From: Georg Proskowetz (georg_proskowetz_at_compuserve.com)
Date: Mon Apr 09 2001 - 07:53:31 EDT
Hello everybody, my name is George and I live in Vienna, Austria.
I started in 1985 with a 13 Kg heavy IBM "Portable" with DOS 1.0, 2 FDD (no
HDD) worth approx. $3000. (XT in a plastic case with a handle, quite loud
but it still works!).
After working on various company Notebooks (TP & Armada) I ended up buying a
TP380XD 2 years ago.
Having installed W2K on the Desktop I decided to upgrade the 380XD (233MMX,
3GB HDD, 97.7MB RAM).
Since the HDD was to small for a dual boot (98 & W2K) I thought it would be
a good idea to install a bigger HDD.
So, not hindered by any knowledge (of the 380XD Bios), I bought a Toshiba
MK2016GAP with 20GB.
With the help of MaxBlast and Partition Magic I succeeded in having all 20
GB be "recognized" by Partition Magic and installing a 4 GB FAT32 partition.
The HDD was also "seen" by the 380XD Bios (a test of the HDD in the "easy
setup" gave an "OK" result)
With Drive Image I made images of the old drive on the Desktop and restored
the 2 partitions on the new drive. I thought I was almost finished and had
earned a good lunch.
I installed the 20 GB drive into the 380XD and ........that's where my
problems started :(
The TP could not boot from drive C:.
So I decided to install Win 98 from scratch.
After a reformatting and a ScanDisk I could start with the Win 98 setup but
only up to the point where Win 98 starts ScanDisk. Here setup is aborted
with information on possible errors like: system not properly configured,
LBA possibly needs to be activated.
The HDD was so scrambled that it could not any more be recognized by any PC.
This is where I started to look for help and found the Thinkpad list.
With the help various small HDD utilities (Drive Fitness Test, Drive Guide,
Power Max, ScanDisc, Partition Magic) it was possible to "see" the HDD
again. ScanDisk cleaned the FAT and all other wrong entries.
Now I am wondering whether I can only use the new drive on my DT (where I
don't need it, I have 2 X 20 GB) or, whether it is possible to overwrite the
Bios with the correct HDD configuration.
E. g. to override the settings with a floppy (or a PCMCIA memory card)
before reading drive C:.
Any help would be very much appreciated. I am sorry for the long message and
hope you will not give up reading in spite of its length.
Best regards form Vienna
George
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