A31 issue: Won't see hard drive

[VFR_firefly]

I've got an old A31 that I was trying to get back on the road.

ThinkPad A31 2652-J3U


It seems to be fine and PC doc says it is good too but will not see any HD I try putting in there when I try installing winderz. This is frustrating to me as I've rebuilt dozens of T4x's and R5x's but this issue has me stumped. Is there some special IBM-only hd issue with the A30 series I don't know about or will it take a standard IDE laptop drive? Is there another common issue with the hard drive connectors? I pulled out and looked at the MoBo and it seems to be fine. Looks very similar to the T4x/R5x series.

I upgraded the bios and still nothing.

Anyone run into this issue before with the A31?

This thing has been sitting in my "inbox" pile of thinkpad machines and I'd like to either get it working or toss it in the scrapheap This week alone I've gotten 4 T4x's going and I've got a fifth on the bench to yank the Mobo and send it to superior reball to fix the GPU. If I can get this A31 out of the way I can get almost all the way to the base of the pile and see if that old T20 at the bottom is worth putting a new drive in and loading up...

[Neil]

Nothing special, really. Any IDE drive should work. They only difference, I'm sure you know, is the T4x and R5x drives go in label facing down, but with the A series the label faces up. Other than that, just be sure to have four screws in the drive caddy to guide it into the connector, and you should be good.

[AMATX]

How big's the hard drive? Been quite a while since I messed with one of my old A31p laptops, but seems I remember having issues when trying to install large drives, if I installed them inside the laptop. Might have formatted the drives outside the laptop, then installed them. Vague on this, as it's been several years...

[ajkula66]

Does the BIOS show the hard drive when you plug it in?

BTW, I've ran 250GB drives in A31/p units and haven't had any issues. There is no known BIOS limit for the HD size on these.

[jronald]

I had something (I think it was a T30) that no matter what I did only the bottom set of HDD pins would engage, into the upper set of holes. I ended up installing the HDD prior to putting the Palmrest on, so I could see the alignment. Cheap and worth a try!

Ron

[VFR_firefly]

I had something (I think it was a T30) that no matter what I did only the bottom set of HDD pins would engage, into the upper set of holes. I ended up installing the HDD prior to putting the Palmrest on, so I could see the alignment. Cheap and worth a try!

Ron

This might be my problem.


I'll have to try this palmrest removal issue.

Thanks!

[VFR_firefly]

Other than that, just be sure to have four screws in the drive caddy to guide it into the connector, and you should be good.

That might be the root of the issue. The caddy was removed along with the drive and the cover when whomever "retired" this machine from government service. Many of the older machines I purchase from my source were decommissioned this way. For all I know they put them through the shredder (or whatever method of physcally destroying them they used) with the caddy and cover still attached. Or maybe they ended up in a different box that never made it to the pile of machines I was digging through.

I've never had an issue with a T4x or R5x not having the caddy. The covers are a pain to buy but are available online. The metal caddies are something I often skip if I don't have one as they seem to be an expense I don't want to take when rebuilding a laptop.

Perhaps they are "more necessary" in the A-3x series...

[Neil]

The metal caddies are something I often skip if I don't have one as they seem to be an expense I don't want to take when rebuilding a laptop.

While not absolutely necessary, they sure do make life easier no matter what series machine your working on. If I have to buy a cover, I always buy a caddy/cover combo, because the price is usually the same for both as it is for just the cover. Or you can buy a pack of 10 caddies for about $10 if you shop carefully.