Hard drives over 128 gig in a 770Z?

Older ThinkPads.. from the 600, the 7xx, the iSeries, 300, 500, the Transnote and, of course, the 701
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Bookworm
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Hard drives over 128 gig in a 770Z?

#1 Post by Bookworm » Sun May 02, 2010 9:57 am

I've heard the 770Z has the 128 gig hard drive limit. Sometimes you can get around this by partitioning the drive, sometimes you can't.

I have a 320 gig in my 240, with two partitions. Windows 98SE or ME can be patched to recognize it, but not if the BIOS gets it the way. 98SE worked fine with all 320 gig on the desktop, but the 240 would not recognize any partition it didn't create itself. :banghead: Windows 2000 SP4 (requires a registry mod) has no problem with both partitions, but I did have to create a small partition to install to, then fix the registry and create & format the big partition.

So it can be done - sometimes. Has anyone here tried it on a 770Z (or a 600E?)?

el-sahef
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Re: Hard drives over 128 gig in a 770Z?

#2 Post by el-sahef » Tue May 04, 2010 6:25 pm

No problems here with a big hard drive in a 770x. Although it also has the 128GB BIOS-Limit, some Windows versions can go around the issue.
I have two 125GB partitions on the drive and they were both accessible under Windows XP SP3 and Windows 98SE (with the unofficial service pack 2.1 installed).
T61 15" 4:3 QXGA @ daylight LED, Core2 Quad QX9300, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD
X62t, SXGA+ @ daylight LED, Core i7 5500U, 16 GB RAM, 120 GB SSD, additional power plug on the left side
770X @ Pentium III , 600X @ Sandy Bridge Core i3 1,4 GHz

Bookworm
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Re: Hard drives over 128 gig in a 770Z?

#3 Post by Bookworm » Wed May 05, 2010 7:29 pm

Thanks! A terabyte drive may seem like overkill, but I don't want to run out of room, and they're getting cheaper.

Have you ever tried one of those tiny SATA drive to IDE adapters? They look like they should fit in the 770 (or 600) series caddy. The screw holes wouldn't line up, but that shouldn't matter in the 770's. (It might be in the 600 though.)

pkiff
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Re: Hard drives over 128 gig in a 770Z?

#4 Post by pkiff » Wed May 05, 2010 10:27 pm

I haven't tried any of these, but I have thought about getting an UltraBay 2000 2nd SATA HDD adapter and then taking out the guts and putting them into a spare Thinkpad 600 series 2nd HDD adapater that I have. Then I'd have a big SATA drive as a 2nd HDD. But that project stalled after I got my X60T.

Here is the kind of adapter that I was thinking of trying out:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... 0015284949

Phil.
W520 (dual-boot Windows 10/Ubuntu 15) · X61 Tablet SXGA+ · T60p UXGA · Legacy: X60T, 600X, 770Z
Thinkpad Media Centre: X61T running XBMC with Broadcom Crystal HD BCM970015, Creative X-Fi Surround 5.1 plugged into Cambridge Audio Sonata AR30 receiver

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Re: Hard drives over 128 gig in a 770Z?

#5 Post by Bookworm » Thu May 06, 2010 4:35 pm


pkiff
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Re: Hard drives over 128 gig in a 770Z?

#6 Post by pkiff » Thu May 06, 2010 7:39 pm

That looks like a better option. Let us know if you try it out!

Phil.
W520 (dual-boot Windows 10/Ubuntu 15) · X61 Tablet SXGA+ · T60p UXGA · Legacy: X60T, 600X, 770Z
Thinkpad Media Centre: X61T running XBMC with Broadcom Crystal HD BCM970015, Creative X-Fi Surround 5.1 plugged into Cambridge Audio Sonata AR30 receiver

Bookworm
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Re: Hard drives over 128 gig in a 770Z?

#7 Post by Bookworm » Fri May 14, 2010 11:10 pm

What about using these big drives in a 600E or 600X? It seems to have plenty of room in the caddy for the adapter; the 770's have very little room to spare.

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