IBM ThinkPad 560X | 380Z don't read NTFS Partitions

[ThinkPad560X]

I'm trying to upgrade my ThinkPad 560X Hard Drive to a 80GB and When installing Windows XP on it, it only formats a NTFS Partition. Everything works fine until it restarts and then says incorrect Media source. I can't make a FAT32 Partition.

[ohthinker]

I'm not familar with that model and don't know how old it is, but you may be up against the bios rather than a filesystem issue. Some older machines have various bios limitations that choke on disks over some size, which can vary from (IIRC) 504mb to 8.4gb. Usually a bios upgrade takes care of this, so if you haven't already, check Lenovo's drivers for an appropriate utility.

Once you're upgraded, I'm guessing that you should be OK. However, if you still want to try formatting FAT32, go here

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

and download Gparted. Using Nero or what have you on another machine, burn a CD from the ISO file. Put that in your 560x CD drive and reboot. You'll be running a mini-Linux with Gparted, the Gnu Partition Editor. It will let you partition your drive any way you want, with any filesystem you want -- NTFS, FAT16, FAT32. Works a treat.

Don't forget to set the flags on your FAT32 partitions in Gparted. Once the partition(s) is/are made, right-click on the partition and click Manage Flags. The primary partition will probably need to be set Boot and LBA. If you use an extended FAT32 partition for part of the drive, it can be set LBA (not boot).

Hope this helps. However, others here with more direct experience with this specific machine may have better advice for you, so I defer to them.

[pkiff]

80GB [...] installing Windows XP [...]only formats a NTFS Partition. [...] I can't make a FAT32 Partition.

XP will not allow you to create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB, and it doesn't like you to use a FAT32 partition at all if it can help it. You might be able to get around this by creating multiple partitions and making sure that the first/primary boot partition that you intend to use for XP is smaller than 32GB.

Alternatively, you can use an old Windows 98 machine and format the full 80GB disk in FAT32 under Win98 before swapping it into your Thinkpad -- though if your Win98 machine is not a 380Z/560X, then you run the risk of having your drive geometry not be fully compatible with your Thinkpad, which can prevent the installation from completing.

Better yet, use a DOS boot disk to format the disk as FAT32 in the actual machine you plan on installing XP onto.

Whatever you do, you will need a partition smaller than 32GB for XP to format it as FAT32.

Phil.

[dsvochak]

The discussion here may be helpful: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=35901