Disk upgade options for my T40p

[atekant]

I just found out about this forum and I am kicking myself now for having lived without it all these years - life would have been much easier. Oh well!

Having realized that the T60p is too rich for my wallet right now until the price drops a bit, I decided to breathe some new life into my trusty T40p to last another year or so.

So I upped the memory to 2gigs (questions about problems with that in another thread) and bought a 7K100 to replace the original 5K40.

I read through the threads and decided that copying the HPA is not worth it. I have not used it once in the last 6 years / 3 Thinkpads.

Best option seems to be clean install Windows and go from there, but I am worrying about the various drivers for the T40p. I tried dual-booting to a separate install of Windows from the second HD in the bay to try and some drivers are finicky (Ultranav doesn't work the same), and some (Bluetooth) won't even install saying this is not an IBM machine. Obviously, there is something on the hard drive that indicates this is a genuine Thinkpad. Unless I can replicate that, I don't want to clean install as I don't want to be locked out of any utilities, updates, etc. Is that marker the HPA? Is the HPA more necessary than I thought?

So, what is the concensus here for the best way to upgrade the HD?
- try to clone the HD complete with the HPA (seems too much work and waste of good HD space)
- upgrade and clean install and try to live with Microsoft Bluetooth drivers and anything else that doesn't work the same?
- find a way to trick the system to think this is the original drive still?
- any other ideas?

Thanks
Argun

[JHEM]

Argun,

First, welcome to the Forum, sorry you didn't find us sooner.

Second, the HPA is NOT what identrifies your machine as a Thinkpad during upgrades, the BIOS does, nor should you install upgrades manually.

Clone your new HD any way you wish, with or without the HPA.

Once you have XP up and running, download and install the Software Installer utility from IBM/Lenovo: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... E.html#DLP

(NB: The installer will only work if your BIOS shows your correct machine type, e.g. 2373-GEU.)

Run the Software Installer and all of the latest updates and utilities for your specific machine will be downloaded and iinstalled.

Regards,

James

[atekant]

Thanks James,
I will try. But the Bluetooth software must be looking at something other than the BIOS, as it would not install.

I will post a report after the update.

Argun

[Aroc]

I built my thinkpad T43 using a retail XP without HPA and without the recovery discs. So it can be done.

Here's what I did.

• Boot to XP CD, install.
• Get functioning network driver to use broadband access.
• Download Software Installer (SI) from the IBM/Lenovo website
• have SI download and install everything
• Make some tea, sit back, and watch.

[bill bolton]

So it can be done.

Yes! I've used that method too, from a standard XP retail install CD!

Cheers,

Bill