T-43 HDD issues, not recognized in bios

[Walterxi]

SO I had a couple of issues with the original hard drive in my thinkpad and decided to swap it for a WD 160GB Scorpio Blue that I had used for storage.

Interestingly enough...when I plug it into it's slot it's not recognized in the Bios.

HOWEVER....I altered the startup list to go run it as a USB HDD and the thing works !

Now I just can't for the life of me figure out why it won't work in it's designed spot...

[ajkula66]

A couple of basic checks:

a) The drive is inserted upside down, with the label on the bottom, correct?

b) You are securing it by its caddy and all four screws, as well as the cover and its screw, correct?

[Walterxi]

Yes. All four screws are holding it in the caddy, and the main one to the case itself.

The label on the hard drive, when inserted into the caddy is facing the bottom of the case.

[ajkula66]

Weird.

Is the original drive recognized when inserted in the machine?

That WD should throw a boot error, so the laptop is not seeing it whatsoever...

[RealBlackStuff]

Remove the keyboard and palmrest, then remove the wifi card.
Re-attach the keyboard, but hold at an angle.
Put pressure on one corner of the big Intel (Southbridge) chip (under where the wifi card was) and try to start (with that HD in).
Use different corners/spots for putting pressure on that chip and keep trying.
If it now starts up, you need to have the Southbridge reballed (see the links in my signature).

[Walterxi]

Yeah AJ...it won't even recognize the original hard drive, so I did some poking around and found one in an old dell that I had that was listed as being compatible, but to no avail. It didn't recognize that one either.

I guess I've nothing to loose with trying what RBS mentioned.

Oh joy !

[ajkula66]

Yep...if it's not seeing either drive, a loose SouthBridge is the likely culprit.

Have you ever had problems with USB ports, keyboard response, LAN or wireless?

[Walterxi]

Yep...if it's not seeing either drive, a loose SouthBridge is the likely culprit.

Have you ever had problems with USB ports, keyboard response, LAN or wireless?

Well I chalked up the keyboard issues to the keyboard itself. Only a couple of letters had issues and the tab button doesn't work when trying to use as a forward for logging in and things of that nature.

LAN and wireless have never had a problem and once in a while, since I'm using my usb port to access the hard drive, sometimes it says it cannot find the OS, but after trying it a second time it usually picks it up.

[lukee]

If the SouthBridge chip is OK, the failure can be caused also by broken ATA connector:
http://zensonic.dk/?p=153

If yes, I would think about T43 SATA mod. You have nothing to loose...