New T43 2668 97U

[pmcg]

I've had my T43 now about two weeks and I love it.

15" screen (1400 by 1050)
80GB 5400rpm
2Ghz PentM
512MB Ram
DVD-R+R 8x
Chinese keyboard


Here are some thoughts and comments.

First thing I did was make restore cds and DVDs. I made every kind possible. Then I installed all my apps, utilities, and essential data. Then I tweaked Win XP to the way I like. Finally I made another backup of the complete system onto DVDs (3 DVDs and 1 cd). All this using IBM recovery software.

My next step involved an attempt to test the full system restore I had just made. I booted from the cd I had just made, and that took me to IBM's Restore and Repair Gui. I told it I wanted to restore the complete system and it asked for dvd 1. It said that dvd1 had been made with a different version of Restore and Recovery but I went ahead and tried to restore anyway. R&R started the recovery and asked me not to power off the computer. Then the system froze and after about a half an hour of no activity I powered up the system.

I was greeted upon reboot with a "Can not find Operating system" error message. Pressing the "Access IBM" button didn't work either.

I tried the same steps again and had the same result.

Finally I booted from the first cd I had made which was a restore back to system-ship state. That worked and a couple of hours later I had the system back to factory default. Then I launched R&R from the Access IBM button (which was now working) and had no problems restoring the complete personalized system from within that GUI.

Next I ordered a 9 cell battery from IBM and purchased a Microsoft wireless notebook mouse from Costco for about $29.

I put the system (now named Lightfoot) through its first test on a train ride from Portland OR to Bellingham WA.. Battery life was great! I wasn't keeping track of exact hours...but I computed as much as I wanted (most of the trip) and didn't have to change batteries from the 9 cell to the 6 cell.

I got a chance to test the IBM Wireless adapter in a couple of Bellingham bookstores and it worked great.

When I got home I did a lot of research to find a problem-free wireless access point to hook onto my home network. The Internet airwaves are full of unhappy home wireless folks. I tried a Linksys, which worked OK but people on the net talked a lot about premature failures with it, and poor support from Linksys. I only had 14 days to return it to Office Depot (no restocking fees) and didn't want to risk it failing...so it went back.

Instead I got a Netgear WGT624 wireless router from Costco for about $65 (I think). Reviews about this piece of hardware joy were even more vitriolic than about the Linksys BUT Costco has a VERY good return policy. (They recently gave me a full refund on a broken watch I had purchased 3 years ago.)

I also read that the Netgear didn't fail as often when used as an access point. So I disabled the DHCP server by connecting it directly to Lightfoot
and then connected it to a switch on my home network and it has been working like a champ. I am still a little confused about wireless and have learned to use only the IBM Access connection which I set up with a profile.

http://tinyurl.com/8mhtk

BTW, none of this is as straightforward as I am making this out to be. Every step of this process has required a lot of research, testing, finger crossing, and configuring. But that's one of the things I love about this laptop; it's all doable. IBM Thinkpads are not "Laptops for Dummies" as most Toshibas, Sony's, HPs, etc. are. Those machines have barren BIOS screens, minimal documentation, and almost any problem has to be resolved through an unpleasant tech support process.

Next I wanted speakers. I wanted portable speakers and came up (again after a LOT of research) with Altec Lansing XT1s from Newegg for $93.

http://tinyurl.com/97pnx

They are small, have their own little black packing case and sound great! They are powered by USB.

After that it was time for a backpack.

Once again, after a TON of research, it was Newegg for a Brenthaven Trek: $124 at Newegg and $199 at Brenthaven (who was out of stock).
http://www.musicaldiscoveries.com/reviews/trek.htm

It arrived last week and I love it.

I also got a Lapworks Lapdesk which is also small, and allows me to work comfortably in bed, or from my lap on our couch.

http://www.laptopdesk.net/laptopdesk2f.php

It's also great.

Finally, I went to crucial and ordered 512MB more ram to bring my TP43 up to 1GB. I felt confident buying from crucial because their configurator actually had me choose the specific model type (2668) for my TP43.

Since I am a reader of Computer Shopper magazine I entered the code CSPROMO at the time of purchase and got an extra 4% discount. I've been using Crucial memory for years and have never had a problem with it.

When the memory arrived I made a bootable floppy of memtest from this file:

http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip

and when the ram came a few days ago I ran memtest all night as suggested by this forum. It tested well.

My next step will be to insure Lightfoot with its own special policy through my State Farm agent. I read somewhere(perhaps in this forum somewhere) that this should not be a rider on your homeowner policy. If it is done as a rider, and something happens, your homeowner policy rates could rise. This turns out to be cheaper and better than IBM protection from what I read.

This forum has been great. I have learned many many good things here.
One of the nice things about owning a Thinkpad, it turns out, is the community of support. Most sites about other brands seem to be mostly an outlet for griping about customer support.


So far I am extremely satisfied with my purchase. The screen is bright, and the over all the attention to detail in the design is obvious. I love being able to log in with fingerprints. I have enabled encrypted security. I use the keyboard light in dim settings. I had tried a Sony Vaio previously and found the battery lasted less than an hour!

Thanks to all of you who took the time to write of your experiences and shared your wisdom. It made a useful difference and saved me a lot of time.

Peter McGovern

[Zeitgeist]

Thanks a lot for this report!

I booted from the cd I had just made, and that took me to IBM's Restore and Repair Gui. I told it I wanted to restore the complete system and it asked for dvd 1. It said that dvd1 had been made with a different version of Restore and Recovery but I went ahead and tried to restore anyway. R&R started the recovery and asked me not to power off the computer. Then the system froze and after about a half an hour of no activity I powered up the system.

I was greeted upon reboot with a "Can not find Operating system" error message. Pressing the "Access IBM" button didn't work either.

I tried the same steps again and had the same result.

Do you have an idea what happened?

[pmcg]

I was greeted upon reboot with a "Can not find Operating system" error message. Pressing the "Access IBM" button didn't work either.

I tried the same steps again and had the same result.


Do you have an idea what happened?

I think that what happened was that R&R started its process by formatting the hard drive and possibly wiping out the MBR (Master Boot Record) as well. Then it couldn't or wouldn't access the DVD to restore the OS and the image.

Does anyone here have a good understanding of what steps the IBM R&R goes through to restore an image to the hard drive? Or can anyone point us to a good post or IBM document on this topic?

I just did a search for this information in the Windows OS forum but didn't seem to find a detailed description of this program.

Since so many of us rely on this Thinkpad software for our critical data..the more information we have about it, the better.

Thanks in advance!

Peter McGovern

[danny_isr]

i think now you should take it apart and see if you can assemble it back

[baertracks]

I just received my T43 2668 97U from Bill. I agree that this is one sweet computer, and the deal from Bill was the best on the Internet (at least for us EPP-less folks).

I really wasn't looking for a DVD write drive, but now that I have it I am thinking of several ways to use it to back up my existing archives of data.

I have a 60 Gig 7200 Hard Drive from my previous laptop that I would like to install as the primary drive in the T54 and then use the 80 Gig as a backup/archive drive. Here are the steps that I foresee:

1) Backup my data files from the 60 Gig drive to my USB drive

2) Create T43 full System backup of the 80Gig drive to my USB drive

3) Install 60 Gig drive as my primary drive

4) Restore T43 system save from the USB drive to the 60 Gig drive

5) Install 80 Gig drive as second drive using the Ultrabay Slim HDD caddy

6) Copy archived data from USB drive to the 80 Gig hard drive

Any thoughts, advice, red flags or cautions about on moving the original OS from one drive to another?

As some of you may remember I'm the guy from the post "Don't try this at home? - Swapping HDDs from a T40 to T42" (http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=9270), so I have a right to be a bit paranoid!

Regards,

FRANK, Baertracks

[baraider]

i'm in the same shoe, plan to use 7k60 as main hd, and 80g as secondary hd where i put a ubuntu linux on it....and dual boot it..


anyone actually done this? can we use 2 different hd to dual boot...i always thought that you can only dual boot from one hd...after partition it and doing some mbr, grup...thingy

[baertracks]

i'm in the same shoe, plan to use 7k60 as main hd, and 80g as secondary hd where i put a ubuntu linux on it....and dual boot it..

Jus to clarify, I am not planning on booting from the secondary drive. That's what got me into trouble last time around! I would, however, plan to leave the original OS on that drive just in case of a hard drive failure on the primary drive (especially while traveling outside the U.S.) If that happened I could swith the 80Gig back to the primary drive an be back in business (except, of course, for the $%#@ Microsoft Office activation issue).

FRANK
Baertracks
Harrisonburg VA
T43 2668-97U, PM760, 1.512MB, 15SXGA+, X300, CD-RW/DVD-R, etc.

[kimr]

Windows XP activation gets confused and corrupts the boot activation check when you have two disks installed that both have XP boot partitions. I know for a fact this is true if you boot off the second hard drive.

I've never tried it the other way around (booting off the primary hard drive when the secondary has an xp boot partition) but would urge caution. There's also the risk that you or someone else might accidently F12 and boot off the second hard drive. If you have the activation problem you can Google the error message and "BootItNG" and find a hack to fix it.

For this scenario I prefer to image the operating system (I use DriveImage) and store the image on the second disk. Restoring takes less than 15 minutes.