My X40 won't boot with my X41 hard drive

[Pietya]

Hello!

So I dropped by trusty X40 a few days ago and this rendered the hard drive obsolete a few days later.

I also have an X41 running XP and I thought I would try to swap the drives just to see if the X40 was still fully functional and that just the HD needed replacing.

Well, the X40 won't boot up with the X41 HD. It just gives me a blue screen error at bootup that says "We will restart your computer so that nothing is damanged" (or something along those lines) and then reboots.

Why is that? I was always under the impression that you can just swap drives and everything will work.


My X40 HD is a 40 GB "DK13FA-40" model from 2004.

I found some cheap 1.8 20GB HDs on Allegro.pl (Polish version of Ebay) but it says they're for the X41.


Here's the link: http://www.allegro.pl/item418989211_hit ... _gwar.html


Will this "C4K60-20" be recognized by my X40 without any firmware updates/upgrades/etc? Meaning will I be able to simply put this little pup in there and be on my merry way installing XP?

And what about that X41 HD? Would I have to format it in my X41 in order for it to work in my X40?


Thank you for your help,
Pietya

[loyukfai]

The base system between the X40 an X41 is quite different... For once the X40 is running on 855GME and the HDD interface is native PATA... While the X41 is running on 915GM and the HDD interface is native SATA with PATA converter.

So it wouldn't surprise me if it doesn't work.

[gongo2k1]

this isn't a hardware problem, it's an operating system problem.

the os is expecting to load the drivers for the x41, but those don't work because you've plugged the hard drive into the x40.

even supposing that you got the os to boot up, it would require reactivating windows since the hardware is very different (windows activation is tied to your hardware components). this is by design because microsoft doesn't want you to take your hard drive and plug it into another machine without reactivating. they want you to purchase a separate license of windows for that other computer (which makes sense).

if you want to make sure that the x40 still works, just boot up a live cd of linux.

by the way, how did you come to the conclusion that the hard drive in the x40 is broken?

[Pietya]

if you want to make sure that the x40 still works, just boot up a live cd of linux.

I tested the computer with a Windows XP setup CD and it booted the setup, so I'm assuming everything is fine.

by the way, how did you come to the conclusion that the hard drive in the x40 is broken?

Oh, it's dead all right. I should have seen it coming, too. It started making these weird crunching noises more and more often when spinning, until it finally just crunched itself to death.

Now when I turn on the laptop the HD just makes one loud crunch and then dies. After a few minutes the laptop displays a "Disk Failure" message.



It's a beautiful little comp in great condition with 1.5 gigs of RAM, so I'd hate to lose it. At the same time, there's no way in hell I'm paying $250 for a new HD.

$45 for a 20GB HD is easier for me to swallow.

So judging by what you're saying, these "X41" HDs in the link above should work without a problem in my X40?

[phr]

Someone has a 60gb drive for the x40 in the marketplace section right now, a little over $100 if I remembr correctly.