STeve Andre' wrote:
Let's try this again.......
If I get you correctly, the drive works in the T30 but not in the docking
station. That means that the nasty complex connector at the bottom
of the Thinkpad isn't seating quite with the matching part on the
station.
Usually, this isn't fixable unless you are really really good at open
heart surgery and don't mind finding the blasted part. I'm not sure
you can even get the part by itself, thinkpad or docking flavor.
But you can stare at both parts and look for problems. I have once
fixed this kind of problem on an A31p by finding a part of the metal
side that wasn't quite straight, and after smoothing it out with
needle-nose pliers, the connection was better, though not perfect.
Your docking station is a kind of electrical spine going into the
thinkpad. If I had parts that didn't work with the docking station
I'd be scared to use it at all, fearing that something else might
happen.
You can get the schematics, but finding a docking station on
ebay or something might give you a 50% chance of fixing it.
If that doesn't work, then you are looking at fixing something
in the t30 and I think it would be more sane to find another
unit (unless you enjoy Quixote Electronica, in which case,
prepare for battle!)
--STeve Andre'
On Monday 06 April 2009 23:49:46 RBay wrote:
Optical drives go bad without notice. It appears one or more of yours are
bad.
There is no fix, except a replacement. There are not really any relevant
lines and connections to the Ultrabay 2000 slot run from the T30
motherboard except those that you see connected. There may be drivers that
you will find on the Lenovo site, by type number.
There is no continuity to test, realistically... but you can unplug and
reseat any and ever connection and sometimes have luck in getting things to
work.
But I suspect you need a replacement drive.
There are diagrams and schematics on the Lenovo site that you can find by
going through all the available materials by type or part number... and
there is a full schematic of the T-30... But there are such a large number
of replacment drives that you will be lucky to find any useful information
for your.
The main problem is that the drives go out of alignment ever so slightly...
microns, actually, so that when they are out of alignment, you just
replacement as they are worn out.
The T-30 is a very old unit from about 2000... and parts are seldom
available, but you will occasionally find them in Google searches and on
Thinkpad sites. There is an excellent one in Raleigh, NC, but I don't
remember the name at the moment. They sell almost daily on eBay
Good luck.
Hello Thinkpad lovers:
I am posting this again with a few revisions due to
an absent response from this very knowledgeable
group. Should I try thinkpads.com instead?
I have a T30 that I use with an IBM ThinkPad Docking
Station II (2877) at each of five locations to allow
quick access to a variety of hardware. At this time
I have two hard drives installed in my T30. In some
of the docking stations I have an optical drive
installed in the Ultrabay 2000 slot. I have been
experiencing a failure of recognition upon booting
of the drive in the docking station Ultrabay 2000
slot. Please note that when the optical drive is
inserted into the Ultrabay 2000 slot in the T30 it
is recognized and operates as would be expected.
Where would the relevant lines and connections to
the Ultrabay 2000 slot run from the T30 motherboard?
How could I safely test their continuity? Are there
connectors that might productively be disassembled
and then reseated? And, are there any diagrams
and/or schematics readily available for such things?
Please note that I have the easily found repair and
parts list files from the IBM and now Lenovo sites.
Finally, given the price of T30s on eBay, should I
simply purchase a replacement rather than repair
the one I have?
TIA,
- Mark
Mark Henigan
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Im with Steve on this issue.
Id like to widen the discussion a bit.
running older? thinkpads is bit of a bit of a black art.
If you want to keep on using your A30,
( im the same, I use A21 P's)
its best to have at least acoupleof them, ie a spare so that when you
get a fault like you currently have, swap the hard driveand your up and
running. This gives you time to find the bits to fix the other.
Also, its a good way to troubleshoot any problem, as you have another
machine to try your errant drive in.
Also from the time of the 600e up to the a31p was probably the best
built time of thinkpads. So they should last longer than earlier and
later models.
I was surprised last week, I was offered a 600e, P2 266 as new and
complete. The previous owner tried to put XP on it!! with 64mb ram.
Only just booted! then hung. I put the max ram it would take, and it
now chuggs along quite nicely.
Paid $40.00 for it ,just for fun.
Ted
Dorset
UK
Thinkpad dealer.
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