(T20) Setup did not find any hard drives installed in your computer

[bobbelause]

Hi, i wanted to switch out a HDD to a Msata SSD in my neighbours T20, and proceeded to install Windows XP. When a error then appeared and said "Setup did not find any hard drives installed in your computer". I have looked all over the internet and found only "Change Sata mode to IDE/Compatibility instead of AHCI" But when i then go into Config, theres no "Sata mode" or something, there is no guide to fix it on a T20, im pretty new to this Thinkpad T20 laptop. Thanks in advance.

[MikalE]

If it is a SATA drive it will not see it. You will either need an SATA/IDE adapter that can be installed with the drive in the HD slot, or an IDE SDD.

Either way, I was informed here that your access and write speeds will not increase at all. All you will have is a slow solid state drive.

I should add though, that you can slipstream SATA drivers in the XP installation using RUFUS as I did for a Windows XP 64 install on a T520. It runs great.

[cadillacmike68]

Someone Used to make a 2nd HDD tray in the ultrabay 2000 format that holds SATA drives. They work fine in my T30s. I used them with 500GB HDDs, in the ultrabay. I never tried them in a T20/21/22/23 but those all have the same ultrabay as the T30, so I don't see a reason why it wouldn't. But as noted, it won't run any faster. These best thing is one of those 100GB 7200RPM Hitachi TravelStar drives. those are great drives for these systems.

[RealBlackStuff]

There is an even much better 160GB IDE-drive, the original, genuine Samsung HM160HC.
I still have two brand new ones of those in my spares box.
Only use for them would be in my remaining T23 machines (currently running with some Fujitsu drives).
All others have SATA drives.

I also have a genuine IBM 2nd-HDD Caddy for the T2x/T30 Ultrabay, which I'd be willing to sell.

[cadillacmike68]

The only thing about the 160GB and up is that T30s and T20s can have an issue with an HDD larger than 128GB. I found this out the hard way.

I'm not sure if a BIOS update was ever made to get around it or if it was a winXP SW issue, but after a couple days my T30 XPP 320GB single partition HDD would give me the blinking cursor at the top of the page and not progress any further. I would have to floppy boot it and run an FDISK command or something (can't remember) and it would be fine for a few more days.

I eventually came across something in an acronis forum about a 128GB primary partition HDD limit with these systems, so I partitioned the drive into a 120GB primary and a 200GB logical and it was fine from that point onward.