Thinkpads Forum

Its about time for me to upgrade the 3GB hard drive on my 600 (specs below).

Can someone help me out with basic info?:

1. Is there a limit on the storage capacity of the drive I can install? (For price reasons, I'm thinking about the 20-40 Gb range.)
2. Is replacement easy? Do I just put the new hard drive in a caddy and plug it in the slot where the old hard drive went?
3. Are hard drives fairly generic, or do I need to search around specifically for a drive that says "Thinkpad 600 compatible"?

Thanks in advance!

John Uebersax
ThinkPad 600 - model 2645-450 - W98 SE/Windows 2000 - PII 300MHz - 288 MB RAM

jsuebersax wrote:1. Is there a limit on the storage capacity of the drive I can install? (For price reasons, I'm thinking about the 20-40 Gb range.)

You should have no problems with anything up to around 120GB. In some cases, you may need to make sure that you are running the latest BIOS for very large disks to be recognized correctly.

jsuebersax wrote:2. Is replacement easy? Do I just put the new hard drive in a caddy and plug it in the slot where the old hard drive went?

Yes.

jsuebersax wrote:3. Are hard drives fairly generic, or do I need to search around specifically for a drive that says "Thinkpad 600 compatible"?

They are generic. But you MUST use a "PATA" or Parallel ATA drive (also sometimes called "EIDE", "ATAPI", or just plain old "ATA" before there was more than one kind of ATA) not a "SATA" or Serial ATA drive for your old 600 laptop. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find new PATA drives. The newer SATA drives are not backward compatible and they use a different connector.

Phil.