T41 hard disk upgrade

[anglerpd]

Hi All,

I have been trying to upgrade my T41 with a Hitachi HTS721080G9AT00, 7200 RPM 80GB hard drive with no success. I Ghosted the original drive while the new HD was in a USB enclosure. That worked without a hitch. I can read the drive while in the enclosure. The problem is when I swap in the new HD. The T41 will not recognize it. When it boots I get a "Disk read error".

From what I've read it seems that the HTS721080G9AT00 isn't compatible with the T41... or is there something I can do to get this HD working?

Failing that, does any one know of a 80GB drive or better that IS compatible with the T41? 7200 RPM preferred but not required.

T41 specs:
BIOS 3.20
Embedded Controller: 3.04
Part# 2373-2QU

Thanks and Regards... Angler

[bill bolton]

Failing that, does any one know of a 80GB drive or better that IS compatible with the T41? 7200 RPM preferred but not required.

I have no direct experience with after market Hitachi drives, but I can confirm that a standard by-it-anywhere Fujitsu MHV2080AH 80GB 5400 rpm drive works fine in both T41s and T43s, and is directly compatible with the IBM HDD firmware upgrade utility.

Fujitsu MHV2xxx drives have been fitted a standard by IBM on many deliveries of the particular corporate T4x MTM that we purchase.

BTW, there are some known issues with ThinkPads in using Ghost to create a bootable drive via cloning from an existing drive. This has been mentioned many times here and is also refernced on the IBM site somewhere.

Personally I use Acronis True Image 9 which works right out of the box, without any problems, for doing that sort of thing.

Also, please update your ThinkPad.com personal profile, as requested by the Admins here.

Cheers,
Bill

[anglerpd]

Excellent, thanks. Would the 100GB version also work?

[cmarti]

Why don't you try acronis true image?

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/do ... trueimage/

The trial version is 100% funcional.

[brentpresley]

Hi All,

I have been trying to upgrade my T41 with a Hitachi HTS721080G9AT00, 7200 RPM 80GB hard drive with no success. I Ghosted the original drive while the new HD was in a USB enclosure. That worked without a hitch. I can read the drive while in the enclosure. The problem is when I swap in the new HD. The T41 will not recognize it. When it boots I get a "Disk read error".

From what I've read it seems that the HTS721080G9AT00 isn't compatible with the T41... or is there something I can do to get this HD working?

Failing that, does any one know of a 80GB drive or better that IS compatible with the T41? 7200 RPM preferred but not required.

T41 specs:
BIOS 3.20
Embedded Controller: 3.04
Part# 2373-2QU

Thanks and Regards... Angler

That's just ODD.

I've got the 60GB version of that drive (7k100) non-IBM firmware and it purred along just fine in both my T40 and now my T42.

Is the drive visible in the BIOS? It sounds like you may be having problems with the wonderful (laugh) IBM pre-desktop area. That thing is NOTORIOUSLY difficult to clone in the T40 and T41. In fact, I got so [censored] at it I just nuked it and did a fresh install from an XP CD. No problems since.

[christopher_wolf]

If I reacall correctly, the HPA underwent a change from the T40 and T41s to the T42s and T43s in how it was actually partitioned and laid out.

[Delmarco]

Any clear answers on this? so far?
I'm about to upgrade my 40 gig@5400rpms drive to the hitachi travelstar 100 gig@7200rpms

[anglerpd]

Update:

Got it working just by using Acronis True Image instead of Ghost. Could not have been easier. Used automatic mode.

Thanks to all who responded.

Angler

[ciocc]

Well, I thought it would be a smooth and painless process, but it turned out that it wasn't.

I was trying to clone my 40G to my new Hitachi 100G 5400rpm drive. I had the new drive in a USB 2.0 enclosure. The first thing I did was to use the Disk Error Checking tool (aka scan disk) that came with my XP SP2 to check and fix any bad sectors ... etc. Everything looked good and I could see the new drive in windows explorer as well as under the disk manager.

So, I started TrueImage 9.0 Home edition and went through the Disk Clone Wizard process of selecting the old and new drives. After re-booting, it went pass the stage where it analyzed the partitions and showed 100% completed. Then it showed "Error: Disk not found" and asked me to re-boot. Then I re-booted the laptop and repeated the Disk Clone Wizard process a few more times and came to the same result.

What did I do wrong? Please help.

[cmarti]

The solution is unplug the usb enclosure just after the reboot and plug it back and it will be recognized.

I happen to suffer the same thing while cloning mine.

And that was the solution.

[ciocc]

Thanks for your help. But I had a chance to borrow my friend's ultra bay hd caddy and no more hard drive not found problem. Like the other post had said, the TI just worked great!

[cmarti]

Glad it did work!

Are you happy with the upgrade? Much faster?

[ciocc]

Well, I upgraded the HDD mainly due to the space issue, and that's why I didn't go for the more expensive 7k model. So I don't expect any increase in performance in terms of speed; and there doesn't seem to be any. However, I do notice that it is a little bit louder that my 40G OEM drive, so I am using the Feature Tool to tone it down.

[anglerpd]

FWIW, the difference in speed between the OEM 40G and my new 7200, 100 GB wasn't discernable either. I too was mostly after more disk space. Mine is louder too. What is this Feature Tool you used?

The real speed increase was realized when I upgraded the RAM to 1.28 GB. Think it would get much faster by going to 2GB?

Angler

[Rory]

What is this Feature Tool you used?

The Feature Tool is here http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Apparently you're not supposed to mess with anything apart from the acoustic management!

[XCoalMiner]

...When it boots I get a "Disk read error".

I'm getting that disk read error with a new 7K100 drive. But, in my case it's under different, but repeatable, circumstances: I put the drive in a T41 (having already formatted it under Win XP while being in an USB enclosure). I do a Win XP PRO install, and all goes well initially up until the first reboot in the install happens, then I get this error.

In another situation, still repeatable, I again put the drive in a T41 (again having already formatted it under Win XP), I and using the T41 product recovery CDs, I get this error after some initial activity that looks to be writing files from the 1st CD to a ramdisk.

Maybe I'll try formatting the disk under the WinXP install and see if it makes a difference.