Hardware or Software Failure?

[tpn00b]

Hi,

I just got a hold of ThinkPad R31 from my cousin who hadn't used it for over a year and no longer needed it (free of course). But there is a problem with the laptop. There are times that when the system boots, I only receive the "IBM ThinkPad" logo and nothing happens; the BIOS and diagnosis keys, F1 and F12, do not respond unless after some period of time (20 mins).

Anyway, even when I try to put a new system on the laptop, XP installation says that it can not find a hard drive device!! But the next day, I can boot to the existing XP. There are times when I reboot in diagnosis mode (set in BIOS), I get a message that the system cannot find the operating system but then other times I can boot just find.

I've tried to take out the harddrive inspecting the connector pins but they all look find. I do not think that there is a problem with the CMOS battery either. Can somebody shed some light on my problem?

One note I forgot to mentioned is that the previous owner had installed an internal CD/DVD burner on the system. I know everyone's going to run around assuming the culprit is the new burner but when the system works, the burner is recognized and it can actually burn DVD's with no problem.

Any help would be appreciated it, thanks.

[jdhurst]

Take out the DVD, boot to BIOS and set the boot order to boot first from and existing floppy and hard drive second. Install the newest BIOS and then see if boot times improve. If not, the hard drive may be suspect. A bad hard drive (temporarily) can cause long boot times. ... JD Hurst

[tpn00b]

I am becoming more incline to believe that I have a bad harddrive at hand. Anyway, can someone guide me on what type of harddrive I can purchase to replace the existing one? Thanks.

[pphilipko]

I am becoming more incline to believe that I have a bad harddrive at hand. Anyway, can someone guide me on what type of harddrive I can purchase to replace the existing one? Thanks.

The Hitachi 7K60 is one of the more popular hard drives on this forum.

[tpn00b]

Does this model have a 44 pin connector or 40? Do I need an adopter for it to work with ThinkPad R31? I hadn't realized that the 8 MB cache buffer/7200 rpm was popular with laptop users these days Very nice indeed...