T30 Hard Drive Upgrade Challenges

[doncal]

I have a T30 ThinkPad with WinXP and I wanted to upgrade my 40GB (4200 rpm) hard drive to something larger. I did some research and decided the to go with a Hitachi TravelStar 5K100 with 80GB (5400 rpm). I wanted to clone my original hard drive due to my inability to locate the original ThinkPad installation disks and the lack of desire to reinstall every program!

I thought it would be a simple process, but found that after cloning with Norton Ghost, the newly cloned hard drive would not boot up. I tried several re-cloning attempts, including the use of several Ghost versions with no success. Apparently something wasn't cloning correctly from the boot sector, as the firmware was up to date and I was able to confirm that data cloned from the basic drives looked correct. I then decided to look through the ThinkPad forums for assistance.

Through numerous searches, I found a post from BurnedIn in the T4x Series forum that solved my problems. Since it was posted in another forum and it took some time to locate, I felt it necessary to post here to help others attempting a hard drive upgrade on a T30. The secret ultimately was using Acronis True Image 9.0 (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/pr ... trueimage/) instead of Ghost. I also bought a Hard Drive UltraBay Adapter so that I could put the new hard drive in the UltraBay and clone directly from within the ThinkPad.

Below is the posting from BurnedIn from Jan 19, 2006 at 10:15 PM (http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=):

In my opinion, it did NOT work out. He had to reinstall everything.

I'm posting how I [finally] managed to clone my drive in the same situation.

SCENARIO:
WinXPSP2 on Thinkpad T42, using the factory load for the install.
This means a hidden partition for the 'rapid recovery' stuff is on the drive.
See the appendix note about IBM partition table.

OBJECTIVE:
Somehow clone the current install of XP onto a larger (Seagate Momentus) hard drive.

WHAT WORKED:
Hitachi 2.0 USB enclosure for 2.5" notebook was used as 'destination' drive
Trial version of Acronis True Image [trueimage9.0_d_en.exe] was d/l'd and installed in windows
In Acronis, I chose 'disk clone'
Use the manual / advanced mode
I chose to 'leave the partitions as-is'
Let the clone run...be glad that I'm using a usb 2.0 enclosure now.
Shut down and swap the drive from usb enclosure into laptop
Restart laptop
vici!
The drive boots.
In drive storage applet, I can see that I still have the 4gb hidden partition.
I install partition magic 8.0 for windows
I use PM to move the 4gb ibm_service partition to the end of the drive, and to resize the C partition to fill the drive.
Changes don't require a reboot.
At this point...success.
The clone boots. The system partition is intact. I'm leaving the system partition because I don't want to press my luck. If I had more time I would delete it (using Pmagic from windows).


WHAT DIDN'T WORK:
Several image attempts, several drive clone attempts. I'll list most of them, because it REALLY SUCKED to go through this. Thanks IBM, for the nonstandard partitioning.

Note that it's better w/NT based systems to use ghost to make an image and restore the image. Disc to disc has high failure rate.

I tried to use Ghost 8.0, 9.0, and 2003 boot disk to make an image of 'the partition' and then restore the image to another drive. Yes, I tried all three.

I tried to use Ghost 8.0, 9.0, and 2003 boot disk to make an image of 'the drive' and then restore the image to another drive. That's right, SIX image attempts. At least. With a usb 1.1 enclosure.

All imaged clones failed to boot. I had the 'NTLDR.DLL is missing' error message in all scenarios.

I tried sys'ing C and then running fixmbr and fixboot from the XP recovery CD, per this post
http://archive.midrange.com/pctech/200409/msg00046.html
That didn't work

I booted with an XP full install (not upgrade install) CD and chose ENTER for setup (not R for recovery console) and then chose the REPAIR install option (you can often get this from an xp full install disk). The repair didn't fix anything.

Using the three magic files to boot from floppy doesn't work with XP, so I couldn't try this guy's "use disk investigator to make lots of copies of files that are in too high of a sector" trick.
http://www.mcse.ms/message1263055.html
I did try using a 2k boot disk...after which the drive could show me 'starting win2k' bootloader before a glorious BSOD

Using Ghost 10.0 from windows (note that it doesn't have a bootable disk anymore) to "copy the drive to another" didn't work. I still got the NTLDLR is missing error.
Interesting... G10.0 set the IBM_Service partition drive 'active' and c:on the destination. Maybe the other attempts did the same; i never noticed.
I THINK that editing boot.ini to use the second partition would have let me boot this way...but then I'm stuck with booting to drive D and all my proggies fail. Sure there are ways around this...I didn't explore them. I booted from the source disk and removed th the IBM service partition from the destination disk. The destination disk now gives 'blinking cursor in top left' when I tried to boot. Editing boot.ini probably would have been smarter.

At this point I have acquired a USB 2.0 enclosure which came with a drive and "hitachi travelstar hard drive upgrade CD"
THis is a bootable cd. I try to CLONE DISK.
I use 'automatic' setting. That fails.
I try again and use 'manual' setting and let it 'expand partitions' even though this means an 11gb Ibm_service partition.
Again, the ntldr.dll is missing message.

At this point I decided to try the 15day trial of acronis. The hitachi drive software is obviously an OEM product based on acronis. THe hitachi drive didn't have the option to 'leave as is' or maybe I didn't see it. That apparently was the important part.

APPENDIX I: IBM Partition Table wackiness

Note that PartitionMagic Boot disk thinks that an IBM with factory load is "bad partition table' and can't perform operations. Apparently IBM uses 255 heads when everyone else uses 240? Whatever the reason...you can't use PMagic8 boot on an IBM T series w/factory load. This is observed on a T21, T30, T42, T43, and T43p.

[captbunzo]

Thank you so VERY VERY VERY much for posting this here. Based on your instructions, I was able to get my new 80 GB 7200 RPM Hitachi drive working in my Thinkpad T30. I also was upgrading from a 40 GB original drive.

The current Acronis demo worked great for the initial copy of data over (thank God for the PCMCIA USB 2.0 adapter I ordered with the drive) and then Partition Magic made simple work of adjusting the partition boundaries.

Beautiful!

Thanks again - and to all other T30 (etc) owners coming across this later: FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS! They worked FLAWLESSLY for me.

[Xaneth]

This worked for me also, on a T60. I have a fleet of Lenovo Thinkpads in the field, and needed a way to create a reference software load for our company, and this does the trick. One thing I have to note here, it DID NOT WORK until I imaged from an external USB drive casing to the internal destination drive. Based on other posts found in this forum, it has to do with drive geometry. I also had issues getting power on one of the two SATA drives I had externally. Both drives were almost identical, with only a slight difference in model number. I verified that I had power on one of the drives, however, and Acronis was able to recognize it, and clone in this manner. I used an Acronis Rescue CD to accomplish the clone. Works great, thanks for the tips! Much easier clone than other threads I have found, and a lot easier than the IBM whitepaper that discusses drive imaging.

[RealBlackStuff]

Only the other day I needed to clone the 40GB HD from a Toshiba laptop.
My Acronis 9 refused to do so. Eventually I used the 'Copy Partition' command in PowerQuest's Partition Magic 8.
I was using 2 external USB2.0 cases each with Y-splitted USB-cables.
(luckily my PC has 4 front USB ports)

[Xaneth]

Toshiba, Dell, HP... All of these laptops platforms are ultra easy to clone. Been using Ghost to image those platforms for years. Then I met a Thinkpad... Proprietary in every sense of the word!

[wassallj]

Is this still the best way to upgrade the hard drive in a T30?

[m509272]

I got hold of a Apricorn ADW-USB-KIT for like $25 AR. Also called Drivewire or Universal Hard Drive Adapter.

It's a little block that accepts a SATA / IDE 3.5" / IDE 2.5" and converts to USB along with a little power supply. You install the software that comes with it on your laptop and run it directly in Windows after hooking up your new drive to the block, etc. It shuts down, restarts, copies the drive and shuts down. Undo it all, insert the new drive and you're done. I just did this about 2 weeks ago. Planning on doing 4 more laptops very soon with it.

[wassallj]

I got hold of a Apricorn ADW-USB-KIT for like $25 AR. Also called Drivewire or Universal Hard Drive Adapter.

It's a little block that accepts a SATA / IDE 3.5" / IDE 2.5" and converts to USB along with a little power supply. You install the software that comes with it on your laptop and run it directly in Windows after hooking up your new drive to the block, etc. It shuts down, restarts, copies the drive and shuts down. Undo it all, insert the new drive and you're done. I just did this about 2 weeks ago. Planning on doing 4 more laptops very soon with it.

Did you clone a drive in a T30 with it?

[m509272]

I did an original X31 drive with it going from 40GB to 80GB. I'm about to do a T30 drive with it but it will not be of an original drive. It's one where I installed Windows XP Home from a retail version on an empty drive using the internal CD/DVD. Probably do this over the next day or two. Will let you know then.

[wassallj]

Is this still the best way to upgrade the hard drive in a T30?

I got up this morning and put a new fan in my T30 and then used these instructions to clone my 40gb hard drive to a new Hitachi 7k100 hard drive. Everything went fine. I have started the computer with the new hard drive and now want to adjust the partitions on the disk. Is there any way I can do this without spending $69 for Symantec's Partition Magic software?

[RealBlackStuff]

Yes, get the free PartedMagic

[wassallj]

Yes, get the free PartedMagic

This looks to be too complicated for me. Is there a cheaper source for Partition Magic or another Partitioning software program that would work?

[RealBlackStuff]

There is nothing more complicated about it than other partition mgrs.
Burn the CD, pop it in, boot from it, and Bob's your uncle.

[wassallj]

There is nothing more complicated about it than other partition mgrs.
Burn the CD, pop it in, boot from it, and Bob's your uncle.

Are you Bob? I really appreciate all your advice!

[RealBlackStuff]

No, I'm not.
See this

[wassallj]

There is nothing more complicated about it than other partition mgrs.
Burn the CD, pop it in, boot from it, and Bob's your uncle.

I got up this morning and followed the instructions you sent me on Parted Magic and was able to successfully resize the partitions so I have the full use of my new 7K100 drive. In the past couple weeks I have bumped the RAM up to 1.2 gb, put a new fan in it, and put the new Hitachi 7K100 drive in. What a difference! I am very attached to my T30 and plan to use it a long time. Thank you very much for all your advice!

[Brisingr]

Can you clone a laptop on a 3.5 External HDD via USB.

I am trying but no success using Acronis 11.

Damb blinking cursor, everytime I boot from the cloned drive.

[Mad Max]

Acronis is the way to go. I cloned a 20 gig up to a 60 gig, no problems. I also just cloned the 60 gig up to a 100 gig in my T30, again no problems. Acronis rocks!

[RealBlackStuff]

Take an image of the original laptop-HD (in a USB enclosure) and store that on your PC.
Swap HDs in the enclosure and restore the image from your PC onto the new laptop-HD.
What's so difficult about that?

[romeosongs]

Many thanks to the posts on this subject. I used acronis True Image Home 2009 and the free PartedMagic along with the superbay hard drive adaptor to image a 160g Western Digital. Flawless process. You guys made it too easy. I have two T30s and one of the hard drives was definately on the way out. Now I'm set. I could only have done this by you paving the way with your hard work and perserverance.

[newyorkpaulie]

Is this still the best way to upgrade the hard drive in a T30?

I had used "Ghost" with very poor results, so at the advice of online helpers I got a copy of Acronis True Image... best $ ever spent. You don't have to clone, you simply do a backup and then restore to the "new" drive by booting with the Acronis disc and then doing a restore. You will need an external hard drive to first save the backup and then retrieve it using the Acronis restore feature. You may have to completely hose down the "new" disc first. Not a bad idea to fdisk/format it although it takes forever.