Strange rubber thing in hard drive slot (T43)

[dhave]

I've got a two-month old T43 that I bought directly from the Lenovo website. It's a very good little machine, but I've always had trouble removing and inserting the primary hard drive. When I removed the hard drive last night, a piece of rubber about the size of a U.S. quarter coin or a one-euro coin came out of the slot. It had adhesive on one side and so was probably stuck to the "roof" of the hard drive slot, on the inside, obviously.

Now that the rubber thing is out, the hard drive is much easier to insert and remove -- about like the hard drive on my old T21. But I'm wondering if that rubber thing was an important shock-absorbing spacer or something.

Can anyone identify this part, describe its purpose and tell me how essential it is? Thank you very muc.

[Ken Fox]

I've got a two-month old T43 that I bought directly from the Lenovo website. It's a very good little machine, but I've always had trouble removing and inserting the primary hard drive. When I removed the hard drive last night, a piece of rubber about the size of a U.S. quarter coin or a one-euro coin came out of the slot. It had adhesive on one side and so was probably stuck to the "roof" of the hard drive slot, on the inside, obviously.

Now that the rubber thing is out, the hard drive is much easier to insert and remove -- about like the hard drive on my old T21. But I'm wondering if that rubber thing was an important shock-absorbing spacer or something.

Can anyone identify this part, describe its purpose and tell me how essential it is? Thank you very muc.

Why are you removing this hard drive frequently? The primary hard drive is not intended to be treated in this fashion. Sure, you are able to upgrade it, but constant insertion and removal of this primary IDE hard drive invites damage to either the hard drive or the bay into which it fits. If you need to constantly insert and remove a hard drive it would be much better to either buy a 2nd hard drive (ultrabay) adapter or to use a USB hard drive enclosure.

As to what came out, the rubber thing, I doubt it is intended to come out or that it is a good thing that it has come out. This is precisely the sort of damage to which I referred to above in my first paragraph.

[dhave]

Why are you removing this hard drive frequently?

I'm not removing it frequently. I've done it three times total. I run Linux on the primary drive and Windows from an UltraBay drive. Several times I've needed Windows running from the primary slot so that I could put an optical drive in the UltraBay. This isn't frivolous activity.

The primary hard drive is not intended to be treated in this fashion. Sure, you are able to upgrade it, but constant insertion and removal of this primary IDE hard drive invites damage to either the hard drive or the bay into which it fits. If you need to constantly insert and remove a hard drive it would be much better to either buy a 2nd hard drive (ultrabay) adapter or to use a USB hard drive enclosure.

See above.

As to what came out, the rubber thing, I doubt it is intended to come out or that it is a good thing that it has come out. This is precisely the sort of damage to which I referred to above in my first paragraph.

If anyone does actually know something about this part, I'd like to hear. I'm thinking it's a spacer of some sort. It's apparently a new addition, as it's not present in my wife's slightly older IBM-branded T43 nor in my much older T21.

Thanks.

[Ken Fox]

If anyone does actually know something about this part, I'd like to hear. I'm thinking it's a spacer of some sort. It's apparently a new addition, as it's not present in my wife's slightly older IBM-branded T43 nor in my much older T21.

Thanks.

Reread your own first post. How someone is supposed to infer that you are NOT constantly removing and inserting a hard drive into the main drive slot is unclear based upon what you posted.

You have in fact answered your own question. The part is obviously some sort of soft spacer that is intended to stablize the drive in position; there is no other logical explanation. I suggest you examine the drive bay with a good flashlight and try to figure out where the part came off. If feasible, you should replace it.

The drive will be stabilized to a large extent by the carrier and the multiple IDE drive pins that fit into the female IDE adapter in the machine, but if Lenovo thought that further stabilization was desirable then it would be best to have it. As an alternative to using the part that fell out, you may have a piece of material lying around that would be a suitable replacement and you might find that affixing it directly to the top or bottom of the drive will work nicely. Take care not to occlude any marked holes necessary for the hard drive to exhaust its heat.

Alternatively, you should call IBM tech support and see if they will send you a replacement as well as instructions on where it should be placed.

I find your attitude in your response off-putting. People who respond to posts such as yours are not being compensated in any way for their efforts, other than for their enjoyment in participating in this forum. If you want paid support, call Lenovo.

[dhave]

Can anyone identify this part, describe its purpose and tell me how essential it is? Thank you very much.

The drive will be stabilized to a large extent by the carrier and the multiple IDE drive pins that fit into the female IDE adapter in the machine, but if Lenovo thought that further stabilization was desirable then it would be best to have it. As an alternative to using the part that fell out, you may have a piece of material lying around that would be a suitable replacement and you might find that affixing it directly to the top or bottom of the drive will work nicely. Take care not to occlude any marked holes necessary for the hard drive to exhaust its heat.

O.K., thanks for your help.

[BillMorrow]

ken fox, please relax, cool your jets..

dhave, that bit of rubber IS probably part of the shock absorber thingie..

your thinkpad will run just fine without it..
but it (the HDD) will probably not fare so well if you drop it on the floor..

i have seen this sort of thing before, where something like that rubber part is loose on one side and jams the HDD coming of going..

FWIW, last time i had any info about HDD swapping, it was with the 600 series and they were spec'd for about 300 insertions before the connector would start to wear..
the gold plating DOES wear off, sooner or later..

[Ken Fox]

FWIW, last time i had any info about HDD swapping, it was with the 600 series and they were spec'd for about 300 insertions before the connector would start to wear..
the gold plating DOES wear off, sooner or later..

Bill,

I have no doubt that that someone like you and probably someone like me could remove a primary laptop hard drive many times without incident. But then, you're really into this stuff and have been for a long time, and I'm nipping at your heels

The average person is not very familiar or comfortable working with this sort of hardware, and those little IDE notebook hard drive pins are easy to bend, plus it isn't all that hard to damage a little notebook drive once it is out of the notebook. For the record I've done the latter personally on at least one occasion.

So I think there is more to it than just the number of insertions and removals that such a drive might tolerate in your hands, or the hands of someone like you.

[dhave]

dhave, that bit of rubber IS probably part of the shock absorber thingie..

your thinkpad will run just fine without it..
but it (the HDD) will probably not fare so well if you drop it on the floor..

i have seen this sort of thing before, where something like that rubber part is loose on one side and jams the HDD coming of going..

O.K., thanks for the info. I might do as Ken suggested and put another spacer in there.

FWIW, last time i had any info about HDD swapping, it was with the 600 series and they were spec'd for about 300 insertions before the connector would start to wear..
the gold plating DOES wear off, sooner or later..

I hadn't seen that info before. Thanks. I knew you're not supposed to pull the primary drive any more often than necessary. They've wisely made it just enough hassle that I'm not often tempted.

[Ken Fox]

O.K., thanks for the info. I might do as Ken suggested and put another spacer in there.

FWIW, last time i had any info about HDD swapping, it was with the 600 series and they were spec'd for about 300 insertions before the connector would start to wear..
the gold plating DOES wear off, sooner or later..

I hadn't seen that info before. Thanks. I knew you're not supposed to pull the primary drive any more often than necessary. They've wisely made it just enough hassle that I'm not often tempted.

You may be able to put the spacer back in with a small piece of double stick tape. A really bright flashlight, like one of the small focused LED ones, may show you where the material came off inside the laptop; a pair of tweezers, a small pair of needlenose pliers or similar tool might come in handy to re-affix it. With a few minutes inspection I'm sure you will know more about the anatomy of a T43 hard drive bay than any IBM tech support person you might get on the phone.

The new SATA connectors are a real improvement over notebook ATA hard drive connectors, even if the actual data throughput is little improved. The SATA connectors, which of course your T4x doesn't have, make removal of one of those drives little more complicated than removing an ultrabay drive.

And besides, you're definitely better off than this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3CRMHFGPm8

[dhave]

I wasn't going to mention this for fear of upsetting anyone , but on my seven-year-old T21, I'm sure I've pulled the primary hard drive 100+ times. Yes, I know you're not supposed to do this, but circumstances required it (I had to travel a lot and, for data security reasons, I had to leave my main hard drive at home and travel with a drive which was free of sensitive data).

At any rate, the drive carriage and contacts held up just fine, though the flimsy little arms where the plastic cover attaches were starting to get tired. When that happened, I just replaced the drive cover (a local IBM tech gave me one) and all was good as new. That machine and its original drive are still humming along.

I would take my time reinstalling the drive, but the parts fit so well together that there was very little chance I could mis-install the pin connectors. You do have to make sure you don't accidentally try to force the drive in upside down.

[Kyocera]

dhave, I remove my hard drives all the time switching between OSX and XP, it's not a big deal and don't worry about posting things to get people upset, seems like only one person got upset and out of control.

It's your machine after all.