T43 HD into a T41

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gebo · #1 Post by **gebo** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 10:01 am

Am trying to get the HD in a T43p to boot up in a T41 Laptop
swapped out the IDE Controller to the Generic Dual Channel driver.
But when I boot the computer ,, the harddrive flickers for just a moment then stops and all I am looking at is a black screen .. Its like the BIOS does not recognize the drive .

Updated the BIOS in the T41 to the latest version: 3.21 / Embedded Controller
3.04 but no luck.

Is there any more generic type BIOS that I could try on this laptop?

Thanks in advance , for any help

smugiri · #2 Post by **smugiri** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 11:25 am

Almost certainly a SATA vs PATA issue.

Start your research here. While the thread covers non T43 drives in T43s, your problem is related to this.

gebo · #3 Post by **gebo** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 12:08 pm

smugiri,

Thanks for your reply, I reviewed the thread you supplied and have run into the same situation they did when doing upgrades to the
T43. Not exactly sure I grasp the significance of SATA / vs PATA

The drive in question can boot in a non ibm machine , I just can't
get it boot in my T41. go figure ? Which makes me believe the issue is the IBM specific BIOS, that is why updated the BIOS
to the latest version off of the Lenovo website.

smugiri · #4 Post by **smugiri** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 1:59 pm

gebo wrote:smugiri,

Thanks for your reply, I reviewed the thread you supplied and have run into the same situation they did when doing upgrades to the
T43. Not exactly sure I grasp the significance of SATA / vs PATA

The drive in question can boot in a non ibm machine , I just can't
get it boot in my T41. go figure ? Which makes me believe the issue is the IBM specific BIOS, that is why updated the BIOS
to the latest version off of the Lenovo website.

Thats the reason I pointed you there: there do not seem to be any real "solutions" to this. The machine has a bridge to allow use of PATA drives - this suggests to me (I could be wrong) that the drive is PATA rather than SATA. Your T41 does not have this bridge and does not know how to handle the PATA drive.

This is just a guess though, I do not know enough to give you definitive info on this subject. I have a pretty good idea what the problem is but I do not know how to solve it.

christopher_wolf · #5 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 3:18 pm

The drive should work as a PATA in any machine, regardless of the SATA-PATA bridge that the T43 uses; that is *only* on the T43, R52, and X41 as far as I know. The bridge is in the system itself and the HDD doesn't require extra hardware on top of the PATA interface; it does, however, require a slightly different firmware revision for the BIOS to not throw a 2010 upon boot as the most significant difference. That shouldn't cause any problem, though, as it has been stated that the HDD can boot on a system other than the T41 in question

There was a thread here awhile back about someone having problems with a new HDD in a T41 or T40 and it turned out to be either a firmware issue (which might be the cause) or a BIOS update (which we have already ruled out as being the problem due to the BIOS and EC update to the T41). You can search for it if you like. I will post back if I come across that thread again.

#6 Post by **bill bolton** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:07 pm

smugiri wrote:this suggests to me (I could be wrong) that the drive is PATA rather than SATA. Your T41 does not have this bridge and does not know how to handle the PATA drive.

The drives used across the whole T4x range to date are PATA drives and have the same electrical interface to the ThinkPad. The SATA/PATA bridge is between the PATA drive connector and the drive controller in the T43 and is therefore probably irrelevant to the general issue being discussed here.

Gebo.... are you inserting the the T43 drive into your T41 together with small metal "caddy" it normally sits in, or are you trying to insert a completely bare drive? Your problem has very similar symptoms to that cuased when the drive is not physically connected to the PATA interface properly, due to misalignment with the connector.

I haven't ever had reason to try and boot a disk from a T43 with a T43 system image on it in a T41, but I have certainly had a Fujitsu MHV2080 80GB drive from a T43 in a T41 for formating and loading a new Windows XP image, followed by subsequent succesful booting in the T41.

Cheers,

Bill

gebo · #7 Post by **gebo** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:45 pm

Christopher.

I can't locate the thread that you refer to in your response. Not sure that I am getting a 2010 error, just a blank screen... the boot load process never starts .

I agree that my issue should'nt be the pata / sata issue as my
drive is a pata drive and the T41 is pata compatible . Yes , I got
the drive to boot off of a Generic PC that has an 'Award BIOS'
v 6.00 . I just don't think Lenovo is going spend any time
helping me on this.

Bill,

I was using a caddy, but I swapped caddies with
a drive that I am presently using but alas no luck. This
is frustrating ... would like to at least get to a blue screen..
Am not to good at diagnosing what I beleive to be BIOS issues

Thanks, for your replies

christopher_wolf · #8 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:49 pm

No, you shouldn't be getting 2010 errors; I said that the 2010 is thrown by the T43, R52, and X41 BIOS chips when they detect a HDD not on the IBM Whitelist.

It could be that the firmware in the T43 HDD, that makes the BIOS not throw the 2010 error, is causing the problems with the T41 although we can't be sure of that.

gebo · #9 Post by **gebo** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 6:15 pm

Thanks Christoper,

I don't thing the HDD is the paroblem

This particular harddrive is not the original Hitachi 80gig drive
from the T43 , but a extra Hitachi 80gig drive that was my backup for the T41 that wrote over with a image from the T43 . So indeed this Harddrive had been bootable on the T41

T43 HD into a T41

T43 HD into a T41

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