How to clone Hard Drive in a X61 ?

[E350]

I bought a Western Digital Corporation ("WDC") 2TB SSD to put in my X61. WDC provides a free version of Acronis to clone the existing drive to the new drive. But it won't clonse TO a drive in a USB. It says to put the existing drive in an USB enclosure (thanks RBS), put the new drive in the X61, and then boot from the USB and run the Acronis software to clone from the USB drive to the new drive.

But even though I went into BIOS and changed the Startup to boot from USB HD first, I get a Windows 10 error that Windows 10 won't boot from USB.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[RealBlackStuff]

Boot from a CD with that Acronis, put your original HD in the USB-enclosure and the 2TB SSD in the X61 drive-bay.
Then clone.

[axur-delmeria]

I hope you don't have much data on that HDD, because cloning from USB 2.0 is gonna take a whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile.

[Shredder11]

Been two years since I last did this with my X61, but I do always use Paragon Migrate OS to SSD. This properly converts the old physical drive to what the SSD should be.

I think I used the X61 docking station to place the old physical SATA hard drive in using a Ultrabay caddy. I may have instead have used a USB adapter but cannot remember, but I usually use the Ultrabay on any Thinkpad for cloning tasks.

[E350]

Do you think it was ok for me to buy this one for my ultra bay on the X61?

Ultrabay III 3 2nd Hdd Caddy For Lenovo ThinkPad T420 T520 W520 T420i SATA 3.0

https://www.ebay.com/itm/271961670778

[axur-delmeria]

Do you think it was ok for me to buy this one for my ultra bay on the X61?

Ultrabay III 3 2nd Hdd Caddy For Lenovo ThinkPad T420 T520 W520 T420i SATA 3.0

https://www.ebay.com/itm/271961670778

No. That's Serial Ulrabay, compatible with the T400/X200 and later.

[E350]

Can anyone source the correct Ultrabay for my X61 / T61?

I cannot find one, but I may be using the wrong search terms.

[axur-delmeria]

Did a quick ebay.com search starting from your link, and this overpriced one was the one that showed up:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ultrabay-Slim- ... 2230105742

EDIT: scratch that. the included pics are for the Serial Ultrabay. I can't trust this seller at all.

[E350]

Hmmm, but isn't the HD in the X61 and T61 a Serial ATA drive?

I have the EIDE ultrabay caddy from my older T42p and it definitely won't accept the new hard drive.

[axur-delmeria]

Hmmm, but isn't the HD in the X61 and T61 a Serial ATA drive?

I have the EIDE ultrabay caddy from my older T42p and it definitely won't accept the new hard drive.

The Ultrabay Slim for the T4x/T6x and X4/X6 Ultrabases are indeed EIDE. The SATA HDD caddy for these models has an IDE to SATA bridge chip inside.

The Serial Ultrabay for the T400 and later have a SATA interface and have a different connector from the T4x/T6x Ultrabay Slim. The SATA HDD caddies for these are merely cable adapters (since the interface is already SATA) wrapped in sheet metal and plastic.

[RealBlackStuff]

The outside connectors for T42 and X61 are the same, the inside ones can be either EIDE/IDE/PATA or SATA (what you need).
Like this (not-slim) one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/271131869347
Here's the real deal: https://www.ebay.com/itm/271961793240

[WarhawkCZ]

I have good experience with CloneZilla. Make a bootable USB and go

[Shredder11]

I just had to do the whole swap to SSD routine the other day on my X61. I needed to move back from Win 7 x64 to XP, and so out came the dock and I inserted the Slim Ultrabay SATA to IDE caddy. I the plugged in an external USB to IDE adapter and plugged a DVD writer into one of the dock's USB ports, so I could load up Acronis from the boot CD. In the caddy went a spare mechanical SATA drive and I used a pre-made Acronis Win XP image to copy to the caddy drive. I then used my trusty Paragon Migrate OS to SSD program to convert this operating system install, and clone it over to the internal SSD drive. The whole process took barely any time at all.

[E350]

I received the PATA/IDE to SATA Hard drive caddy for the X61 Ultrabay. It was 12.7mm thick. I need the 9.5mm caddy.

So I took the thing apart and hooked up the connector to the new SSD hard drive and slid it without a case into the open Ultrabay.

The X61 gives a 2102 initialization error re the HDD in the Ultrabay.

And since the HDD is not recognized, Acronis cannot clone it.

Any suggestions for how to fix 2102 Initialization error?

Note: I went into BIOS and changed boot order to recognize Ultrabay HDD1 last, but that did not help.

[TPFanatic]

The IDE connector in the Ultrabase is already going through a SATA to IDE adapter, and the caddy adds another IDE to SATA adapter, so it's going SATA -> IDE -> SATA, that is likely causing the issue.

You might need another bigger, newer laptop to do the cloning, or do it over USB.

[axur-delmeria]

The IDE connector in the Ultrabase is already going through a SATA to IDE adapter, and the caddy adds another IDE to SATA adapter, so it's going SATA -> IDE -> SATA, that is likely causing the issue.

Not according to the schematics. The ICH8-M has one IDE port, which goes to the Ultrabay.

1. It's possible he got a dud.

2. See if putting the SSD in the X61 and the HDD in the caddy works.

[Shredder11]

I never use an SSD in the Ultrabay to clone an operating system to; I always put the mechanical hard drive with the O/S already on in the caddy, and clone from that to the SSD in the main internal bay.

[E350]

axur, Shredder and TPFanatic: Thank you for your help.

I put the old (i.e., OS) HDD in the Ultrabay (not really a "bay since I removed the too thick 12.7mm case and am just using the actual connectors).

And it boots up just fine.

But the WD Blue 2TB SSD in the regular HD space in the X61 was still not recognized as existing at all.

So, I started the RMA process at Western Digital Support and got this message (or some variation of it) when I tried to register the drive: "This product is an OEM product and will not be registered."

So, I went to Amazon where I apparently bought it from a third party but still had until Sept 2, 2018 to return it, and I started the return for refund process as a "defective item" because BIOS won't recognize it and as a "not as described item" because it is an OEM item which is not registrable.

I will buy the drive directly from Western Digital Corporation if possible and start over.

Thank you all for your help. And I think at this point it is just safer to buy directly from the manufacturer instead of a third party, on the other hand I have no doubt that the only reason I am able to return this piece of **** is because I bought "through" Amazon. Thank Amazon for that.

[Shredder11]

The SSD drives in my Thinkpads were bought from 2013 onwards, and most of them are Crucial BX100 or Intel X25-M 2.5" SATA (SSDSA2M160G2GC). I prefer the Crucial drives but both work well for read speed, but the Crucial are way faster than Intel for write speeds and were very cheap.

[E350]

Shredder: The 8Gb Ram in my X61 is Crucial, so I don't know why I did not consider Crucial for an SSD. (Still thinking spinning mechanical HDDs' like Seagate and Western Digital, I guess...) The price is the same as the Western Digital for this Crucial MX500 2TB SATA 2.5-inch 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter) Internal SSD:

http://www.crucial.com/ProductDisplay?d ... reId=10151

Both use 3D NAND.

So, hey guys and gals, what do you think about buying this Crucial SSD since I am returning the WD SSD anyway?

[Shredder11]

Looks fine although a bit large for a boot drive, or maybe you have a particular reason to go this big? My own setup has all my computers saving files to a central Synology DS415+ NAS with 12TB of storage (still got two more drive bays empty).

[E350]

Bought the Crucial MX500 2.5-inch Solid State Drive:

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/CT2000MX500SSD1

Bought Crucial's SATA to USB adapter called the Crucial Easy Laptop Data Transfer Cable for SSD:

http://www.crucial.com/ProductDisplay?u ... reId=10151

Downloaded the Acronis cloning software for Crucial.

Took overnight to clone my existing 1TB drive to the Crucial 2TB drive.

Everything worked easy-peasy.

Boots somewhat faster. Now I am not bumping up on storage space. Hopefully SSD is more reliable than spinning HD.

Thanks to all.