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Re: Sources for 2.1 gig HDs for ThinkPad 701CS
On Wed, 13 Aug 1997 at 08:00 AM you, "Robert W. King" <rwking@ipa.net>,
said:
>I've more or less decided to upgrade my 701CS to a 2.1 gig hard drive
>presuming I can find one for a price I can afford. The problem is
>identifying vendors who sell the things. I would also be looking for
>some means of making use of the present 540 meg drive. I've flipped
>through the portable computing and laptop magazines and found them
>remarkably free of ads for laptop replacement drives. Any suggestions?
There seems to be huge difference in prices. Among the "specialists",
Roadwarrior is asking $855 for a 2.1GB drive that suits the TP701
(warrior.com/arihd/ibm.html) and PEP is asking $524 for a 2.1GB Toshiba
drive. My understanding is that the above prices include a caddy.
I made inquiries with local resellers here in Finland and I was surprised
to see I could get much lower prices for the naked drives (without a
caddy). The Toshiba 2.1GB was FIM 2100 ($380 at current exchange rates)
and the IBM 2.1GB FIM 2300 ($420). The Finnish prices include VAT (our
sales tax) 22%, which means comparable prices are even lower ($310 and
$340 respectively). Given that the US market is usually more competitive
than the European ones, I'd expect you should find a 2.1GB Slimline drive
for around $300 in the US.
I chose the IBM drive because I could get it the following day (and it
wasn't that much more expensive than the Toshiba). In all truth, this is
probably not a "real" IBM drive, because the label on it says "Made for
IBM in Thailand". Anyway, the IBM drive is very well documented
(http://www.storage.ibm.com.:80/storage/oem/data/trav4lp.htm) and it is
used in a popular current model (the TP560).
I had chosen to use the existing caddy (which hosted a 360MB drive) and
this was the most difficult part in the process: first of all I had to
find a Torx T6 screwdriver, which wasn't that easy; then I noticed the
holes on the side of the new drive were located differently compared to
the old drive. So I had to use a precision drill set to make 4 new holes
in the caddy; this was somewhat tricky for a non-technical person like me,
because the heads of the screws were V-shaped and had to be below the
surface of the caddy (which otherwise couldn't be inserted in the TP).
Based on the advice of a fellow list member, I teared the plastic film off
the old drive and wrapped the new drive in it: besides protecting it, it
also made the drive very quiet (and quiet it is indeed!).
Once I put the drive with caddy back in place, everything went smoothly,
although the BIOS reports a wrong size for it. I have now Warp 3 Connect
installed in one half and I'm currently installing Linux RedHat in the
other half.
Based on a few days' experience, I can recommend the IBM drive but I'm
sure the Toshiba would work as well. I think the price charged by the
specialists for a drive with caddy is much too high for what a caddy
really is.
Dominique
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Dominique Pivard <domi@kenavo.fi>
Helsinki, Finland
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