T22 ultrabay hard drive

[Garth]

If I install a second hard disc in an ultrabay hard disc caddy, will the T22 allow me to boot from this? I currently use Windows XP on the installed hard disc, but also have a spare hard disc which I could install in an ultrabay caddy (I would need to buy this). My intention would then be to install Linux onto the secondary drive and then boot from either XP or Linux at will. I know that you can dual-boot Windows and Linux, but by using the second hard disc I would gain extra storage capacity.

Has anyone tried this?

[Neil]

I'm not sure, as I've never tried this on a ThinkPad, but it should work. You should be able to select the boot drive from the F12 menu.

I have done this with a desktop set-up, where I would have to change the boot order in the BIOS every time I wanted to boot the other hard drive. Not something I left in place for long.

I also had Linux installed on a HDD in a UltraBay caddy for a time on my A31P, but did not have anything in the hard drive bay at the time.

Edit: Another note if you decide to go this route, remove the XP hard drive from the machine when you install Linux. Otherwise, it will mess up your MBR. After you install you "should" be able to choose which to boot with F12. YMMV...

[automobus]

Yes, you can boot from a hard disk in the Ultrabay. However, it is not a 'snap' to select the boot disk. The most modern ThinkPad I have used is X41T, and on that computer, it was a snap. X41T has a newer generation of firmware, which provided a full list of bootable devices on the F12/"Select Boot Device" menu. As I understand it, any ThinkPad that supports Predesktop Area allows for really easy boot device switching. The boot device selection list on earlier ThinkPads (including T-twenties) is much more limited: it has only four options (network, removable device, optical, hard disk). If you have more than one of each type, then there is no quick way to choose which to boot from. To specify which hard disk to boot from, you will need to change the order in BIOS. It will be a real inconvenience if you intend to alternate between Windows and Linux often. Entering BIOS, changing boot order, and saving changes then rebooting will add a minute to your boot time.

I believe GRUB is fairly advanced and can even chain-load other bootloaders, on other drives. If that is possible, then what you could do is configure GRUB, as an option on its list, to boot from another disk. Configuring GRUB is beyond my abilities, but I am pretty sure that is possible.

[Garth]

Thanks for the replies so far. I'm interested in trying out Linux, probably Ubuntu on my T22 which is OK with XP at present but a tad slow even with 512 Mb RAM and a recent new 320 Gb hard disc, around 65% full with photos and music, but hey, it is 10 years old!

I'm very new to Ubuntu but have got it dual-booting with XP on an old desktop PC with no problems, which seems speedy even with an AMD Athlon 1400 CPU. I'm loath at present to totally install Linux as the only operating system on my T22 as it's still quite heavily used. I was hoping that it would be easy to use the boot menu to swap into a second hard disc (I have a spare 160 Gb one) but agree that it would be onerous to go through the BIOS each time.

I could install Ubuntu on my 160 Gb (as the primary disc) just to see if all the bits work satisfactorily with Ubuntu, and then if so, dual-boot on my 320 Gb disc. I have a USB caddy for the 160 Gb disc which would give extra storage if needed. Presumably Linux will recognise an external USB-mounted hard drive in a T22 (as does Windows XP).

Regards,

Garth

[jronald]

I have tried 6 or 7 Debian type distro's on the T22.
Off the top of my head the following will not work:
Any version of Ubuntu, including Xubuntu, Ubuntu, Kubuntu
Debian
Mint

Good luck
Ron

[automobus]

Ron, I do not believe your tip. The T20 line are great machines for GNU/Linux. It is an aging platform, no doubt, but I cannot imagine that all of those distributions "do not work". What, exactly, did you mean to say?

[jronald]

I never got the video correct, it always came up the wrong size.
The HDD light stays solid, and the HDD appears to constantly seek
The sound was intermittent.

SO
Restated:
I never got any of the Debian based distro's I played with, to work out of the box on the T22 (I tried 2 different machines)
On the other hand, the T30 and X30 love everything you throw at them!

Ron

[Garth]

Ron, in the light of your replies re debian-based distros, have you tried any other Linux distros on a T22 - which worked OK?

Regards,

Garth

[Garth]

I've now bought a hard disc cover and metal caddy - replacements for the original hard disc enclosure fitted to a T22. This enables me to just undo the hard disc securing screw and slide out my working 320 Gb hard disc, then replace it with the new enclosure and fitted with my spare 160 Gb hard disc.

I'm in the process of trying out different distros on the 160 Gb HD in the T22, but agree it's not easy. Ubuntu 10.10 almost worked straight out of the box, but once some updates were installed it wouldn't boot and I couldn't get this working properly. It also seems a resource hog for the T22. Next I've tried Kubuntu which is lighter weight, but have spent ages with the very helpful members of the Kubuntu forum to get the T22 to boot from a grub menu, with little success so far, although all hardware on the T22 works, including the speakers. Kubuntu (unlike Ubuntu) also recognises the Belkin wireless PCMCIA network adaptor fitted. Haven't quite given up yet!