T60, Windows won't start, audible error, is this HD failure?

[Muse]

The machine was running OK, has XP on it, Windows was booted and running when I last looked yesterday. I raised the lid to check on something not 1/2 hour ago and on the screen was this:

ERROR
2100: HDD0 (Hard disk drive) initialization error (1)


Press <ESC> to continue


WTF! After pressing ESC the Intel Boot Agent does its thing for a minute or two and it's reported that there's no valid boot device.

When I power off, remove power and wait and then reattach the AC adapter and press the start button I IMMEDIATELY hear a fast staccato sing song warning (that repeats about every 2 seconds) of some kind I'm not familiar with. There's not even 1/4 second before that warning starts. It seems to start immediately! Thinkpad startup ensues and the HD can't initialize. After 5-10 minutes the warning sounds stop, but the error message above remains on the screen (unless I press ESC and I'm prompted to change the boot order).

My concern is that I have data on the HD that hasn't been backed up recently. Sigh. I have a HD caddy, the kind that fits in the CD/DVD drawer, and I have another T60 and a T61. I can put the HD in the caddy and see if I can access the data, but I'm not optimistic. Is this classic HD failure?

[Muse]

I put the HD in the caddy and placed that in my T61 machine and the audible repeating staccato warning is heard immediately. So, I'm forced to conclude that the warning sounds come from the HD itself! I've never heard of this sort of thing. Is that what these 2.5" HDs do when they fail? It's a Seagate ST9250827AS 250GB 5400RPM hard drive.

[Harryc]

Laptop drives do not have speakers, so if you are hearing chirps or beeps it is most likely coming from your laptops speakers; If the drive is throwing SMART errors it will beep at you as a warning, and I suspect that is what you are experiencing. I'd run the Seatools diagnostic on the drive to see what it's status is.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/suppor ... s/seatools

[ZaZ]

Could try a Linux disc to see if you can access the drive that way.

[Muse]

I put the suspect HD in a caddy and put the caddy in the optical drive slot of my T61. I hear the same chirping sequence coming from the drive. It doesn't have speakers but there's something in there capable of making chirping sequences. The drive isn't recognized by the T61. A known good HD does work in the T61 with the caddy.

Is it for sure this drive is dead? There's data on it I'd sure like to retrieve but I'm not willing to spend hundreds of dollars to get it.

Is it possible to get warranty relief from Seagate for the HD? It came in an Acer laptop that had a one year warranty. When the Acer died after 14 months I couldn't use Acer's one year warranty. I put the HD in a used Lenovo T60 I bought that didn't have a HD. Worked alright in that for a few months, but it's now evidently dead. Bought the Acer less than 2 years ago. Will Seagate honor a warranty on the drive or is warranty support for the drive limited to Acer's one year warranty?

[Muse]

Laptop drives do not have speakers, so if you are hearing chirps or beeps it is most likely coming from your laptops speakers; If the drive is throwing SMART errors it will beep at you as a warning, and I suspect that is what you are experiencing. I'd run the Seatools diagnostic on the drive to see what it's status is.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/suppor ... s/seatools

How can I run Seagate diagnostics on the drive when it's not recognized by a computer? It just chirps and there's no recognition.

[Harryc]

Well, so far you've told us that it is not recognized by a T60/T61 in it's drive bay, but you need to externally attach the drive via a USB adapter or enclosure to see if you can get data off of it or if it can be tested that way. This is a last ditch effort. My opinion is that the drive is shot if a Thinkpad cannot see it.

[Muse]

Well, so far you've told us that it is not recognized by a T60/T61 in it's drive bay, but you need to externally attach the drive via a USB adapter or enclosure to see if you can get data off of it or if it can be tested that way. This is a last ditch effort. My opinion is that the drive is shot if a Thinkpad cannot see it.

I don't have an enclosure for it. It's failed both in the HD bay of one of my T60's and optical bay of my T61 with what appears the same behavior. I have to think it is shot. It's going to be a royal PITA to munge my data, but that's what I'm planning. Plus I'm shopping for HDs. I figure maybe get two identical drives. They don't need to be too big if I keep the data on a USB connected 3.5" external HD, which I had already, I was just too stupid and procrastinating to move my data there. If I have two smallish HDs, I can Ghost one and if it dies, I presume I can Ghost everything back to the spare one and I'll be up and running in a matter of minutes once I know the boot drive is dieing or dead.

[RealBlackStuff]

If you buy just one HD and that 2.5" USB HD enclosure (dirt cheap on eBay), you can:
- install Windows/Linux plus all programs on that new HD
- take an image onto the 3.5 external HD, repeat every (other) week or so.
- try to rescue data from the chirping HD using the 2.5" enclosure
- if new HD fails down the road, buy another one only then (or warranty replacement) and restore image from backup in minutes.

[Muse]

If you buy just one HD and that 2.5" USB HD enclosure (dirt cheap on eBay), you can:
- install Windows/Linux plus all programs on that new HD
- take an image onto the 3.5 external HD, repeat every (other) week or so.
- try to rescue data from the chirping HD using the 2.5" enclosure
- if new HD fails down the road, buy another one only then (or warranty replacement) and restore image from backup in minutes.

My current imaging software is Norton Ghost 2003. Do you know if a Ghost image of the HD or it's boot partition has to be restored to the same HD? I think it fails if the replacement HD is of a different capacity (I tried that). I'm wondering just how close a match the replacement HD has to be. I figure maybe the same model number/capacity would work.

[RealBlackStuff]

If you update to Acronis TrueImage you can restore images to ANY other hard disk.

[Muse]

If you update to Acronis TrueImage you can restore images to ANY other hard disk.

I believe that Acronis TrueImage is provided as a download with my fairly recent purchase of a Western Digital Green 2TB WD20EARS HD. I don't know if it includes this feature, though. I believe I have the download saved to one of my computers, but I haven't dabbled with it yet. I suspect it's a limited edition because IIRC, I didn't even have to verify my having purchased a WD drive. Acronis TrueImage surely isn't free.

[rkawakami]

I still use Ghost 2003 (via a boot floppy) to image/clone/backup my systems. There's an option to do an "image boot" (-ib switch) that works for me when cloning an OS to a larger drive.

ref: ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_u ... _guide.pdf
ref: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 53#p633853 (Cloned T23 OS from 100GB PATA to Ultrabay-mounted 500GB SATA)

[BillP]

I believe that Acronis TrueImage is provided as a download with my fairly recent purchase of a Western Digital Green 2TB WD20EARS HD. I don't know if it includes this feature, though. I believe I have the download saved to one of my computers, but I haven't dabbled with it yet. I suspect it's a limited edition because IIRC, I didn't even have to verify my having purchased a WD drive. Acronis TrueImage surely isn't free.

Acronis WD edition will only run if you have your WD drive connected to the computer. A USB connected WD drive in an external enclosure is sufficient.

[Muse]

Acronis WD edition will only run if you have your WD drive connected to the computer. A USB connected WD drive in an external enclosure is sufficient.

So, if my laptop's HD is not WD, but there's a WD drive USB connected I can back up the installed HD to the WD drive using WD's Acronis and then restore to a different and different size HD should the former crash?

[BillP]

Here is an example of a restore operation I did with Acronis WD.

A Samsung 40GB hard drive in a Thinkpad 600X was backed up to a WD 1TB Caviar Green hard drive in a USB enclosure. The backup image was then restored from the WD Caviar drive in the USB enclosure to a second Thinkpad 600X containing a 40GB Toshiba hard drive. The image was multi-boot with three partitions and there was no problem bringing up the second 600X with its newly restored Toshiba hard drive.

[Muse]

Here is an example of a restore operation I did with Acronis WD.

A Samsung 40GB hard drive in a Thinkpad 600X was backed up to a WD 1TB Caviar Green hard drive in a USB enclosure. The backup image was then restored from the WD Caviar drive in the USB enclosure to a second Thinkpad 600X containing a 40GB Toshiba hard drive. The image was multi-boot with three partitions and there was no problem bringing up the second 600X with its newly restored Toshiba hard drive.

Thanks. Do you think it would have worked just as well if the Toshiba drive were a different size, e.g. 250GB?

[Muse]

If you buy just one HD and that 2.5" USB HD enclosure (dirt cheap on eBay), you can:
- install Windows/Linux plus all programs on that new HD
- take an image onto the 3.5 external HD, repeat every (other) week or so.
- try to rescue data from the chirping HD using the 2.5" enclosure
- if new HD fails down the road, buy another one only then (or warranty replacement) and restore image from backup in minutes.

You really think there's a chance I can get the data off the lately chirping HD using an external enclosure? Amazon has them under $5 (I can get one from Hong Kong for $4 on ebay but it would take weeks to get, I figure). The HD makes the same chirping noise and isn't recognized both when inserted as the main HD in my T60 and in the optical drive caddy when inserted into my T61. I don't want to waste my time and even $5 if it's not going to work. Having the caddy, I don't see the advantage in having an enclosure. I already have 2 external enclosures for 3.5" HDs.

[91011]

You'll laugh but I've had this work on two hard drives that had mechanical problems like yours.

Put the drive in your freezer for 3-4 hours. When you take it out, immediately put it in the T61 Ultrabay and see what happens.
If it sees the drive get your important data off ASAP. Once you do that, try making a full Acronis .tib backup...if it keeps running.

I would assume the drive is dead.

[Muse]

You'll laugh but I've had this work on two hard drives that had mechanical problems like yours.

Put the drive in your freezer for 3-4 hours. When you take it out, immediately put it in the T61 Ultrabay and see what happens.
If it sees the drive get your important data off ASAP. Once you do that, try making a full Acronis .tib backup...if it keeps running.

I would assume the drive is dead.

I'm not laughing. I will try it, you better believe. I read a thread a few days ago and a guy said he gave his HD a few sharp raps on a table and it worked again. I tried that a few times, no luck. Next my 0 degree freezer. Thanks. I'm still scrambling to assemble a set of my most recent data (i.e. mainly over 200 data tables) that have versions on 3 different computers. If I can just get that little 2.5" HD to work for 5 minutes or so, I can get that data off it. Then if it will work for 20 minutes I can get a bunch of MP3s off it I also neglected to back up (recordings I made).

[Muse]

I put the HD in the optical drive caddy and put the caddy in a plastic bag with a twist tie and into my freezer for over 24 hours. I removed from freezer but found the caddy wouldn't insert completely in the slot. It wouldn't go the last 1/8 inch. I removed the HD and replaced it with a different (unfrozen) 2.5" HD and it still wouldn't insert. The DVD/RW drive inserted fine. After things thawed out pretty entirely I finally got the caddy to go in all the way with the HD that hadn't been frozen but then it wouldn't go in with either HD inside. I can't imagine why this would be happening. Now it won't go in with either HD inside. The caddy itself with no HD inside goes in every time. This is nutty. Anybody got an idea? I just ordered an external USB 2.5" HD case. $5 I figure I'd better spend.

[Muse]

I put the HD in the optical drive caddy and put the caddy in a plastic bag with a twist tie and into my freezer for over 24 hours. I removed from freezer but found the caddy wouldn't insert completely in the slot. It wouldn't go the last 1/8 inch. I removed the HD and replaced it with a different (unfrozen) 2.5" HD and it still wouldn't insert. The DVD/RW drive inserted fine. After things thawed out pretty entirely I finally got the caddy to go in all the way with the HD that hadn't been frozen but then it wouldn't go in with either HD inside. I can't imagine why this would be happening. Now it won't go in with either HD inside. The caddy itself with no HD inside goes in every time. This is nutty. Anybody got an idea? I just ordered an external USB 2.5" HD case. $5 I figure I'd better spend.

I fixed the caddy by filing off a small amount of plastic from two plastic nubs, less than 1/64 inch, I'd say.

The HD I've given up on and I ordered a new one to take its place. My mistake was never testing the HD supplied with my refurb T61. I'm sure it was bad (i.e. would fail SMART test) from the day I got it. I used it less than 5 hours, probably a lot less I'd have to say. I did nothing but install Firefox and antivirus. I bought the T61 on Oct. 31, 2010, and I'm sure it's past warranty, which was probably 90 days.