Replacing Hard Drive in T61p

[whiskcat]

I currently have T61p Thinkpad with a 100G 7200 rpm hard drive.  I'm considering upgrading to a 500G 7200 rpm serial ATA 3.0Gb/s HD.  This particular HD did not list when I searched for compatible hard drives on the Lenovo web site, but the 500G 5400 rpm hard drive did.  I called Lenovo support, gave them my model/type and serial, they thought the 500G 7200 rpm would work.  They did not recommend going over 500G.  I will probably also replace 1 of the 2 – 1G memory cards with a 2G card for a total of 3G of memory.  I'm using the Windows Vista Home Edition that came installed on the T61p.

I've been reading posts in this forum, and it looks as if there may be a couple of ways to clone the current HD to the new, after replacing the 100G with the 500G in the HD slot:

1.  Install the 100G in a serial ATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter (which I think I may have, but not sure) and then use a utility like Acronis Ture Image to copy the 100G to the 500G and then resize the partition to use all 500G.  I do not have an external USB CD drive if Acronis requires this, but am thinking of getting a HD enclosure for the 100G to use as a backup.

2.  Use the Thinkvantage Rescue & Recovery utility to create rescue media or backup CDs/DVDs from the 100G and then swap in the 500G and restore.  I want to keep the rescue/hidden partition, so the blue Thinkvantage button will continue to work with the new hard drive, as well as being able to boot into Rescue & Recovery.  I have already used Thinkvantage Rescue & Recovery utilities to create recovery disks and backups about 2 years ago, will it let me create another set?

I've read in some posts that I may have to change the security setting on hidden partition for the copy in option 1 above to work?

Given my setup, would it be better to use R & R (if it lets me create another set of recovery media) to back and restore from CD/DVD, or better to use some utility to clone the old HD to the new HD.  And if utility, is Acronis to best, or is there another one better?

 Thanks in advance for any suggestions or advice on how I can accomplish this.

[IPnaSh Guru]

T61p supports SATA II disk, so in theory, you won't have any kind of problem.

The easiest and quickest way to clone a disk is connecting both disk on a desktop computer, and start then the cloning process with any disk cloning tool.

Regards.

[GMAC-R60 Retired Guru]

I would start with the thinkvantage rescue & recovery make product recovery disc these will restore to factory state then make a backup of your HDD the backup will make the new HDD the same as the old HDD

[andyP Community SuperMod]

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IPnaSh wrote:

The easiest and quickest way to clone a disk is connecting both disk on a desktop computer, and start then the cloning process with any disk cloning tool.

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Good advice by most systems, but not ThinkPads. Cloning the drive in another system is 99.9% doomed to failure, this has been the case for more than 10 years with cloning ThinkPad drives.

If you plan to clone a ThinkPad drive the target (new) drive must be inserted in the TP as primary drive, the source (old) drive can be in the ultrabay or an usb caddy using a cloning software running from cd. Acronis is my preferred cloning software, when using Ghost you must set the ib switch in order to capture all the boot sectors.

[zoltanthegypsy]

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whiskcat wrote:

I currently have T61p Thinkpad with a 100G 7200 rpm hard drive.  I'm considering upgrading to a 500G 7200 rpm serial ATA 3.0Gb/s HD.

...

2.  Use the Thinkvantage Rescue & Recovery utility to create rescue media or backup CDs/DVDs from the 100G and then swap in the 500G and restore.  I want to keep the rescue/hidden partition, so the blue Thinkvantage button will continue to work with the new hard drive, as well as being able to boot into Rescue & Recovery.  I have already used Thinkvantage Rescue & Recovery utilities to create recovery disks and backups about 2 years ago, will it let me create another set?

...

Given my setup, would it be better to use R & R (if it lets me create another set of recovery media) to back and restore from CD/DVD, or better to use some utility to clone the old HD to the new HD.  And if utility, is Acronis to best, or is there another one better?

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You only get to make one set of factory recovery media (to restore to as-shipped state) but you can make as many backups as you like.

I'm in the minority (of 1) here, but I would use R&R for this operation.  Since you should make backups anyway, invest in an external HD, make an up-to-date backup on the external HD.  Install your new hard drive, boot the external drive, and restore.  Now you have a nice new external drive, a fresh backup (and freshly rediscovered backup habits) and your as-running system migrated to your new bigger drive.

I've done it that way several times.  I've also used Acronis successfully - mostly - but occasionally had problems with the R&R partition being bootable after an Acronis restore.  I do use Acronis on my desktops, so I don't have an axe to grind here.

[edit] Forgot to say one thing:  migrating the R&R way will give you the bootable rescue partition, but it will only contain the R&R utility (with all its handy capabilities) but will not include the factory restore image.  That's in my experience, anyway.  If you really need to be able to restore to as-shipped on the road, maybe Acronis is a better way to go.  If you just want the bootable R&R, and can use the previously burned recovery media @ home, then maybe go the R&R "clone" route.

My $.02,

Z.

[IPnaSh Guru]

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andyP wrote:

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IPnaSh wrote:

The easiest and quickest way to clone a disk is connecting both disk on a desktop computer, and start then the cloning process with any disk cloning tool.

---

Good advice by most systems, but not ThinkPads. Cloning the drive in another system is 99.9% doomed to failure, this has been the case for more than 10 years with cloning ThinkPad drives.

If you plan to clone a ThinkPad drive the target (new) drive must be inserted in the TP as primary drive, the source (old) drive can be in the ultrabay or an usb caddy using a cloning software running from cd. Acronis is my preferred cloning software, when using Ghost you must set the ib switch in order to capture all the boot sectors.

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I belive you andy, but it sounds very ilogical, right? I meant, why? Do you have any logical explanation for that, pal?

[andyP Community SuperMod]

Yes it does sound illogical, but it would appear that one of the four boot sectors is dependent on the primary bay and BIOS, nikonf5 sums it up pretty well here.

See also the Acronis Knowledgebase Tip.  An example using Ghost.

we used to image every system which came into our shop, should a customer have a problem, but when IBM started using the HPA, (Hidden Protected Area - Recovery Partition), things started to go wrong re-imaging systems using a normal PC with the target disc attached. After several weeks of monkeying around, and trying different softwares, we discovered that everything worked 100% when imaging or cloning back to the drive when it was inserted as primary drive in the target system. Since then not one attempt has failed

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello,

I am using a 500GB 7200RPM hard disk drive in a T61, and have used a 640GB and now a 750GB 5400RPM hard disk drive in a T61p without any problems.

You might want to consider using an external USB adapter like one of these to attach the original 100GB 7200RPM hard disk drive to the T61p.  This would leave the DVD±RW disc drive free for running the disk cloning software.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[whiskcat]

What is the largest hard drive I can use in the T61p?  I've searched the forums, and found a few mentions of larger drives, but not specific.  And the post preceeding this entry says a 750G will work.  Is that the largest drive that will work?  I've searched Lenovo's web site and it appears that a 500G is the largest they sell.  So will a Seagate or other manufacturer work, and at either 5400 or 7200 RPM?  And if I get a non-Lenovo drive, and if I do the clone correctly, will the hidden partition with Rescue & Rcovery still work?

I've also noticed that some drives specify 3.0 Gbps - does that matter?  If the T61p can't handle that, will it drop down and use the drive at the rate the T61p can handle?

And does the information concerning non-Thinkpad hard disks described in http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_non-ThinkPad_hard_disks apply since T61p is not listed?  It looks as if I get a non-Thinkpad hard disk the active protection system may not work.

My T61p model is a 6459-CTO.