Hard Drives Compatible with R31

[led_snapper]

Does anyone know which HDD's are compatible with a thinkpad R31? I tried a Hitachi 60GB ATA 100 (OA25022) and copied the image from my old 20GB and added new partition and machine does not recognise the drive.

Am I missing something. Should I copy the MBR or something? The machine just ends up with a flashing white cursor.

Info on lenovo site was v ambiguous as to which drives could be put in this machine though I think 40GB may be max for main drive. Would any 40GB 2.5" drive work? Even 7200 rpm ones? Any ideas guys? Cheers, Ian

[Jay95]

I didn't think it would matter. I just bought a new 60gig Samsung, plugged it in and loaded XP and it was fine.

Maybe something went wrong with loading the image ?

[danieldavid]

A few months ago I installed a Seagate Momentus 40GB ST94813A HD in my R31. It works well, albeit somewhat noisier than I’d like it.

After copying an image of the original hard disk, I had to “repair” the MBR using the IBM recovery repair diskette. Once done, I was able to restore my R31 to its factory state from the hidden partition.

Here’s the program for creating a recovery diskette (or bootable CD):

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-54483

BTW, if you don’t have one, I strongly recommend getting an Ultrabay 2000 diskette drive, which is very useful for running diagnostic or utility programs and is available on Internet auctions for under $10.

Please keep us posted.
- Daniel
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R31 2656 77U, T42 2379 R4U
Favorite disk cloning software: g4u, see: http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

[Pookster]

Im also in agreement with DanielDavid,

It does not matter about the hard manufacturer, as long as it's the right 2.5in drive size and also an IDE. I have an R40e which originally had a Fujitsu drive in it which was slowly dying a death, so I used Xpoint backed it up and then slapped in a Seagate Momentus 80gig and run the Xpoint restore from the backup set and all was fine, but I know what you mean about noisy hehe.

Take care and let me know how u get on.

Pookster

[led_snapper]

I cannot get the Hitachi drive to work -tried every conceivable way of arranging the data from the old drive no the new one and repairing or replacing MBR. It just will not boot it.

I am beginning to think there truly is a limit at 40GB on size of HDD on the R31.

My last ditch attempt is to take a 40GB 2.5" Toshiba drive out of a portable photo storage device and use that and swap it for the 60GB Hitachi in that device. The swap has worked, now for the Toshiba in the IBM....

[led_snapper]

Now got a "disk read error" report on the Toshiba though at least it does seem to come up with the drive details prior to this. However cann't seem to get into rescue and recovery and the MBR repair utility doesn't work argggghhhh!!!!

[Keithj]

The supplied HDD in my R31 died last year. I back up my data regularly, so I installed a Fujitsu 60GB that I had lying around. The "repair" copy on the dead HD had gone too - I find it annoying that a full CD isn't supplied. Anyway, I installed Win XP from the CD for my desktop, and it worked fine.

I phoned the Microsoft "Activation helpline", told them what I'd done, the codes on the CD and the laptop, and they told me what to type in to activate it. It's been fine ever since.

I can't see there would be any limit as long as the drive will fit, has the right interface, and doesn't pull more power than the ThinkPad will supply.

I've had (and fixed) other problems since, but I'm sure they weren't HD related.

[Jay95]

I've got a 60gig in my R31, although I did a fresh install of XP on to it, and didn't try and ghost another drive.

[danieldavid]

In order to isolate the problem, I would suggest making a bootable CD (or diskette if it is an option) with the diagnostics program for whatever model or brand disk you install, and then testing the installed disk. The program for making such a disk can usually be downloaded from the manufacturer's site.

Doing this will allow you to see if it is Windows installation related problem, or a hardware compatibility issue.

Good luck,
- Daniel

[led_snapper]

Thanks guys for all your help I did get it all sorted this week finally, just got a bit busy so finding time to reply today. I got the 40gig out of my portable storage device afterward and tried that - found I had a weird 'A Disk Read Error Occured. Press CTRL ALT DEL to restart'. Checked that message out elsewhere and found some suggestions to run chkdsk/r. I did this after loading an image onto the drive, after formatting it first, in my desktop - using that comps chkdsk prog and then installed and it worked!! Then I thought, "Let's try the 60gig now..." I formatted that, copied the drive image onto that keeping the partitions the same size and orientation and ran chkdsk/r and it (again) did not report errors but said windows had written some stuff. I put that into the r31 and it worked