Unexplainable T43 Mainboard/HDD Failure - not the case??

[andyP]

This is for me unexplainable; if anyone can explain it great, it may be of interest to some members.

A customer comes in and has a problem with a T43 2668-G2G which I sold him about 2 years ago, (exactly the same model as my T43). He complains that it only boots 60-80% of the time after turning it on, the rest of the time he gets “no OS found”. The first thoughts were that the hdd had a problem so we tested it with pc-doc and spinrite, it passed both with a clean bill of health.
We decided to call support and ask the $6m question, they said it was probably the mainboard and we should send it in, (thank goodness it is still in warranty)
As this customer is a Dr. and needs his TP we put his hdd in my T43 and loaned it to him for the duration of the repair. Note – his hdd worked no with problems in my TP.

His TP comes back from repair with a new mainboard and palmrest, so we call him and he comes along to swap TPs back again.

We took his hdd out of my TP, where it has worked 100% for almost a week, and put it in his only to receive the message “no OS found”. OOPS! (I will confess that at this point I began to get a little worried). After putting his hdd back in my TP where it worked fine, we put my hdd in his TP where it also worked fine ???
Now comes the surprise. It was as we again swapped the hdds that I noticed the 2 front screws from his hdd caddy were missing, the hdd still didn’t work in his TP. After replacing the 2 front screws on the caddy everything worked, his TP booted everytime from 10 tests.

Can anyone explain this? Why with 2 missing screws didn’t the hdd work in his TP, but it did in mine?

I know that some T2* TPs don’t boot if they don’t have a caddy, I also can’t explain it, but it’ true.

[visionviper]

I think sometimes there is only a fine line between working and not working. It took me a few times of putting my new hard drive in to get it in all the way and working.

[USSS]

Ah, the old "Two screws short of a complete T43" malady...know it well.

Well, I'm making light of what was a very perplexing situation for the OP, but visionviper probably hit it on the, uh, head...sometimes even the omission of simple part or two can spell the difference between "go" and "no go".

A very interesting and peculiar malfunction, and a lesson learned by all, I hope.

Thanks for posting this.

[frankiepankie]

Did you stick in the HDD very good? Sometimes you are pushing with a small amount of force, and then the HDD doesn't make good contact.

I would also look trough the BIOS settings, regarding "Boot Order" etc. And load the "BIOS Setup Defaults"

[andyP]

Did you stick in the HDD very good? Sometimes you are pushing with a small amount of force, and then the HDD doesn't make good contact.

That's a good point, but wasn't the problem here, as I mentioned we were swapping hdd between two identical TPs.

[ajkula66]

By not putting the front screws in the caddy, you've left space for the HDD to float a bit, and it just happened to work in your machine that way, and not in his...

I've seen this a zillion times on a variety of ThinkPads from A2s to T4s and R5s...on certain occasions, you're better off (not recommended, though) inserting a HDD without anything, as long as you have a steady hand and a good eye...I've got neither anymore, but my memory still serves me well enough to know that it can be done...