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Thinkpad A30p hard drives caddies in both bays doesnt boot

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larrystotler
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Thinkpad A30p hard drives caddies in both bays doesnt boot

#1 Post by larrystotler » Sat Aug 04, 2012 1:09 pm

I have a Thinkpad A30p (1.2/1GB/320GB) system. I have a PATA ultrabay adapter as well as a SATA ultrabay adapter. These caddies work just fine in either ultrabay, as well as in my Dock II ultrabay, but I can't get the machine to boot with both the caddies in the laptop ultrabays at the same time. For some reason it won't read all 3 hard drives(doesn't matter which side the caddy either is in).

The caddies are not IBM branded caddies.

Has anyone else run into this issue? I've google'd around but can't seem to figure it out.

Also, I am running Linux, & haven't managed to get the hotswap to work, so I'm not sure if that would work once the machine is booted.

Thanx

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Re: Thinkpad A30p hard drives caddies in both bays doesnt boot

#2 Post by ajkula66 » Sat Aug 04, 2012 1:35 pm

I've had issues with aftermarket adapters in my A31p units, some of them prevented the laptop from booting altogether.

Have you tried playing with PM/SM settings in BIOS to get the unit to boot from one of the UltraBay drives?
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Re: Thinkpad A30p hard drives caddies in both bays doesnt boot

#3 Post by Adda » Sun Aug 05, 2012 4:26 pm

I had the same issue with my A30, but fixed it by looking in to jumper settings for the individual drives (master, slave etc.).
The SATA drive will have no such thing though, so it might have to sit in a particular slot in order to avoid a conflict with the internal HDD.

I think I remember that if a SATA drive is put in the ultrabay slot that shares an IDE channel with the internal drive, both drives will want to be master unless one of the drives is set to slave, since the SATA drive has no jumpers for this, the internal drive has to be slave, not ideal, so use the bay that doesn't share the an IDE channel with another drive, can't remember which.

As for the IDE ultrabay drive, set it as slave and the internal drive as master, and let them share an IDE channel.

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larrystotler
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Re: Thinkpad A30p hard drives caddies in both bays doesnt boot

#4 Post by larrystotler » Sun Aug 05, 2012 5:48 pm

Adda wrote:I had the same issue with my A30, but fixed it by looking in to jumper settings for the individual drives (master, slave etc.).
The SATA drive will have no such thing though, so it might have to sit in a particular slot in order to avoid a conflict with the internal HDD.

I think I remember that if a SATA drive is put in the ultrabay slot that shares an IDE channel with the internal drive, both drives will want to be master unless one of the drives is set to slave, since the SATA drive has no jumpers for this, the internal drive has to be slave, not ideal, so use the bay that doesn't share the an IDE channel with another drive, can't remember which.

As for the IDE ultrabay drive, set it as slave and the internal drive as master, and let them share an IDE channel.
Interesting. I think you may be on to something. I need to figure out how many actual IDE controllers are in the system.

Right now, I have a DVD Burner in the left bay & an IDE drive in the PATA caddy in the right bay. The IDE Drive is a master, & IIRC, the DVD Burner would also be a master. However, the DVD Drive could be using Cable Select instead.......

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Re: Thinkpad A30p hard drives caddies in both bays doesnt boot

#5 Post by Adda » Sun Aug 05, 2012 6:24 pm

larrystotler wrote: Interesting. I think you may be on to something. I need to figure out how many actual IDE controllers are in the system.

Right now, I have a DVD Burner in the left bay & an IDE drive in the PATA caddy in the right bay. The IDE Drive is a master, & IIRC, the DVD Burner would also be a master. However, the DVD Drive could be using Cable Select instead.......
Yes the DVD Burner is probably set to cable select and the same for the internal drive, but who knows.
Most of the laptop drives I have dealt with had no jumpers attached, so they would work in cable select mode.

There are two IDE channels in the A30, they take two drives each, but only three are in use, the last one might be accessible through the docking port.

ThinkPad A30
Pentium III-M 933MHz
Crucial 2x256MB 133MHz CL2
Mobility Radeon 16MB
15" UXGA FlexView
Zheino Classic A 32GB
Samsung SpinPoint M5S 160GB
NEC DVD+-RW ND-6650A
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larrystotler
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Re: Thinkpad A30p hard drives caddies in both bays doesnt boot

#6 Post by larrystotler » Sat Aug 11, 2012 12:34 am

Adda wrote:Yes the DVD Burner is probably set to cable select and the same for the internal drive, but who knows.
Most of the laptop drives I have dealt with had no jumpers attached, so they would work in cable select mode.

There are two IDE channels in the A30, they take two drives each, but only three are in use, the last one might be accessible through the docking port.
Well, it now works. I have the PATA caddy in the left Ultrabay(the 2000) & the SATA Caddy in the right Ultrabay(the plus). Thanx for the tip. At least now it works!

The IDE drive in the PATA caddy is set to Slave. I haven't tried cable select yet(next on my list). However, with the IDE set to slave, it would not work at all in the right Ultrabay. I know the SATA works in either side, so I guess SATA does use cable select automatically. Now I need a second SATA adapter & 2 - 1TB drives. Talk about a portable movie server!

As for the docking port, AFAIK, it doesn't support a drive thorugh it. The Dock II that I have shows a Silicon Image PCI0648 Ultra66 controller built into it.

This machine is definately a huge upgrade over my A22p/. I have an A31p that needs a screen that I will have to test with this config at some point as well.

Its a shame no newer laptops have 2 drive bays like the A3x's.

larrystotler
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Re: Thinkpad A30p hard drives caddies in both bays doesnt boot

#7 Post by larrystotler » Sat Aug 11, 2012 3:30 pm

larrystotler wrote:I know the SATA works in either side, so I guess SATA does use cable select automatically. Now I need a second SATA adapter & 2 - 1TB drives. Talk about a portable movie server!
Correction - The SATA drive wouldn't work in the left caddy until I changed the jumper on the internal drive to slave. Then it worked. So, the SATA drive must always be master. Not an issue really since I use Linux(it automatically uses device by name instead of letters).

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Re: Thinkpad A30p hard drives caddies in both bays doesnt boot

#8 Post by Neil » Sat Aug 11, 2012 4:04 pm

larrystotler wrote:Its a shame no newer laptops have 2 drive bays like the A3x's.
Amen, brother! AFAIK, there hasn't been anything quite like it since.
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