T30 hard drive in an R40?

[emeraldgirl08]

I just got a great deal on an R40 with Pentium 4 processor. I recently sold my T30 sans Hard Drive and am thinking if I put the T30 hard drive into the R40.

Would I be able to boot up my Xp Pro and Linux Mint partitions???

I'm asking b/c I know the R40 is basically the same as a T30. Granted there are differences if the R40 comes with the Pentium M or the Celeron in which case the HDD would definitely not work. However- a T30 P4 and an R40 P4??? I don't have any recovery disks for the R40 is the main reason I'm asking also. TIA.

[ajkula66]

I'm going to say that it most likely will work.

And if it doesn't, by some strange twist of fate, you can PM me for R40 recovery media.

You should change your user name to "rseriesgirl" given the route you've been taking lately...

[emeraldgirl08]

lol. No doubt! R isn't all that bad! The thing I miss about my T already is that sparkle-flecked lid cover.

Oh I'll get a "T" soon enough again. Hopefully a T60- widescreen and an IPS non-widescreen!

[emeraldgirl08]

Update:

I received my R40 this afternoon.

I tested it out with that T30 hard drive and "Gosh darn and aw shucks!"

It worked

I am waiting on the HDD cover so luckily I have an Ultrabay 2000 Hard Drive adapter. I inserted my T30 HDD in that and booted from it. The only problem was there are different components Windows 7 had to update. Not a problem! Two minutes later after hooking it up with an ethernet cable I was wireless and had sound

My Linux Mint partition also needed updates. The Linux Mint loves the R40 I have! It also looks very good on it. I'm using the KDE Version of Gloria

So that's for all you T30'ers who may get curious and find themselves with an R40. I still need a battery and if anyone has one PM me!

[emeraldgirl08]

Well it was too good to last

The R40 has a BIOS password on it! Yes and I can think of quite a bit of four-letter words to express how I feel

I contacted the seller who responded in a letter:

Hi. I am sorry for the misunderstanding. We recieved that laptop as part of a lot of computers that we had purchased. That was the charger that came with the laptop. I did not realize that that charger was not compatiable with the laptop as it was the one that came with it. To reset the password you can take out the BIOs battery. If you need anymore help or have questions just let me know. Thank you.

I did exactly as he said and now I can't even log onto the laptop. Initially before I tried his suggestion I wrote him back and asked if he could send the password- point blank. I also should mention that he sent an AC adapter that was for a 16V~2.2A laptop. The last time I checked an R40 needed an 16V~4.5A adapter. I didn't care to hear anything else but as the night went on I received no word. I tried his suggestion and am locked out now. I wrote another letter to see how we can resolve this. In the Fleabay description there is no mention of a BIOS password at all! So now I'm at an impasse. Any suggestions for me???

[rkawakami]

Taking out the CMOS (backup) battery to remove a password ONLY works for the power-on password. If you were able to turn the system on without it requesting a password but DID get prompted for one when you attempted to access the BIOS, then that's the supervisor (BIOS) password in action. If the system has a supervisor password then removing the CMOS battery is an automatic "death sentence" if you don't know what the password is. The system will not be able to boot anymore because the date and time information is lost (direct result of removing the CMOS battery). Because the only way to reset the time is by entering the BIOS, you get prompted for the supervisor password. It's probably a good thing that you found this out early as a supervisor password will stay hidden until you try getting into the BIOS or the backup battery goes dead. Since the "bricking" of the system was a direct result of his suggestion to remove the battery, I'd say you have good grounds for requesting a refund. If the seller wants some more information about IBM passwords and how they work, point him to this thread .

[ZaZ]

If you have difficulty with the seller you can always dispute it with Paypal or CC company, depending on how you paid. I'd say your chances are pretty good, but you'll probably be out whatever it costs you to ship it back.