HDD Clarification needed T43 - 1875-D6U

[losmeme]

All;

I recently purchased a new 5K100 HDD for a T43. This was a PATA drive. Other than the unsupported drive error, I was able to load XP OK and boot, but it seemed slow. Re-installed the original 5400 RPM drive, and haven't really used the computer since. (My X31 is my main lappy)

Do ALL T43's with Intel integrated graphics use SATA HDDs as well?

For some reason, I was under the impression that T43s with Intel integrated still used PATA drives, not sure where I picked that up.

Thanks for the response!

[GomJabbar]

For some reason, I was under the impression that T43s with Intel integrated still used PATA drives, not sure where I picked that up.

Yep.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 258#252258

As far as your drive being slow, check in Device Manager under IDE/ATA ATAPI controllers > Primary IDE Channel > Advanced Settings. It should be using UltraDMA Mode 5. If it is in PIO Mode, that would certainly account for the sluggishness.

[Ken Fox]

All;


Do ALL T43's with Intel integrated graphics use SATA HDDs as well?

For some reason, I was under the impression that T43s with Intel integrated still used PATA drives, not sure where I picked that up.

Thanks for the response!

The T43 has a SATA-PATA bridge in it, but does not use SATA drives, only PATA drives. Even the newer version Ultrabay SATA drive adapter will NOT fit in the Ultrabay of a T43. The only way that I am aware of for using a SATA drive in a T43 is via a USB2 2.5" hard drive box.

[Domain]

I'm being lazy on the search here, I know, but in a nutshell what's with the SATA-PATA bridge deal? If I wanted to buy a new HD, what would I be looking to pick up?

[Ken Fox]

Here's the summary statement: for whatever reason, Lenovo chose to design the T43 around components that normally would use SATA interface drives, but for whatever reason they decided to stick with PATA drives at that time. Presumably they decided to do this because there weren't so many SATA drive choices back when the T43 was designed as there are now.

Because of some real or imagined concerns about how the data would transit the SATA-PATA bridge, Lenovo decided to certify certain specific drives with certain specific firmware versions as being suitable and reliable for use in this laptop. The firmware on the machine was encoded in such a way as to have a hiccup if any other drive was put in the machine, hence the infamous 2010 error. Initially the 2010 error was more annoying than it is currently with the most recent bios one can put on a T43; it used to stop the boot up process. Now, one can set the bios to simply pause, give its annoying message, then continue with boot up and use whatever drive you put in it.

Options Thinkpad drives are the name for hard drives you would buy from Lenovo with FRU (IBM part numbers) attached to them. For the most part they are more or less identical to retail drives however they differ in terms of the firmware on the drive, generally in unimportant ways and in some cases just by virtue of how they respond to the bios at boot up, telling the bios that they are "options" drives as opposed to generic retail drives. Options drives tend to cost 2 to 3x as much as the more or less identical same drive you might buy from a reseller such as Newegg.com

If you stick to certain specific retail drives that are commonly used to upgrade a T43 and that are more or less the same drives Lenovo offers as upgrades or options drives, you can reflash the firmware yourself, with a program on a CD that you can download from Lenovo, that will "fool" the bios of your T43 into thinking it is dealing with an "options" drive and not a "retail" drive. This is done at your own risk and involves booting into the CD firmware upgrade program, with the retail drive in the normal drive bay for the T43, and typing in some arcane lines that have been discovered/written by other users. You can find references to these drives and the lines you must type in on various threads strewn throughout thinkpads.com; use your search function to find them with terms like "T43" "2010" and the model number of the drive in question or look for stickie threads towards the top of the T4x forum and the hardware/software forum that deal with these issues.

The most commonly used hard drives that have been successfully reflashed, include the 80 and 100gb versions of the PATA 7K100 Hitachi 7200rpm drives, and a few others.