Thinkpads Forum

I may have an 80 gig notebook HD available to me soon (no, not the $34.50 one ) and have a couple of questions regarding how to go about replacing the one I already have in my 770X (8.1GB, I think)

(1) Will any notebook form HD work in the 770 or will only certain brands work?

(2) I know that you have to disassemble the "can" (caddy) to replace the HD in there...aside from the external connection being mounted sideways, is the internal connector (that goes to the drive) "standard" (I'm assuming there is a connector and not just some wires), or is that another problem in the making?

(3) Would I be better off trying to fetch another caddy off of Ebay as opposed to trying to disassemble what I have? I'd rather not have the connector fall apart while taking it apart and my be up the creek with NO HD as opposed to spending the extra $ to get another caddy (at least I can still use the old one if it doesn't work)

(1) Will any notebook form HD work in the 770 or will only certain brands work?

Any brand of 2.5" hard drive will be fine, including heights of 9mm, 12mm, or 17mm. There should be no limit to the size of the drive for a 770X, but make sure you are running the latest BIOS.

(2) ...is the internal connector (that goes to the drive) "standard" (I'm assuming there is a connector and not just some wires)...?

Yes, it uses a standard 2.5" hard drive IDE connector inside and once you open the caddy you'll be able to figure it out easily.

(3) Would I be better off trying to fetch another caddy off of Ebay as opposed to trying to disassemble what I have?

It is MUCH, MUCH cheaper to buy a bare hard drive and replace it with your own caddy than to buy a pre-packaged set. The caddy just has 6 screws (4 around the sides and then 2 on either side of the connector). Once those are out, you can pull off the lid (it has a tiny lip that catches into a groove where the blue tape is). Inside you'll find just the bare drive and a single, bent cable. That's it. Very easy to put back together.

Phil.

I'm assuming the cable pinout (where it attaches to the drive) is universal (at least amongst notebook drives) and not something proprietary to the Travelstar drives, correct?

Yes. And there is a right-side up and an upside-down, but I think the connector only really allows it to be inserted the correct way without undue forcing.

The pin jumper setup that controls whether a drive is marked as "Master", "Slave", or "Cable-Select" is sometimes slightly different from one drive to the next, but that is beside the IDE connector pins, not part of it.

(and in general, ThinkPad hard drives should always be installed as "Cable Select" as this allows the BIOS or OS to assign the correct Master/Slave configuration depending on whether other drives are inserted in additional bays.)

Phil.

pkiff wrote: The pin jumper setup that controls whether a drive is marked as "Master", "Slave", or "Cable-Select" is sometimes slightly different from one drive to the next, but that is beside the IDE connector pins, not part of it.

That's where my concern lies...the jumper pins ARE a part of the IDE connector on mine (both the Travelstar in now and the Samsung I'm considering), and not aside from the connector.

Late followup to this item. I assume you've already figured out that my response on this was misleading/slightly wrong. The IDE connector pins on 2.5" notebook drives are standard and are interchangeable across different models. There are no pin jumpers on a standard notebook drive -- the IDE connector incorporates all the pins in its standard connector for that size drive. Pin jumpers are only an issue for desktop/3.5" standard hard drives.

Phil.