X40 - buy now or wait?

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immaculate · #1 Post by **immaculate** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 8:01 pm

hi folks,

been reading this forum for a while to research the Thinkpad X40. currently using an alienware desktop PC and a apple 15" powerbook and have been looking to purchase an x40 for a while.

UC Berkeley's bookstore has the Dothan X40 for an amazingly good deal. i called today to double check the specs listed on the site and they told me they only had 1 unit left. the sales assosciate wasn't able to tell me whether this was because the item was just a hot seller or if something new was on the way. the x40 has already seen a $100 price cut since the UCB bookstore started carrying the Dothan models.

things like the harddrive size and processor speed aren't really that important to me (only reason i waited for Dothan is because of the 2mb cache), but major updates like a jump from x40 to x41 or the inclusion of a trackpad would be things i would really wait for.

does anyone have any advice for my purchase or any speculation about an upcoming x41? someone posted that the x41 wouldn't be out until at least Q105. should i wait?

i will mainly be using the x40 for programming and websurfing/word processing.

thanks for any info!

aaron

ldbobby · #2 Post by **ldbobby** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:23 pm

Hrm.... you've already got a laptop... so I think you could hold off for a while.

HarryWild · #3 Post by **HarryWild** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:53 pm

immaculate,

Like anything involving electronics; the longer you wait; the better you are off in turns of buying a better product - more features, more power and better design and sometimes cheaper too! Competition will force better pricing!

I would ditto ldbobby, wait!

immaculate · #4 Post by **immaculate** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 12:58 am

thanks for the replies guys. couldn't hold out because i need a smaller & lighter laptop for school/work (15" powerbook is actually pretty heavy after a while) and i bought the x40 (1.4, 40gb, 512RAM) last week. coming via ups on monday and i can't wait. already ordered another 512mb DIMM from Crucial and borrowed an external CD drive so i can clean format and dual boot XP SP2 and Linux.

thanks again!

aaron

HarryWild · #5 Post by **HarryWild** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 11:25 pm

immaculate,

...i can clean format and dual boot XP SP2 and Linux.

I am interested in Linux and was wonder what particular Linux you had in mind to put on your new X40?

Harry

immaculate · #6 Post by **immaculate** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 12:41 am

most linux installs/packages are more or less the same but i have always used mandrake linux on my home computers. i will either be installing that or OpenBSD on my x40 since a friend has an x40 with openBSD installed and everything working properly (free tech support!)

aaron

verktyg · #7 Post by **verktyg** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 5:47 pm

borrowed an external CD drive so i can clean format and dual boot XP SP2 and Linux.

If you do a clean install, make sure that you go to the IBM web site an D/L all of the IBM X40 drivers. The X40 has a hidden partition that contains all of the Recovery software but I'd recommend calling IBM to get a set of the IBM Product Recovery CDs.

Rather than doing a clean install, I suggest that you get a copy of Partition Magic 8.0. You can resize the existing WinXP partition while keeping the Hidden Recovery partition. You can also convert the XP partition from NTFS to FAT32.

Partition Magic 8.0 will also let you create Linux formatted partitions and has their BootMagic boot manager which will let you dual boot.

immaculate · #8 Post by **immaculate** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 12:38 am

Chas,

thanks for all the tips. i read up on the hidden partition and using PM 8.0 to do all that you mentioned but i have a quick question. do you recommend keeping the hidden partition? my plan was to go into the BIOS, unhide the partition, merge it back into the main partition and then clean format. from there i planned to partition my drive and keep a Ghost image of a clean install of XPP SP2 on the "data" partition of my drive.

is there a benefit to keeping IBM's hidden partition intact (aside from 1-button recovery?) also, have you got a link to IBM's download site with the drivers? i was under the impression that very few were needed after SP2. and i will absolutely be calling IBM for my set of CDs!

one last question since you seem to have done this and know exactly what's going on =) did you convert from NTFS to FAT32 and if so, what was your main motivation behind doing this?

thanks!

aaron

ThinkPadX40 · #9 Post by **ThinkPadX40** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 3:05 am

Buy X31 not x40

I bought X40 but not saw it and not selling here

verktyg · #10 Post by **verktyg** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 2:49 am

immaculate wrote:I read up on the hidden partition and using PM 8.0 to do all that you mentioned but i have a quick question. do you recommend keeping the hidden partition? my plan was to go into the BIOS, unhide the partition, merge it back into the main partition and then clean format. from there i planned to partition my drive and keep a Ghost image of a clean install of XP SP2 on the "data" partition of my drive.

Is there a benefit to keeping IBM's hidden partition intact (aside from 1-button recovery?) also, have you got a link to IBM's download site with the drivers? i was under the impression that very few were needed after SP2. and i will absolutely be calling IBM for my set of CDs!

Ghost 2003 should work fine with NTFS and allow you to copy to a separate partition. Norton Ghost 9.0 is actually an updated version of Power Quest's DriveImage which should also allow you to do the same thing. In earlier versions of both programs, you couldn't make an image to the same drive that the programs were installed on. You had to run them from a floppy. I've always backed up to a SCSI tape drive or to a separate HDD so I preferred Ghost over DriveImage because it works with tape drives.

Having the hidden partition is a personal choice. As I understand it the One Button Recovery wipes your disk and does a complete original factory installation which would probably wipe out all of your applications and any other partitions. IBM's Rescue and Recovery program which should be installed on your X40 will allow you to backup your system and apps but I'm not clear how this all works.

http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/think/thinkvan ... store.html

Even with WinXP2 SP2 if you do a clean install from an MS Windows CD the system will probably work fine but there are still some nice IBM features that you will be missing. Driver link below:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-54078

immaculate wrote:One last question since you seem to have done this and know exactly what's going on =) did you convert from NTFS to FAT32 and if so, what was your main motivation behind doing this?

My original suggestion was to:

1) get the IBM CDs ( you may be able to build a set from the hidden partition with a CD burner)

2) install Partition Magic 8.0 and create the Partition Magic Rescue Disks

3) resize the WinXp Partition and create the Linux partitions. You will also need to create a 50MB FAT partition in front of the WinXP partition if you want to run the Partition Magic BootMagic boot manager as it only works with FAT. Same thing with most other boot managers.

4) Use Partition Magic to install whatever flavor of Linux you prefer. There are probably easier methods, search Google etc.

It's nice to have a set of Restoration CDs for when (not if) you hose the system. I've set up a lot of multiboot systems: DOS, Win9x, NT4, Win2k and Linux, etc. This is my 1st venture with WinXP and NTFS. Multiboot systems are usually a hassle getting up and running but after that I've had very few problems. YMMV

My drugs of choice have been Partition Magic for partitioning and VCom's System Commander for a boot manager and installing new OSs. Both programs have partitioning features and boot managers and both need to be installed from an existing Wintel 386 32bit OS.

I haven't tried the NTFS to FAT32 conversion yet. I was experimenting with Win98SE/WinXP with a spare HDD on my X31 but I ran out of time to play with it. Both Partitions (NTFS & FAT32) are hidden from each other. There are pros and cons about NTFS that I wont get into here (Flame Alert!). If you convert to FAT32 you may not be able to access the hidden partition??? Also there is a 4G file size limit with FAT32 which can cause problems with Ghost Images which could exceed that size.

http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/Articl ... 38803.html

Here's some reasons why you might want to convert back to FAT32 for your requirements:

"Details on the (NTFS) implementation's internals are closed, so third-party vendors have a difficult time providing tools to handle NTFS. Currently, the Linux kernel includes a module which makes it possible to read NTFS partitions; however the general complexity of the file system and inadequate developer resources, both in time and persons, have delayed the addition of full write support. As a work around, a project called Captive NTFS (http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/) allows access to the NTFS by providing the operating system with an interface to the ntfs.sys driver which already exists on most NTFS partitions (and on all Windows NT installations). Though this provides slow read/write support, a few people have reported data loss (http://www.jankratochvil.net/pipermail/ ... -February/)."

There's a lot of info on the web about dual booting Linux and MS products. Personally I would like to use an alternative OS but after a number of experiments with Linux. I've given up again. My main complaint is the inability to do an easy program installation or update. It can take hours of research and experimenting just to update a web browser. You can't beat SETUP.EXE or INSTALL.EXE!

I play around with desktop systems as a sport. My laptops are used as large Palm Pilots for business so they need to work right all of the time!

Good luck!

immaculate · #11 Post by **immaculate** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 2:13 am

Chas,

thanks for the lengthy and detailed response. last night i backed up the hidden partition via networked attached storage and proceeded to merge it back into my main partition using PM. then i formatted and clean installed WinXP Pro. went back into PM after everything was up and running and partitioned off another 10gigs i'm going to use to install mandrake this weekend. the other 18 or so odd gigs is for data. so far everything is working great. i used norton ghost to create an image of my winxp partition with all of my apps/settings configured properly and stored that on my NAS as well as on the data partition.

i also did as you suggested and called IBM and they were more than happy to send me my recovery disks free of charge. now to tackle installing linux this weekend!

thanks again for all the tips. made the process really easy and painless.

aaron[/code]

ThinkPadX40 · #12 Post by **ThinkPadX40** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 12:46 pm

Hurry Up immaculate

Do not wait any more

US Dollars is in the historric Down and it seems going to down more (but every second it can be changed)

so time to buy x series especially x40

European go to US to shopping

X40 - buy now or wait?

X40 - buy now or wait?

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