Thinkpads Forum

Hi guys,

Ive been searching your site for a while now and have picked up quite a bit so far but there are a couple of questions im sure have been asked/answered, I just cant find them!

Im totally new to laptops so some of the components are new to me.

Im wanting to upgrade my 365xd, my first will be a 64mb ram chip which im OK with...
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... Track=true
BIOS version 1.10 a must I persume.

My next upgrade will hopefully be a harddrive. Im stuck because I dont know what spec hard drive I need. Ive read that 6.4gb drives should fit but im only familiar with PC HDDs, ie EIDE etc. What do I need to search for?
In doing some searches I found an adapter which says it can convert an ide plug into pcmcia. Has anyone come accross these or used one? Will there still be an upper limit to what HDD I can use (it seems a little too good to be true to be able to plug in my 80gb drive into a pcmcia port!)

I would much prefer an internal drive though so thats my priority.

Also can anyone help me with a cdrom problem ive got.
About a year ago someone gave me a cd-r which worked fine in my laptop. It was just a cheapo disk burned using roxio in xp. But every disc ive burned simply hasn't worked. Ive used expensive discs, cheap disc, nero, roxio etc etc and every one in unreadable. Does anyone know what the problem is because like I said that very first disc I tried was perfect. I dont know what the max write speed to the disc was (ie the limit determined by the disc)

Oh hell this is long, sorry guys..... I have kunjered up these problems over the last 3 years so.....

Many Thanks
Rik

Hi,

That memory chip looks like it would work. For my 365X, I got mine from www.kahlon.com for $20USD, but I understand that shipping, etc., adds much more. Yes, you will need BIOS v1.10 so that all the memory will be recognized.

As for hard drives, I agree that internal is the best way to go. There are not that many variables to worry about... Make sure the one you buy is 12mm or thinner (the most common sizes are 9mm and 12mm). There are 17mm drives and these will not fit. You want the connector to be a standard IDE, and make sure the pins stick straight out the back. There are a few with pins that are bent at a 90° angle and these will not work. Stay away from the newer SATA drives and you should be fine.

As for your CD-R, sorry I have no idea. You can probably pick up a used parallel port CD-R for not much money. Also I suspect there are CD-Rs with a PC card ("PCMCIA") interface. I know from personal experience that the parallel port CD ROMS are S-L-O-W, but they do work.

((I hit "quote" instead of "edit" and I can't figure out how to delete this...??))