A31 max hard drive sizes revisited

[sausage888]

Several years ago I added a 250GB Western Digital PATA HDD to my A31 via an UltraBay HDD caddy. I had problems doing this in the left bay, but it worked OK in the right bay. I was reminded that the left bay is merely an UltraBay 2000, while the right bay is an UltraBay Plus. old post: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=50792

Basically, what happens with the 250GB in the left UB is that the Intel Boot Agent keeps trying to use it as my boot drive while ignoring my internal HDD. It just can't see anything but the 250GB HDD while in the left UB, and since there was no operating system there fails to boot.

I am now running out of room on that 250GB PATA drive and was considering my options:

1) Add the max recognizable PATA drive in the left bay. If so, anyone know what that max size is? 100GB, 120GB, 160GB?

2) Replace my 250GB PATA drive with one of the new aftermarket SATA HDD caddies. In this case, I have seen SATA drives at 500GB.

I attempted searching the forums to answer option #1 question and came upon this post claiming you could put 250GB in all three drives (internal + 2 UltraBays). Yet the poster who claimed this had at that time just a 250GB in his internal, plus a second 250GB in his right UB, just claiming that a third one could be added in the left bay.
That post is here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=74976

So has anyone actually done this or was this guy just boasting?

[Harryc]

What size is your main drive? Currently, the largest PATA laptop drive is 250GB. I have never seen a SATA HD adapter in the Ultrabay2000 format, but I guess they exist ...
http://cgi.ebay.com/SATA-2nd-HDD-Caddy- ... e_Internal

[sausage888]

My main drive is only a 40GB. I back it up monthly and it doesn't take very long at 40GB. I have quite a few 40's and am also able to use the backups as replacement main drives on my other two A31's, should any of them crash (which they have).

I never heard of SATA UltraBay caddies either until recently when I was contemplating buying another PATA UltraBay caddy on eBay. It seems they are only available from China.

[Harryc]

Well, the link I posted is for a US dealer. Why not just put a 250GB drive in as your main drive? That would give you extra space needed. Personally I'd like to see you buy the linked SATA HDD adapter and put a 500GB Seagate hybrid SATA drive in there . Let us know if it works

[sausage888]

Since I have 3 A31's, there is a convenience in having all of their main drives identical (40GB) and being interchangable. I have been able to easily clone the OS from one laptop to another in times of duress.

Also, having my data segregated to an UB disk caddie (250GB) also means that I can pop it out of one A31 and into another quite easily. All three of my A31's have UB disk caddies. I have a couple of boxes of PATA drives of various sizes.

I could just buy the SATA UltraBay and go that direction. I hadn't seen that dealer as I was searching for "UltraBay SATA" and he didn't have UB in his title.

I have never been clear on why the left bay would not accept the 250GB disk, while the right bay would. I have never seen an explanation of the difference between an UB-2000 and an UB-Plus. That said, even if I did convert to SATA on the right bay - does that still mean that the left bay isn't usable above 120GB?

I kept hoping that some patch or fix would allow the left bay to accept the higher disk sizes. That is what that other post was claiming - that it could be done.

[Harryc]

Not sure if there is a question in all of that, but I guess there is one about the left drive bay. I've never put anything there except a diskette drive, so I just don't know. Maybe someone else will come along who has used it for a hard drive.

[ajkula66]

It can be done.

I have a 160GB Samsung hard drive in the left bay.

Having said that, I've seen A3x machines which failed to recognize this setup in XP. To make the matters more confusing, Everest was "seeing" the drive being installed, but "My Computer" wasn't. Now stick that in your pipe...

[RealBlackStuff]

FYI: the largest 2.5" PATA hard drive is 320GB.
e.g. Western Digital 320GB 2.5" Scorpio Blue IDE Hard Drive (WD3200BEVE)

[sausage888]

I tried playing around with relocating the 250GB drive in the left or right ultrabay and seeing what BIOS had to tell me.

When in the right ultrabay, A31 sees the 250GB drive as Secondary Master as well as recognizing the 40GB Primary Master.

When in the left ultrabay, A31 sees only the 250GB drive as Primary Slave - but no longer recognizes Primary Master, in essence seeing the 250GB drive as the only drive on system. This is why it won't boot.

I chased around repeating my steps of how I even got the 250GB to work in the right ultrabay - which it didn't when I first got it. The answer was downloading and installing the Intel Application Accelerator which allowed the addressing to go above 137GB, but it appears only on the right side (Secondary Master). Is that to say that the change did not take effect for drives in slave position?

Wondering if the person who has a 160GB drive in left ultrabay would check what his BIOS is saying?

[ajkula66]

sausage888 wrote:

Wondering if the person who has a 160GB drive in left ultrabay would check what his BIOS is saying?

I'd love to, but my A31p's motherboard is away awaiting re-balling...I'll post once I get it back.

I will tell you that I've never downloaded the Intel software you were referring to in your post, though.

Good luck.

[sausage888]

I'd appreciate it if you would

[ajkula66]

Well, I just received another A31p (2653-RMU, dead stock), threw the carrier with 160GB in the left slot and it behaves the same way it does on my machine: no issues whatsoever. It's seen in BIOS as PS, and all the files (I don't have it anywhere near full, though) are accessible. When I insert it in the right bay, it's shown as SM.

Hope this helps.

[sausage888]

So I wonder why my A31 won't recognize my 250GB drive in the left bay? It must be something software related, then.