Thinkpads Forum

When I install the Floppy Disk Drive in the Ultraslimbay of a recently acquired 600X it won't format floppy disks, and it says there are bad sectors on them. When it gets to around 55% during the format, it starts making a a lot of noise. If it completes the format, it always shows bad sectors.

When I install the same FDD in my 600E it will format the same floppy disk correctly.

The 40GB Hard Disk Drive in the 600X is also giving me problems. Upon getting the laptop, it had XP on it and ran incredibly slow. I wanted to put 98 on it anyway, so I tried to FDISK and FORMAT. The format took forever, with the percentage complete numbers cycling up and down. After the format, I did a SCANDISK and started getting all kinds of bad sectors. Finally, I was able to partition a 4% clean section of the disk as C: drive and install Windows 98. It seems to work fine except for the problems with the FDD and the concern about bad sectors on the rest of the HDD.
I'm wondering if the bad sectors on the currently unallocated section of the HDD are as false as the bad sectors that I get on the floppy disks, and what the cause of this might be.
Any ideas on what is going on here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Gary

From your data it seems likely that there's a problem somewhere in the 600X system. You can download a copy of PC Doctor for the 600X (not available for the 600E) from links in this thread:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=30115

It would probably be better for you if you used the 600E to create the bootable floppy . I also created an .ISO image for burning onto a CD but if you don't have an external floppy housing, then that won't do you any good. Run the hard disk and diskette diagnostics and see what that reports.

Thank you. The ISO file was a big help. I burned it to a CD and was able to boot up and do all the diagnostic tests except for the FDD, of course. The only tests that failed were the Linear Verify and Random Verify tests on the HDD. The other HDD tests passed. The failure messages looked like this:

(Invalid Sector)
217-260-000-20061212-05-Hard Disk Drive: Failed
(Error verifying track 3280, ..81, ..82, etc.)
(Invalid Sector)
Sometimes it would say
(ECC Error)

The Linear Verify test began posting errors about 3% of the way into the test.

The Systemboard, Processor and Memory tests all passed.

I see that there are some HDD ERASE options on PC Doctor. When I first removed XP from this computer, all I did was boot up with the Windows 98 (Microsoft Original) and run FDISK and FORMAT. I relied on FDISK and FORMAT to change from NFST to FAT32. Is it possible that the ERASE options in PC Doctor can do something that FDISK and FORMAT can't when it comes to removing NFST? Or is it more likely that I just have a bad HDD?

Thanks,
Gary

gkaucher wrote:The only tests that failed were the Linear Verify and Random Verify tests on the HDD. <snip> The Linear Verify test began posting errors about 3% of the way into the test.

And I bet it slowed to a crawl at that point, at least until all of the bad sectors were passed, err, well, failed... uh, you know what I mean .

gkaucher wrote:Is it possible that the ERASE options in PC Doctor can do something that FDISK and FORMAT can't when it comes to removing NFST? Or is it more likely that I just have a bad HDD?

At this point I would say that your drive has some bad spots on it. I have been able (once) to recover such a "bad" drive using the formatting option in PC Doctor. It may work for you as well, but I would caution that you treat that drive as suspect (i.e., don't rely upon it for mission-critical usage). I don't know how/if it's any different than using a bootable Windows disk to FDISK/FORMAT but as PC Doctor is an old DOS program, the disk will be formatted as FAT (probably not even FAT32, definitely not NTFS).

Don't know how any of this relates to your original problem with the floppy disk acting different between the two systems. Although I have had a 600-series floppy not work in the Ultrabay, yet operate fine inside the external floppy housing. This is probably due to the fact that interface port was different (Ultrabay vs. floppy port on the side of the 600), yet an optical drive in the same Ultrabay worked fine (???).

Yes. When it got to the 3% point it really slowed to a crawl, so after awhile I just aborted the test.

The optical drive works fine in the UltraslimBay. I guess my original problem regarding the FDD just relates to the difference in interfaces, as you suggest.

After I got Windows 98 up and running on the C drive, I had tried to erase the unallocated section balance of the disk using something called KILLDISK. But it slowed to a crawl, and I aborted that attempt. Maybe I'll try the Quick Erase option in PC Doctor and see if that works any better.

I wonder if the Erase options in PC Doctor will unmark bad sectors?

Gary

I would not trust that hard drive ever again, even if I got it working. It's just not worth the risk of it dying... sooner or later... with a ton of important data. Not when new drives are so cheap.

I have a 600X that I bought new. The floppy drive has never worked properly in the Ultrabayslim, but it works fine in an external housing. You can get those housings for around $5 on eBay.

Is there an ISO file available somewhere that I can download to upgrade my BIOS? I thought that I had successfully upgraded it awhile back using a floppy, but now that I see how much trouble the FDD is when I use it in the Ultraslimbay I am wondering if the BIOS is messed up. It shows the correct version number. Maybe it's not really doing something correct (LBA?) since I used a floppy to upgrade it.

Thanks,
Gary

From reading a couple of threads here I believe that it is possible to do that (burn an .ISO image to update the BIOS), but there is also the "non-diskette" method to perform the BIOS upgrade available directly from IBM. Check this page:

BIOS Update (Non-Diskette) - ThinkPad 600X

I have not performed a BIOS upgrade this way, but if your search through the 600 and/or T2x forums I believe you will find several people here how have sucessfully done so.

Warning: If you are going to attempt a BIOS upgrade on the 600E, then look at the following BIOS table for your exact model number. 600Es have two different BIOS upgrade trees:

BIOS file matrix

Of course, this method of updating the BIOS requires a good hard drive .

Every test that I took either took too long or found bad clusters, so I ordered a replacement hard drive.

I am going to hold off on trying another BIOS upgrade. I might try the non-diskette method next time, just to avoid using the FDD.

I changed the boot sequence on the offending 600X from FDD, CD-ROM, HDD to CDROM, FDD, HDD. I noticed that was the sequence in the 600E where the FDD works when installed in the Ultraslimbay. I don't know how that will make any difference, but we'll see.

I also noticed that on the 600X if I jiggle the power cord where it enters the laptop, that the system turns off. This does not happen on the 600E. It is not caused by the cord, but something in the internal connector of the laptop. Is there a connection that needs to be soldered? Could a bad connection like this cause bad sectors over time? It only happens if I intentionally jiggle the cord. Otherwise the system will run all day.


Thanks for the help,

Gary

gkaucher wrote:Is there a connection that needs to be soldered?

Possibly. I'm at work at the moment but when I get home I'll look at a dead 600X base that I have. I think that the DC power jack is soldered directly to the motherboard on the 600X.

gkaucher wrote:Could a bad connection like this cause bad sectors over time? It only happens if I intentionally jiggle the cord. Otherwise the system will run all day.

I would say that the only way you could get bad sectors would be if the laptop was writing to the disk and then it lost power. While it may not physically damage the sector(s), the data that was supposed to be stored there is most likely trashed.

I'm still waiting for the new hard drive to arrive. I have already tested the existing HDD using Doctor PC on a CD, and the HDD failed the Linear and Random Sector tests. But I was unable to test the FDD since I don't have the external housing FDD and the Ultraslimbay was occupied with the CD-ROM.

So I removed the CD-ROM and installed the FDD in the Ultraslimbay, and then I attempted to boot with the Doctor PC diskette. When I do this, I get the following messages after I choose the 600X and hit ENTER.

Bad or missing A:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
Error in CONFIG.SYS line 33
DEVICEHIGH=A:\DOS\RAMDRIVE.SYS 5000 512 12 /E

Bad or missing A:\DOS\RAMDRIVE.SYS
Error in CONFIG.SYS line 34
HMA not available: Loading DOS low

Data error reading drive A
Abort, Retry, Fail?

I was hoping to get into PC Doctor and test the FDD, but this is stopping me. From previous tests, I think we can assume that the existing HDD is bad. Will a bad HDD cause my 600X to produce these error messages? Could the HDD be the cause of all my previously stated problems with the FDD? (bad sectors on formatting, etc.) Any insight into these error messages is appreciated.

I know this diskette is good, because I can use it to boot up to Dcotor PC in my 600E.

Thanks,

Gary

Sounds like there is a problem with the Ultrabay interface to the FDD. I've seen this before with one of my floppy drives where it will work inside the external housing but not in the Ultrabay. Other floppy drives will work in the same Ultrabay so I think it's something to do with the connector on the drive itself.

The error messages you quote seem to say that the drive is having problems reading the data off of the diskette. Since you know that the diskette and the drive work in the 600E, the only thing left is the 600X's Ultrabay. The bad hard drive should not affect any results from the testing of the floppy drive.

It was the connector on the FDD as you suspected! I rubbed each of the FDD contacts lightly with a paper towel. After that PC Doctor booted fine in the 600X with no errors. The original problem with the FDD was just a bad contact. The contact was sufficient in the 600E, but not in the 600X. All it needed was cleaning.

The HDD is still bad, but now it doesn't seem to be related to the FDD.

Thanks!

Gary

Hey, glad to hear that it was just a simple contact issue on your diskette drive. I've checked my old 600X system and verified that the DC power input jack is firmly soldered to the motherboard. You have to remove EVERYTHING in order to get the board out of the case bottom. It's possible that the center pin or the tab inside the jack is dirty (ala your floppy disk drive connector) or that there's a cold solder joint.

Tip: If you want to try to clean the contacts inside the DC jack, remove the main battery and use a cotton swab dipped in isopropyl alcohol to clean the pin and metal tab(s). That may be enough to give you a more reliable connection.

"It's possible that the center pin or the tab inside the jack is dirty"

That's all it was. No need to dismantle computer.

Thanks

happened to me too, found the connector pin out of position
not making contact with the plug,got a magnify glass, tiny screw driver ,pryed it out to proper location ,has worked ever since.