320GB Hard Drive

[mrsubway]

My friend has a T42, and I am trying to upgrade the hard drive to a 320GB Western Digital. We have tried ghosting his old hard drive at least 10 times, using Norton Ghost 15, Ghost 2003, and I'm about to try another program. No matter what we do, the computer will not boot from the new hard drive. As far as I can tell, the T42 should support the hard drive. We have the latest bios. Any help would be appreciated.

[twistero]

If you clone disk-to-disk, the new hard drive should be installed in the main HDD bay while the old hard drive should be in an external enclosure / ultrabay adapter, etc.

[mrsubway]

Thank you. Why is it the new drive has to be in the bay? I've been doing it with the new drive on USB and the old still in the laptop. I will try what you suggest when I go see my friend this week.

[twistero]

I don't know the reason behind it, but it's common wisdom in this forum.

[Orclas]

I would also suggest starting the process by low level formatting (wiping) the drive. My experience is that if a cloning has failed once, it will do so again unless the drive is wiped. You can of course always try once, but if boot still fails, that's what to start with.

Suitable tools are for example Darik's Boot'n Nuke or UBCD, which is my favourite swiss army knife for computer fiddling (particularly when you make it bootable from a USB stick). The latter includes both DnB and Active Killdisk, plus a few more, as well as a good number of other great tools such as Parted Magic, which is a full Linux based GUI OS from which you can do a wide range of HD/partition management, testing etc (great to boot to when a machine wont do so from the HD).

[fschwep]

If I remember well, you can download a free version of Acronis True Image from the Western Digital website, and as long as the target drive is a WD, use that to clone the old drive to the new. The new drive then can be in an external enclosure when you do the cloning, Acronis will let you define the source and the target disk at will or, when the new disk is empty and not partitioned, will recognize it as the likely target. Note that you should put Acronis on a bootable CD and boot the computer from that CD once you have the blank HD connected externally (this may involve first changing the boot order in BIOS).
What you should never ever do is reboot the computer with the newly cloned drive still attached by a cable/external enclosure. You must disconnect the cloned drive as soon as Acronis has finished the cloning operation.
I used the above procedure, by far the easiest one if you have an external enclosure or an IDE-USB cable, to clone a clean install with XP Pro and a load of applications from a 250 GB disk in a T42 to a Western Digital 320 GB Scorpio that was destined to run in an X31. Acronis cloned the whole disk including the hidden IBM service partition onto the WD 320 GB, which I then popped into the X31, where it booted happily as disk C:

[Orclas]

What you should never ever do is reboot the computer with the newly cloned drive still attached by a cable/external enclosure. You must disconnect the cloned drive as soon as Acronis has finished the cloning operation.

This is key, as well as having the target drive in the main HDD bay, else you may run into problems like this guy.

[cadillacmike68]

You DON'T need to put the new drive in the main drive bay. Actronis works jusat fine with the new / target drive in the ultrabay. What you need to do is POWER OFF the computer when Acronis finishes. It will do this for you, if you check the block on the operations screen.

Also You don't need to low level format the drive. I just finished cloning about a dozen drives while on leave. I used Acronis TI home v 11.

Acronis TI works best if you have an full size dock and boot from a bootable CD (which you have to use Acronis to create- but its easy) in the dock with your original HDD in the internal bay and the target (new) disk in the Ultrabay. It's a little cleaner, however i have no trouble running it from Windoze with the original HDD in the internal bay and the new / target HDD in the Ultrabay. Acronis will shut the computer off when it is finished so you can remove the new clone, because what you DON'T want is for windoze to power up with the clone in the system as a non boot disk, because windoze will "fix" the disk and make it not bootable. But even that can be fixed with a FDD & a windows 98 startup disk. PM me if you are still having problems.

[Orclas]

And that was on a T4x machine?

[cadillacmike68]

And that was on a T4x machine?

I do not have a T4x series, but this works with T2x, T30 and T6x Thinkpads with Ultrabays and the appropriate full size dock (Dock 1 or 2 for T2,3 and 4 series; or Advance dock for t43 & T6 series). Other than the T4x BIOS not liking certain HDDs and giving you a 2210 (or similar) error - which can be bypassed- they should be no different with regard to cloning.

[Orclas]

Ok, but nevertheless I would suggest to refrain from posting such definite advise unless you have actually tested it on the system discussed. This particularly since people deeply knowledgeable about T4x are of an opposite view, such as:

If you want to clone a drive, you have to put the source in the USB case or 2dd HDD ultrabay, and the target in the original HDD bay.
Otherwise the laptop won't recognize the drive. Funny IBM/Lenovo (il)logic...

Above quoted from this thread.

[cadillacmike68]

Ok, but nevertheless I would suggest to refrain from posting such definite advise unless you have actually tested it on the system discussed. This particularly since people deeply knowledgeable about T4x are of an opposite view, such as:...

I strongly disagree with the above.

T40 series are not a radical departure from the preceding T30 series or the following T60 series. They used the next generation CPU, graphics subsystem and memory specs, and changed from Ultrabay 2000 to slim but retained the same general T-series architecture. T60 series progressed further, but there was no radical departure on the T40 series WRT the HDDs, or the Ultrabays and then a reversal for the T60 series. I have HDDs from T40 series on my T30s and T22s and the same HDDs work in all my machines from T21 to T61.

It's the same with the ultrabay optical drives 9but one way only because you can't fit a 12mm drive in a 9mm bay!!!). I have the IBM adapter trays that allow me to use an Ultrabay slim or enhanced CD or DVD multi burner from a T40 series or T60 series on my T22s and T30s.

If IBM radically changed the T40 series architecture and then reversed themselves, these devices would not work across the line. Therefore; cloning through the bays is the same across all the two digit T-series. Simple logic, not "common wisdom". It does help to know a little about how win NT (these are all versions of NT) behaves at boot time though.

And this little discourse doesn't help either.:

Thank you. Why is it the new drive has to be in the bay? I've been doing it with the new drive on USB and the old still in the laptop. I will try what you suggest when I go see my friend this week.

I don't know the reason behind it, but it's common wisdom in this forum.

Subway, that's the reason it hasn't been working for you. More on this below, but windows sees the drive in the USB as a non-bootable device and marks the MBR as such.

Twistero, it's not common wisdom, the new / target CANNOT be in a USB, but it DOES NOT have to be in the ultrabay. There is a logical reason for this and that is the vehaviour of / Vista and 7/8 with startup and MBRs.

Now I'm not crazy enough to put a bootable drive in a T-series (any T-series) Ultrabay fire up windows from the main bay and then expect the cloned drive to boot anything again until after i fix the MBR, but i have the knowledge to correct that. Nor will i put a target disk in a USB and expect it to work for a similar reason.

If you do it correctly, cloning will work with the source drive in the EITHER bay on a T2x, 3x, 4x or 6x. You just need to ensure you properly allocate and define the partitions and make sure the system is powered off and new clone / target drive is removed from the system before turning it back on.

In your referenced thread the OP (oro) managed to cause a HDD media type error (actually reflect or more likely, windoze did this), related to the clone or disk swapping process. Windoze did something to one of my USB yesterday, my main doc files backup USB, It says it fixed it, but I'm deleting the stick and copying over again to make sure the files are ok.

But, oro is not using Acronis TI , which I am using. I'm not commenting on reflect or ghost, just Acronis True Image.

I have noticed that Acronis has occasionally left the "make partition active" block unchecked a few times on clone operations. That will definitely cause a new clone drive to not boot (but it can be corrected with w98 FDISK), and it's not particular to a specific T series of Thinkpad. There are other things you need to be cognizant of as well in each step. It has defaulted to a logical drive for the new boot disk, That will also cause problems (and require a re-clone operation). You need to review each screen carefully before going on to the next.
I've cloned more drives than most people on this board combined in the past 2 years, using every method possible. It is possible to screw up a clone operation no matter which method you choose, and it is possible to do it right and have the new drive work using any combination except having the clone / target in a USB enclosure. It's windows. we have to live with it, but we can learn as well. Ask me why windows did it and I'll answer because microsoft sucks and win blows.

If you do NOT have a full size dock and you want to boot from a CD (in the ultrabay), then you do have to put the source in a USB enclosure. If you run Acronis from within windows you don't have to put the source source drive in a USB. In ALL cases you CANNOT put the target drive in a USB. That is the only hard requirement. T4x is no different than T3x or T6x in this regard.

If the OP from the other thread (oro) boots from a USB, he should be able to have the drives either way in the T series. I would still recommend getting Acronis True Image. It runs correctly from within windows.

I like how no one on this board is afraid to flash a BIOS from a program running in windows, an operation that can ruin the motherboard if windows hiccups, but these same people are deathly afraid of running a disk clone program from within windows where the only downside from a windows failure is a target HDD that has to be re-partitioned.

Lastly, DON'T power up the system to boot normally with your original source HDD in a USB either. Win will "fix" the boot record on your source drive.

I could buy a T43 (there are a lot for sale) clone the HDD, using my two preferred methods, and send you the T43, and the 3 HDDs with all identical volume IDs. You'll just have to agree to pay for the T43, its shipping to me, the 2 target HDDs, the shipping to you so you can actually install and see the 3 HDDs all boot the T43 and the then shipping back to me here in the desert.

To make things easier i recommend getting the appropriate full size dock, put the optical drive there, make a bootable CD, boot the clone program from the CD and it works more smoothly and faster (but not better)

If you can't afford it, then quit the lattes for 3 weeks and you'll have more than enough money for one.

BTW, i use 2 320GB WDC drives in my T30s as boot drives. Don't get me started on the trials and tribulations of making them work.

[malch]

RealBlackStuff wrote:
If you want to clone a drive, you have to put the source in the USB case or 2dd HDD ultrabay, and the target in the original HDD bay.
Otherwise the laptop won't recognize the drive. Funny IBM/Lenovo (il)logic...

RBS is right. The target it handled by the bios as the boot drive. sorta

[cadillacmike68]

RealBlackStuff wrote:
If you want to clone a drive, you have to put the source in the USB case or 2dd HDD ultrabay, and the target in the original HDD bay.
Otherwise the laptop won't recognize the drive. Funny IBM/Lenovo (il)logic...

RBS is right. The target it handled by the bios as the boot drive. sorta

Seriously, come on now. That is ONE way you can do it, but it is NOT the only way you have do it.

Out of well over 100 clones i made, i only used this method once. It's too slow when the USB ports are running at 1.1 speed. 15 hours for a 320GB drive, primarily because the clone program has to write every single sector/ cluster when the source drive is in a USB, while if both drives are in native bays, it only writes the sectors / clusters with data on them.

I know I've timed clones of same sized HDDs with differing amounts of data on them.

BOTH bays are bootable otherwise you could not boot a CD from the ultrabay. Think gentlemen, this IS a THINKpad forum after all. The ability of the clone programs to use a source drive in a USB is primarily to benefit users who do not have a third drive bay (dock with ultrabay) AND their cloning program cannot rum from within windows. Therefore what RBS wrote is true only if your clone program cannot run from within windows AND you do not have a third drive bay (in the dock).

Acronis does not even really 'run' from the GUI windows (it is only gathering the user inputted config info for the new drive, rather, it does all the real work during the windows text mode maintenance phase, in the same manner that CHKDSK is run at startup, etc. All of the free clone programs can't rum from inside windows, Acronis TI can. No I don't work for them. I'm a Soldier, but i also grew up programming at all levels of the PC from DOS 1.1 onward.

[db130]

To add my 2 cents from my cloning experience on a T40:

1) the origninal drive remained in the original HDD tray
2) the new 250G drive was in a usb external enclosure. The cloning was performed using Acronis

On the other hand, I did have to install the new drive on the HDD tray when I was cloning on a T60.

[cadillacmike68]

To add my 2 cents from my cloning experience on a T40:

1) the origninal drive remained in the original HDD tray
2) the new 250G drive was in a usb external enclosure. The cloning was performed using Acronis

On the other hand, I did have to install the new drive on the HDD tray when I was cloning on a T60.

On your last sentence, do you mean the primary bay (which has no tray) or on a tray in the T60's ultrabay? Where was the original drive? How was the machine booted (Acronis via the bootable CD (where), or was Acronis initially started from within windows?

I don't think anyone's even tried with the target in a USB before, but maybe the newest Acronis can handle making such a setup so that the new clone in the USB will be bootable.

[db130]

On the T60 cloning process, the 250G hard drive was in the primary bay. The original drive was moved to a usb external enclosure and Acronis was booted from a boot disc