A30 died with disc inside drive.

[Jaa]

Hi Guys, not been on for a long time.
Ok my A30 died on me last week whilst loading music, I have had it since new and been very pleased with it.
A friend thinks the pcu has fried.
I have several drives etc and wondered it they would fit other Ibm ThinkPad’s if I purchased another updated model.
Also how can I free a Cd disc still in one of the drives the A30 is totally dead no power?
Thanks in anticipation. Jaa.

[Brad]

Welcome to the forum!

Sorry to hear of your trouble.

You should be able to open the drive by placing a straightened paper clip in the small hole on the front of the drive. You may have to poke around just a little until the drive magically opens.

Your hard dirve is an IDE or PATA drive. Since about the middle of 2006 all ThinkPads use SATA drives. After removing your drive you could use a USB enclosure for a PATA drive and then use the drive on any computer with a USB connection.

Brad

[RealBlackStuff]

Newer (than yours) models still using PATA drives: A31-A31/p, T2x series, T30, T40-T40/p, T41-T41/p, T42-T42/p, R50, R51.
T43-T43/p and R52 also use PATA drives, but produce the "2010 Error", unless the drive is IBM-approved. (And these also require different RAM, so not so compatible perhaps).
Unless you need powerful graphics, the R51 with integrated Intel GPU is your most stable bet.
All the T and R models are 'only' 2-spindle machines (i.e. 1 hard disk and a bay for either floppy,CD/DVD or second HD).

[Jaa]

Brad, the Cd is free and h/d removed (ATA/IDE 30gb)I will purchase a USB enclosure tomorrow.
Great info many thanks.

Likewise RealBlackStuff great info I will keep an eye open.

Cheer's Guys. Jaa