Upgrading hard drive for T43

[cyndra]

I have a T43 that I'd like to upgrade the hard drive on.  Currently I have the original 80 GB hard drive, but I would like to know whether I could upgrade to a 320 GB hard drive.  I'm interested in capacity, not necessarily speed.  Can my system handle a hard drive of this size?

I'm not sure what sort of info is necessary to enable one to make this judgment call, but here are some of my computer's specs:

Windows XP (service pack 3)

1 GB memory

2 GHz Pentium M processor

Thanks in advance!

[ajkula66 Guru]

Welcome to the forum!

Although your T43 will handle a 320GB PATA laptop hard drive with no issues, you will get a "2010 error" on boot, due to a non-approved hard drive being used. The largest drive that doesn't trigger this error is Fujitsu MHV2120AH which is 120GB/5400rpm and sadly no longer in production.

With the latest BIOS, you can set the machine up to continue booting after the error, so it's really not that much of a big deal. There have been some concerns about ThinkPad Acrive Protection System not working properly on non-approved drives, though.

Lot of good info here:

http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11059

Also, you can buy an UltraBay adapter and install another hard drive there.

Hope this helps.

[cyndra]

Thanks very much for the prompt response.

To clarify, I can buy any size drive to upgrade my original 80 GB, and as long as I am using the latest BIOS, I can bypass the 2010 error and use the new, larger drive normally?

And if I go the Ultrabay adapter route (which I'm hesitant to do since I don't want to lose my cd/dvd drive), are there any restrictions on the type or size of hard drive that I can put into that bay?

Thanks!!

[ajkula66 Guru · Accepted solution]

With the latest BIOS, you'll be notified of error, but the machine will boot normally past that point.

There are two types of ultrabay adapters, one for PATA and one for SATA drives. No restrictions on what you can install in them, as long as the drive type matches.

Hope this helps.

[cyndra]

Thank you very much for the quick, concise response!