition and my C: partition.

[awolfe63]

I clone thinkpad drives all the time using Acronis True Image Home. You need to either boot from an Acronis CD or put both drives on another machine for it to work well.

I'm pretty sure I did clone onto this SSD - but it was really hard and I think it only worked when I put both drives onto a third machine. I've had much better luck with clean installs for SSDs. Create the restore disks then use them to reinstall.