T43 Hard Drive recognition issue

[yvonnet1960]

i am contemplating on buying a thinkpad t43 laptop but the laptop has a
problem seeing a hard drive when u put in the primary hard drive bay. Any idea
whether or not this is a motherboard issue (i.e.: connectors) Or something
more serious. The laptop boots to BIOS.
Furthermore, the DVD/CD bay of this laptop can be converted into a secondary bay
for a hard drive. How likely is it that the laptop would not see the secondary
hard drive if somehow the second bay and the first bay is using the same control?
Or the two drive bays can be booted independently.
Thank you.

[RealBlackStuff]

Are you aware of the fact that hard disks in a T43 go in upside down, i.e. with the label pointing to the bottom of the laptop?
Most (if not all) Thinkpads have two separate controllers built in, one for the main hard disk, and one for the optical drive.
The latter can also accommodate adapters for PATA and/or SATA hard drives (T2x,T30 and others can also have a floppy or zip drive here).
Using F12 at boot time, you can select from which drive to boot.