Need help upgrading hard drive on T30...

[nakedostrich]

Hi there!

I have a thinkpad t30 which currently has a 60GB 7200rpm IDE Hard drive. I need to upgrade to a hard drive which is at least 120GB, is that possible to do with a t30?

I ask this because I went on Amazon and brought a 120GB 5400rpm IDE hard drive, swapped it with the current 60gb one, turned the laptop on and it would not detect it in the BIOS. I have upgraded the BIOS to the latest version but that doesn't help. In the end I put the old HDD back in and it recognised it fine.

So I wrote to the seller on amazon and he said that he didn't think the t30 could support a Hard drive of that size? And that's why I am here, hopefully someone can help me with this.

If the t30 does support large hard drives, could someone please suggest a good brand etc which should work ok?

Thanks for your help,
Greg

[jronald]

A new HDD comes "blank" BIOS might not recognize.

In my experience the T30's can be a little tricky to align the HDD pins. Use the HDD Tray. Make sure the pins align correctly. On one of my T30's I could NEVER get the pins aligned without taking the palm-rest off and pushing it down.
Do you have any other way to test the new HDD? If so double check it, I think you will find its fine and the T30 is being difficult!

Let us know what happens
Ron

[RealBlackStuff]

And T30 can take up to max. 320GB PATA/IDE hard drives.

[nakedostrich]

Hi,

Thanks for your help.

When you say the a new HDD come blank - you mean it has no partition/volume information right? do you know the easiest way to format it (or whatever I need to do to it)? Can I even do that since the BIOS doesnt recognise the drive is plugged in, how would anything be able to format it?

I did try several times to put the HDD in, with and without the tray and it did seem to be fitting in correctly.

Thanks,
Greg

[jronald]

External USB housing is the easiest way to see if the drive is OK.
You are correct that HDDs, new have no partition on them. Early BIOS, can have trouble seeing some of the later model HDDs.
You can also format in the USB drive

Ron

[robert213]

That is why I like using Acronis True Image Home.

Several years ago, I made a fresh install of Windows XP using Thinkpad Recovery and SP3 CD's. I cloned that hard drive with Acronis True Image Home and stored the original HD with the fresh install away for safe-keeping.

Whenever I purchase a new HD, I use Acronis True Image Home to clone the HD with the fresh Windows XP install.