Thinkpads Forum

I have a 770z with a fully functional but slightly noisy 12.5GB/17mm hard drive. So, I have a 10GB (9.5mm, ATA100) drive that I want to try in it. I cloned the old drive (Win98) to the new 10GB drive using the 770, a USB to IDE cable, and an Acronis boot disc with no issues. I put the new drive in the 770. Nothing I do can get the 770 to see it. Even BIOS doesn't see it and it fails the hard drive test in BIOS. This is a known working/tested drive. What am I doing wrong? Is there some ancient rule about 770's and modern hard drives that I am missing? One thing I did notice is that it is possible to reverse the ribbon cable in the 770 caddy at the drive IDE connector end...that ring any bells? The machine has been flashed to the latest 770z BIOS. That did not fix this issue.

Harry, have you had any progress on this problem?

No, I gave up on it for awhile until I can scrape together another hard drive to test with. Thanks for asking. I'll post back when I get a drive.

Did you have any problems with the original drive that came with the machine? Seems like if that drive works, then its an HDD issue and not an IDE issue and that would be a good thing.

The original drive works fine, in fact I am typing this on the 770Z running D_a_m_n Small Linux with the original drive. So I agree, that's why I am trying yet another drive. These old travelstars last forever, but they have a high pitched whine that will drive you up a wall .

Hi Harry

Just my 2c worth. You mentioned the cable was reversible
but not whether you tried reversing it. I've done that in desktops
a lot with no apparent harm-the drive was invisible with the cable
connector wrong-way-around but worked fine when connected
correctly. And the proper orientation is often not obvious.
The cable inside the 770 caddy does look like it would be hard
to flip, though.

chuck

Chuck, when I mentioned that the cable was reversible, I meant that it fit on the drive when it was either upside down or right side up. There is no key on the connector. I didn't try applying power with the drive flipped over because I was afraid of burning up something. I believe the right way to install the drive in the 770 caddy is with the circuit board down. That was the way the old drive was installed. There is a plastic sheet insulating the bottom of the caddy, so it makes sense that you'd want the circuit board down on top of the insulator. Come to think of it, I don't think I'd be able to screw the drive to the caddy with it flipped over. The holes probably would not line up.

Ok, I am stumped. I tried a new drive, a 40GB Travelstar, and am seeing the same problem. BIOS does not see the drive. GParted does not see the drive. When I go to test the drive in BIOS I get this error;

Dev 017
Err 82
FRU 6010

The original 17mm Travelstar works fine.

Does the original drive have a password? If so, try removing it in setup, then try the new drive.

Bookworm, good idea, but I don't believe any passwords are set. At least none are set in BIOS that I noticed. How would I check to see if the hard drive has a password? BIOS physically does not see the new drive, would a password cause that?

Here's an interesting thread. I wonder ... I think I'll try to wipe the drive using DFT first, then I'll downgrade the BIOS.

> How would I check to see if the hard drive has a password?

It should ask for one when you boot with the working drive. If it doesn't, This probably isn't the problem.

> BIOS physically does not see the new drive, would a password
> cause that?

I think so. In my water damaged 755CE, it showed a user password icon, but when I swaped hard drives with another 360CSE, the 755CE wouldn't recognize the smaller drive, but the 360CSE said the 755's drive had a password.

The 755 was a little confused, so it might have been something else.

If the new hard drive had a password, it should ask for it instead of ignoring it.

Thanks for the explanation. I never was asked for a password on boot and I've over-written the data on the original drive several times. Whatever is on the original 17mm drive is seen by the 770Z and boots/runs fine. I've tried Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Linux with no issues. I am currently running Active Killdisk on the new drive. It takes 10 hours to run, but when it is done there is no question about there being nothing but zero's on the drive. I'll post back with results.

I'm running the original HDD in my 770X but I'll try to find some time this evening to swap it out with a different one just to see what happens.

I just remembered, that I had a couple of stock 770 drives at one point. One had Win95 and the other Win2k. Both worked just fine in my 770X but then again, they came from other 770 series machines you wouldn't expect any problems.

Virge, thanks for the additional data points, I appreciate it. After Active Killdisk ran overnight, I just put the 40GB Travelstar in the 770Z and .... it works fine during BIOS testing. Now I will try to install an OS. It appears that in order to put a (non-new) hard drive in these dinosaurs you must completely zero out the drive and MBR and start fresh as if new from the factory. Go figure.

Well, XP loaded and boots fine. This thread is history....thanks for the help.

Not quite finished with making comments....

Harryc wrote:These old travelstars last forever, but they have a high pitched whine that will drive you up a wall .

When you've been subjected to a lot of loud rock 'n roll music in your formative years like I have, you either always have a high-pitched ring in your ears or you simply can't hear anything above 4Khz or so .

@Harry- I just tried a couple random known good working drives in the 770X. These are clean and formatted using NTFS. Bios shows a device error when I try to test and a WinXP CD says no drive installed. I guess you're right Harry, the only solution must be to do a complete drive wipe.

Virge, thanks for the confirmation. I wonder how many systemboards were replaced in these machines because of this issue .

Harryc wrote:Virge, thanks for the confirmation. I wonder how many systemboards were replaced in these machines because of this issue .

Yeah... If you didn't have that original working drive, I would have called it a bad mobo! You're clearly are better at troubleshooting than I am.

This is some good information to file away for future reference. I'll have to include a link to this thread when I sell my 770X.