From: Jim Biggerstaff (duh2000_at_bellatlantic.net)
Date: Sun Sep 03 2000 - 19:00:25 EDT
Notebook drives have pretty much standardized on what is called a 2.5" form
factor, which is actually the diameter of the hard disk platter itself. The
actual drive is wider. The critical dimension is the thickness of the
drive. This dimension has gotten smaller over time as notebooks have gotten
thinner. If you get a ruler and measure the thickness of the drive in its
caddy you will be able to tell the thickness of the drive after making an
allowance for the thickness of the caddy itself. I have a 760EL but am
_not_ going to assume your drive's thickness is the same.
Notebook drives frequently require a "caddy" to work, this is an enclosure
for the drive. You _can_ generally open the caddy and put in a new drive,
and then pop it into your Thinkpad. Older Thinkpads can't generally handle
the recent very large capacity drives, but as a general rule can go up to (I
think) about 6.4 GB, at least in many cases. It would be best to have
someone who knows your model verify a successful installation from
experience. Chances are that someone in this list can. Remember, it has to
be thin enough to fit in the caddy.
Go look at www.thinkpads.com (note the plural). The site owner is a
frequent and valued contributor to this list. He has a nice section on
drives, their thickness, what fits into what model, etc. Note that you can
often put a _thinner_ drive than original into your caddy. I've done it
with a little "padding" to take up the extra room under the thinner drive.
Call it a "shock mounting" :)
My first notebook drive was 170MB, I thought it was so cool. I moved up to
drives that were a bit larger, and remember running OS/2 with very good
results indeed.
Good luck,
jim
----- Original Message -----
From: <jbrush_at_aros.net>
To: <THINKPAD_at_cs.utk.edu>
Sent: Sunday, September 03, 2000 6:18 PM
Subject: Newbie with a 760E
> Greetings to all.
>
> I recently got what I consider a pretty good deal on a 760E and the
> docking station and I am very happy with it so far. It is the model that
> cannot do a CD, but since I knew nothing of what to look for going in, I
> am fine with just having the CD in the docking station.
>
> The HD is 1.4G and right away I would like to upgrade that so that I can
> setup boot manager and OS/2, with an eye towards removing the W98 down the
> road. I will be interested to see what kind of features Warp has for the
> Thinkpad, as I am impressed with the W98 stuff I am seeing.
>
> If I may jump right in and ask a question, I would like to understand the
> HD upgrade paths. Do laptops share the same footprint for HDs? Is it a
> fair assumption to go into a store and buy a laptop HD and expect it to
> fit in a Thinkpad? I have read that there are two different heights to
> deal with, but other than that, will I find it easy to get a larger,
> generic style drive?
>
> I found a 4gig for about $120, but it is described as just a laptop hard
> drive, so I don't want to just buy it and get dissapointed. I would prefer
> a larger drive, but around $120 or so is the limit for my wallet right
> now.
>
> Anyway, I am happy to find this list and look forward to sharing
> information, as soon as I figure out what I actually have purchased :-)
>
> Thanks a lot for any help.
>
> Regards from Utah,
>
> John
>
>
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