HD Upgrade Advice

[abstar]

Hello all,

I currently own a T43 with a 30 gig HD, I am considering upgrading to a HITACHI Travelstar 7K100 (100 gig, 7200 RPM), I would like to clone the HPA and my data, do I need a new 2.5" enclosure or can I plug the new drive into the ultrabay? I'm assuming that this is the space to the right of the DVD drive, correct? Would a program such as Norton ghost recognize the hidden partition or do I need to move the files manually?

Also are there any guides posted on the forum on how to disassemble the t43 and install the new drive?

Thanks!

[Ken Fox]

Hello all,

I currently own a T43 with a 30 gig HD, I am considering upgrading to a HITACHI Travelstar 7K100 (100 gig, 7200 RPM), I would like to clone the HPA and my data, do I need a new 2.5" enclosure or can I plug the new drive into the ultrabay? I'm assuming that this is the space to the right of the DVD drive, correct? Would a program such as Norton ghost recognize the hidden partition or do I need to move the files manually?

Also are there any guides posted on the forum on how to disassemble the t43 and install the new card?

Thanks!

The ultrabay is the space OCCUPIED by your DVD drive, which would have to be removed at least temporarily in order to use it, then with an adapter for this space you could put the other hard drive in. And, you will need some sort of adapter in order to clone your hard drive UNLESS you choose to do it with optical disks, which is possible with Norton Ghost 2003 and probably other such programs. Of course, if you don't buy an adapter of some sort or an enclosure then you will be left with your old hard drive and no use for it, so you can argue for buying an enclosure. A 30gb notebook drive is as close to worthless these days as a hard drive can be, so on the other hand you could decide to toss it and not buy an enclosure and not lose a whole lot. Your choice.

There are at least two guides I know of on cloning hard drives located in these forums; check the stickies (top posts) on the forums especially the general hardware and software forum.

If you are intending on using the new hard drive as your main (boot/system) drive (and you should, it is undoubtedly faster than what you are using) you are going to have to deal with the issue of the dreaded "2010" error that accompanies the use of hard drives bought other than from Lenovo for use in a T43. And, you want to buy the hard drive elsewhere because Lenovo will charge you 2-3x as much for the same drive whose only difference is the firmware accompanying it.

At the top of this forum is a sticky entitled something to the effect of "using non-thinkpad options drives in T43s" You should read it. The drive you have selected is the one with the most written about it and by reading through posts on that thread and two or three others on these boards you should be able to figure out how to accomplish the necessary hard drive flash.

Warning: there is at least a theoretical risk of trashing your new drive with this technique so you need to be mindful of the risks and approach with caution before you proceed.

Finally, if you use Ghost to clone your drive you will need to use the "-1b" switch when you perform the initial image or the boot sector will not be imaged and the new drive will not boot. This will become obvious when your attempts at booting up are met by only a blinking cursor. All is not lost; there is an ibm master boot record repair diskette you can make which will fix this problem should it occur.

[abstar]

Thanks! You answered most of my questions. Just a few follow-ups,

If the ultrabay is the space occupied by the DVD drive, what is the space next to it? There seems to be some sort of door on it and underneath the laptop there is a symbol for an HD and there is also a screw that seems to lock the whole thing into place.

The 2010 error, from my understanding is just a message that displays when the computer is powered on, are there any further disruptions caused by this? Does it also pop up when returning from hibernation?

And just to clarify, if I use arconis or Norton to image the original drive, it will automatically include the Hidden Restore partition in the image?

Thanks.

[Ken Fox]

Thanks! You answered most of my questions. Just a few follow-ups,

If the ultrabay is the space occupied by the DVD drive, what is the space next to it? There seems to be some sort of door on it and underneath the laptop there is a symbol for an HD and there is also a screw that seems to lock the whole thing into place.

The 2010 error, from my understanding is just a message that displays when the computer is powered on, are there any further disruptions caused by this? Does it also pop up when returning from hibernation?

And just to clarify, if I use arconis or Norton to image the original drive, it will automatically include the Hidden Restore partition in the image?

Thanks.

Just in front of the ultrabay on a T43 is where the main hard drive lives. It is on a tray that is not intended to be pulled in and out repeatedly, as is the ultrabay.

I have never experienced a 2010 error. I only received my T43 about 3 weeks ago and had already purchased a new 7K100 for it. since I had a T42 at that time, I used the T42 to flash the ibm firmware onto the replacement drive before I got the T43. Hence, my new hard drive was "good to go" when I first put it into the main hard drive tray of the T43. I think you can learn more about the T43's 2010 error by reading posts related to it on these forums.

I have never used Acronis, so I can't comment on it. As to Norton Ghost 2003, you would have to choose to image the entire disk as opposed to just a partition in order to get both the service partition and the windows xp partitions on your image. This is done best with the afforementioned -1b switch under options before imaging the drive, in order to get the boot sector in addition to the partitions.

[abstar]

Thanks again, I'm going to go ahead and order the 7K100 and an enclosure.