Hard-Disk-Controller in T23 (not many details).

[JeriC]

Hello, it's me again.
Well, I was the guy with the 3 old Thinkpad 770s. Now I have a HP Notebook, which is quite OK.
But I talked to my old English teacher today and he asked me - because he remembered my old IBMs - if I am good in repairing Notebooks. I said "maybe, I have to see what I can do". He said his old notebook - a T23, but I do not know any details - is broken. The problem should be the hard disk controller - it won't boot from harddisk, and replacing it did not help. Maybe the controller killed the harddisk, I dont know if I understood him right. He said he was still able to boot puppy linux from an USB-Stick.
He also said that he wanted to put it on ebay, but if I could repair it or use it, I can have it for 25 € (the price he wanted to sell it for on ebay). Do you think it is a good deal? Is it a solveable problem, a common problem?
Regards, Jan.

[RealBlackStuff]

A new/used motherboard is what you need with 99% certainty.
$30-40 should do it.
But try checking it first using PC-Doctor from a CD.

[rkawakami]

Agree with the PC Doctor suggestion. That diagnostic contains a Fixed Disk section which does a fair job of testing to see if there's any problems with the HD interface. However, you will need a partially "good" drive if you intend on running the tests. You might first try and see if the hard drive is recognized by the BIOS. With the drive installed, power on the system, press the F1 key to enter the BIOS Setup Utility. Select the Startup option, then the Boot option. If the hard drive has been detected by the BIOS, then there will be a plus sign in front of the "Hard Drive" line. Selecting that line and pressing the Enter key will expand that menu line to reveal the make/model of the disk drive. If there is an exclamation point in front of the listing, then you have found the problem. The exclamation point means that the drive has been disabled from the boot sequence. Simply press the Insert key to enable the drive, press the F10 key to save the new BIOS settings and see if that helps.

If the drive does not show up in the BIOS menu, it could mean that the drive is dead or there's a problem with the HD interface on the motherboard. Try another drive which is known to work and see if the T23's BIOS can see it. If not, then it's probably time for a replacement motherboard .

Assuming that the BIOS "sees" the drive but still does not boot it, you can download a copy of the PC Doctor program directly from the Lenovo Support site but you will need three diskettes:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4YZM3F

Or you can grab the .ISO file that I host and burn it on a CD:

http://www.kawakami-ca.com/ibm_t2x/ibm_t22_pcdiag.iso

Boot the diskettes/CD, click on the Diagnostics heading and then the Fixed Disks line. None of the tests in there will purposely overwrite any data on the drive so it should be safe to run. It's possible for the drive to pass the PC Doctor disk diagnostics but still not boot. There's a whole list of software bugs that can prevent a drive from booting. However, that also means that a complete re-install of the operating system will usually fix it.

[JeriC]

Thank you, I will try your tips when I get the device in my hands
Well, my Teacher said that he replaced the hard disk and it did not still work tough and he thinks the controller brake the harddisk. But I still have a 4-Gig-Harddrive which I might use for test (it is not too bad when it breaks )

[JeriC]

So, I have almost forgotten it, but it seems to be fixed now

First, I tried to boot Ubuntu from CD. This did not work, the CD was not recognized to boot from. I dont have a floppy drive for this ThinkPad (only for a 770).
Then, I tried the Harddisk from the T23 in my old 770 to see if it still works, but the 770 said it can't boot from it (maybe it will work when I reformat it, I have to test it). (my 770 is quite broken, but it still works for such testing purposes).

Then, I installed a Hard Disk in the T23 I found while I was cleaning my room.
It was recognized and after booting, it showed me a system info screen for a dell laptop (the Hard Disk was inside the Laptop of a friend before he gave it to me). I tried to boot Ubuntu from CD again to install it (with pressing F12 while booting) but it did not work.

But when I changed the bood order in the BIOS so the ThinkPad boots from CD first, it worked

So I got a working T23 with 1.3 GHz PIII for 20 Euro