Suggestions sought for "new" HDD for a 755CE

[Johan]

Fellow old-timer ThinkPadders...:

I have an old, but perfectly running ThinkPad 755CE that I use from time to time, and which I wish to keep up-and-runinng. To the best of my knowledge it still has the original IBM HDD inside, and it is running Windows 95 with two partitions ("C" being 236 MB and "D" being 277 MB). I am uncertain about the original IBM HDD P/N or FRU, but since it is the 540 MB version I guess it is the 84G4319 (according to the tpvol2.pdf (Hardware Maintenance Manual, Volume 2: ThinkPad Computers, April 1995).

This HDD is almost filled with data that I wish to retain, so I am wondering about how/where to find a "new" and bigger, either original or compatible HDD? From the above-mentioned HMM I understand that IBM also had available a bigger HDD for the 755CE; the 810 MB having P/N 85G0961, but this drive is a bit hard to find here in Europe, so I wonder if there are perhaps alternatives?? I have to confess that I actually don't know what type of HDD is in the 755CE; is it the standard 2.5" PATA as used in e.g. the T42's, or is it some older type?

If anybody has an idea of how/where to find a bigger HDD (in perfect working condition) for my 755CE, I would appreciate any information - thanks in advance!

Johan

[mnowell69]

would dare to venture that anything up to the infamous 8GB bios limit would go in there. Not sure what is in my 750c, but i put a 6gb hdd in my 701 and i believe that is older than your 755ce.

[hwattys]

It is an IDE/PATA hard drive but thicker (12 mm) than what you see on the market now. You can make a more modern IDE (PATA) drive up to 8 gb work in it by slightly cutting the ribbon cable inside the hard drive caddy. Much easier just to find a legacy hard drive from that era. Any drive from a 360, 750, 755, 760 up to 8 gb will work. They are getting hard to find.

[Johan]

Thanks, to both of you, for your comments... I'm learning here! I am still searching for a "new", larger HDD, but with the information provided here I now know that I can expand the search to cover also HDD's intended for (or shipped with) 360's, 750's, 755's and 760's. Also, thanks very much for the information about the 8 GB limit; never had heard about that. By the way, does this limit mean that a larger HDD, say, born with a 16 GB capacity, won't be usable at all? If getting a, say, 16 GB drive, is it impossible to just somehow format it to be a 8 GB device?

Final thing: Does anyone here know how to clone my existing 540 MB HDD (now in the 755CE)? Is it sufficient simply to copy all the files from the old 755CE HDD onto a new (if I manage to get on!) and larger HDD, or won't that work? Are these issues with boot sector, MBR, MFT etc. which needs to be properly located in specific sectors on the HDD etc. like in newer versions of Windows?

Thanks for any additional hints about actually where to find me a "new" larger HDD for my old '755CE!

Johan

[hwattys]

This is the actual drive (810 mb):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-DVAA-2810-T ... 3cc54f6311

This 1.2 gb drive will work, too:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-1-2-GB-2-5- ... 45f1b6a5b9

You could simply open up your drive caddy and replace the existing drive with one of these. Cloning the drives from a pre-usb machine is a bit of a challenge. The easiest way is to get 2 usb to laptop ide adapters and do the clone on a modern machine with Acronis or some similar program. It will copy the boot sector and all. You can also do it with a pcmcia compact flash adapter as one of the hard drives and a floppy version of Acronis to boot from.

[Bondi]

You can make a more modern IDE (PATA) drive up to 8 gb work in it by slightly cutting the ribbon cable inside the hard drive caddy.

Can anyone give some more details on this trick please? Which traces should be cut?