A21m hard-drive

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tumanov · #1 Post by **tumanov** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 1:06 am

Hello!

Can anyone tell me, please, what is maximum size of hard-drive to be installed in Thinkpad A21m?

Thanks in advance!

#2 Post by **Harryc** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 5:18 am

It will take the largest (as in capacity) and fastest laptop drive that you can find. Just make sure you've got the latest BIOS.

tumanov · #3 Post by **tumanov** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 6:16 am

Harryc, thanks for your quick answer!

The latest A21m BIOS date is 2003/09/08 (Lenovo support Web site).
Isn't it too old to support modern hard-drives, for example 160GB?

#4 Post by **Harryc** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:14 am

Here are the hard drive upgrade options. It is kind of old, but you'll get the idea.

Hard Drive Upgrade Options

ajkula66 · #5 Post by **ajkula66** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:27 am

I've had 60Gb/7200 in one of those, and worked well. BTW, why would you put 160Gb in A21 anyway??? Just being curious.

tumanov · #6 Post by **tumanov** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 9:05 am

Harryc, according to this document, 80GB HDD is not supported on A21.

Ajkula66, I want 160GB to store my music and photo files without external HDD. For now, there is 20GB HDD in my Thinkpad, and my "data collection" is about 130GB. Some space also must be used for OS, Software and Swap file (I'm using Mandriva Linux 2007).

#7 Post by **Harryc** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:06 am

Any hard drive limitations would have been associated with FAT32/DOS or BIOS limitations on older machines. I know for a fact that an A21 supports XP, thus it supports larger hard drives without limitation. I'd be very surprised if this is not the case. My son has a T20 and I put an 80GB drive in it. The T2x and A2x models are basically the same AFAIK.

tumanov · #8 Post by **tumanov** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:34 am

Harryc, to tell the truth, 80GB is my minimum.
Now, the only my idea from this topic is to rely on your experience and to buy 80GB HDD...
Thanks again!

tumanov · #9 Post by **tumanov** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 10:40 am

I purchased Samsung 80GB. It works well. Thanks for your help!

#10 Post by **schen** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 12:36 pm

Just a caveat for those who tend to read the documentation verbatim. You have to look at when it was written. Quite often, they'll give a HDD size or RAM size as being an upper limit simply due to the fact that nothing larger was available or tested to be working at the time.

On a pretty regular basis, a particular model will actually take a device larger than what IBM/Lenovo docs say it will. A good case in point is the RAM on the A31. The original docs say "expandable to 1Gb" simply because 512Mb SO-DIMMs were the largest size available. Susquently, 1Gb modules came into production and those can in fact be put into the A31 and be recognized. Therefore, the same situation occurs with HDDs.

andyP · #11 Post by **andyP** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 12:47 pm

I'll second what schen wrote.
My T23, (largest drive available at the time was 60GB), will take a 100 without batting an eyelid. Just for fun I'll try a 160 tomorrow and report back.

andyP · #12 Post by **andyP** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 9:53 am

Yep, my T23 took the 160GB drive no problems

BUT a 600 PII 233 didn't

tumanov · #13 Post by **tumanov** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:22 am

andyP, it's greate that 160GB HDD works!
Please, tell me what is "600 PII 233"?

andyP · #14 Post by **andyP** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:42 am

a 600, sorry wrong, THE IBM 600 ThinkPad was first inroduced in 1998 with a pentium II 233 MHz CPU. It IS probably the best ThinkPad ever produced, it is certainly the most popular ThinkPad ever produced.

I also believe the 600 series outsold all other notebook models on the market during it's time. One word sums it up "Legendary".

For more infos have a look at the forum below this one, here's an example:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=46998

A21m hard-drive

A21m hard-drive

Re: Larger HDD

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