T500 Win7 Docking Issue with Dock 2503

[chubbsville]

My T500 with Win7 does not see the HDD installed in the dock. But my R61i with XP sees it just fine.

Here we have a fully operational Dock 2503; an R61i (Win XP Pro SP3), and a rebuilt T500 (Win 7 Pro SP1). And there are no SSD's or any other 'modern' hardware in my house. I have installed all of the Lenovo upgrades which I can find. What have I missed?

[dr_st]

One thing to check - when the laptop is docked - are there any devices in the Device Managers that complain about problems / missing drivers?

[cadillacmike68]

Can the T500 see the HDD when it is in the T500's ultrabay??

[chubbsville]

The T500 (Win7) does not see the HDD installed in the ultrabay, but the R61i (XP) sees it just fine. That is my issue.
Device Manager - Other Devices - PCI Serial Port has the yellow flag. Hardware and Device Troubleshooter notes that there is no driver for PCI Serial Port.

[chubbsville]

I just installed Intel AMT 4.2 LMS and SOL, and now there are no issues showing in Device Manager. Still the T500 does not see the dock's HDD.

[farfignoogin]

Hey was looking at Goodwill site today. There is a 2503 advanced dock up for auction…starting at $4.99 plus shipping. I got mine already so just spreading the word!

[cadillacmike68]

The T500 (Win7) does not see the HDD installed in the ultrabay, but the R61i (XP) sees it just fine. That is my issue.
Device Manager - Other Devices - PCI Serial Port has the yellow flag. Hardware and Device Troubleshooter notes that there is no driver for PCI Serial Port.

Perhaps I should be more clear:

Does the T500 see the HDD when the HDD is the T500's ultrabay when the T500 is NOT in the dock??

[chubbsville]

Thanks to you, cadillacmike68 for your advice. We are on Hold here, since I am recovering from surgery for the rest of July. And I know you want me to swap the HDD from the 2503 dock to the T500 laptop to verify its operation.

Our Patience is necessary . . .

[cadillacmike68]

Take your time to get better!

[chubbsville]

I spoke with Chris (Lenovo's tech from Atlanta), and he thinks I have Missing Software or Firmware for this year 2006 Dock. Neither of us can find it anywhere on Lenovo's sites, including their sites for discontinued products.
Has ANYONE some Lenovo firmware or software for my Advanced Dock 2503, Ser # M4B3222?
My T500 (2055BE9, ser # R878FZR) with Win 7 still can not see the HDD, but all the other docking features work fine. And my R61i (7732-2MU, Ser # L3Z3969) with Win XP sp3 has no issues. Can I just copy a specific file from one laptop to the other?? HELP!!

[chubbsville]

RESOLVED: I did not understand that HDD Partitioning is OS dependent. I am accessing a Dock installed 500 GB HDD with XP and now also with Win7.

The T500 did assign a drive letter to the 2503 Dock installed HDD, but I thought its letter should be (whatever I had previously assigned to it) with Win XP. Using Partition Magic 8.0, I was able to re-create my drive letters once again. My Backups were needed, because Partition Magic 8.0 does Format before it adds a 'new' logical drive.

Thanks for all of your care and assistance,
Peter

[cadillacmike68]

Windows will re-arrange the drive letters, especially if one of the HDDs is in the ultrabay of the Advanced dock. It treats the ultrabay as a USB device and will bump a drive in there to a higher letter. With all the drives I use, (HDs in the ThinkPad Ultrabey, and in the Adv Dock ultrabay, USB connected HDDs connected to the ThinkPad and to the Adv dock, and USB thumb drives), winblows sometimes gets them all jumbled, so I have to go into disk management to re-assign the correct letters so they will work with my replicator file synch program.

The priority or drive letter assignments is:
HDD in the ThinkPad's ultrabay
HDDs connected the the ThinkPad's USB ports
HDD in the Advanced Dock Ultrabay
HDDs connected to the Advance Dock USB ports
USB thumb drives connected to the ThinkPad's USB ports
USB thumb drives connected to the Advanced Dock USB ports