Looking to replace old Thinkpad R40 (27225MG)...I think (FAQ's answered)

Hi. I'm a newbie - I love this site and I love the forums...and I need some help...

I have an three year old Thinkpad R40 which IBM no longer make. It is out of warranty and my hardrive (40GB Hitatchi) is playing up - bad blocks every few days and now 80kb in bad sectors. IBM want to charge me $366 for a new equivalent one or I have found a refurbished one for $60. But I would also need to buy the recovery disks as I didn't get them when I bought this from a reseller all those years ago.

SO my question is should I try to fix this one or buy a new one. I'm a Scottish journalist based in America for the next few years at least and so a reliable, sturdy laptop I can take all over America and back to Europe is very important to me.

I have answered the FAQ's below in case anyone suggests I get a new laptop...

Thanks for your help - and to all you regulars who post, you all know so much, I'm really impressed.


1) What size notebook would you prefer?
b. Thin and Light; 13" - 14" screen
OR
c. Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen

2) What tasks will you be performing with the notebook?
Mainly writing, web research and downloading music. Occasionally watching foreign region DVD's.

3) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places or leaving it on your desk?
Taking it all over America and to Europe.

4) Will you be playing games on it; if so, which games?
Only FPS's if any.

5) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
There are some brands I've never heard of (Acer, Asus, etc) so not sure whether to trust them.

6) How many hours of battery life do you need?
4+ would be good

7) What is your budget?
Under £1600 would be good

8) Do you mind buying online without seeing the notebook in person?
No.

9) What country are you buying this in?
USA

Screen Specifics

10) From the choices below, what screen resolutions would you prefer?
No idea.

11) Do you want a glossy/reflective screen or a matte/non-glossy screen?
No idea.

Build Quality and Design

12) Are the notebook’s looks and stylishness important to you?
Not as important as reliability.

13) How long do you want this laptop to last?
3-5 years

Notebook Components

14) How much hard drive space do you want; 40GB to 120GB?
I have a 40GB and have never come close to filling it.

15) Do you need a DVD, DVD-CD/RW or DVD-R drive?
Would like to play DVD's and CD's and burn CD's but not worried about burning DVD's.

One other thing - my R40 takes up to 3 minutes to boot up and be ready to use, so I would like something that was a bit quicker than that.

Thank you so much for your help and support...

Rcadian.

 

I see that you also posted this in the main hardware forum. Well, the guys there will recommend you a plentora of options outside of the Thinkpad realm (and indeed you shouldn't limit yourself to the Thinkpad line, unless you have very good reason to).

Considering your current notebook, I see that it still is quite capable for the tasks you mostly use it for. The only problem is gaming - if you want to play FPS games on it, the Radeon 7500 is just not going to cut it, as I'm sure you know.

Thinkpads have traditionally been lacking in the 3D video power department. They have decent video cards on some of their models, but not more than so. When I had to make a decision, I preferred a Thinkpad with a decent video card over a non-Thinkpad with a superb video card, but that's a decision everyone must make for himself.

You seem to have quite a nice budget. What I'd suggest for you would be to wait a bit. Now may not be such a good time to buy a new laptop, with dual core being here, but not widespread enough yet. If you can get by with your current machine for a while, you may be able to select something that will be a big upgrade soon enough.

 

I would agree with Dr_st and fix what you have and wait untill dual core is out. I think the R40 is a great machine. My girlfriend has been using one for the last 3 years and loves it. I ordered a new IBM but because of shipping delays I canceled it and decided to get an inexpensive refurbished unit and wait a while till dual core, 64 bit, vista and all the new goodies are out.

I am surprised your R40 takes 3 min to boot. The one I am using now takes much less time then that. A new hardrive should help that and you can always go for a faster hardrive.

 

My T42 probably takes more than 3 minutes to boot. Because my OS is loaded with stuff, and it searches for a DHCP server too. It's not how fast it boots, it's how fast it works that matters most of the time.

 

Thanks guys...I am ordering a new HD and some more memory. Should I replace both at the same time or does it not make any diference other than having to get the screwdriver out twice?

 

Bah rcadian... Umm Depends You want to spend a lot all at once or spend a little then spend a bit less later... Meaning HD maybe 80 GB comes cheaper, so if you buy know you pay more same with memory 1 gb stick might be 140 soon 120...

BUT THIS WILL always happen... THis always get cheaper. Up 2 U

 

Thanks, Waterloo, but I actually meant should I replace both at once from a technical point of view. I have never upgraded a PC before so have no idea really how to do it. But I was trying to find out if I replaced the HD at the same time as I added memory would it be the best thing to do. Or should I replace the HD and then boot up, power down and then add a new memory chip...? Any suggestions and tips greatly appreciated...

Rc

 

If you get the service manual, located on Lenovo's website, it will explain how to disassemble your notebook. I think there are videos showing how to do it as well. It doesn't really matter if you do both at the same time. Make sure you take the battery out first. Get a good 5400RPM drive like a Hitachi or Seagate. It will give you a nice performance boost. The R40 should be more than enough for the next few years. They are well built machines.

 

Something you REALLY need to know, If your R40 uses the on-drive Rapid Restore (try pressing F11 while booting to see if yours does) you can save yourself a lot of headache by doing a full disk Hard Drive copy to your new disk. I use EZ-Gig from Apricorn or the newer EZ-UP-UNIVERSAL (the original uses PCMCIA EZ-UP is USB). These allow you to connect your new hard drive externally while you still have use of your old drive installed in the laptop. Then use the included EZ-Gig or EZ-Gig II software to replicate your drive. Acronis*True*Image is another software program that works with the Apricorn hardware. I used to use Ghost, but that's another story....

The big deal is that the Rapid Restore is on a hidden partition on your hard drive. If you do a good replication, (1) you can simply swap the hard drive carrier to the new drive and plug it in. Your system will probably boot EXACTLY the way it does right now. And (2) you would still have the ability to Rapid Restore your system to the state it was when purchased.

 

WildBill - thank you, but may I ask a follow up question? Part of the reason that I need a new HD is that my current one has about 9 bad blocks (red squares in the HDtune program). As the event viewer shows that 'the disk has a bad block' is only happening every few days/once a week, I went out and bought an external HD to back my stuff on. While I was doing a full backup with Bounceback Express the system crashed due to the bad blocks. When I tried to reboot my computer said it could not becasue a system32 file was missing (I didn't take a note of which one). Anyway I left the PC for about 20 minutes and then tried again it it booted up okay, but then I saw very little had been copied to my external HD, and it had been partly corupted. But when I dragged and dropped individual files onto the external HD (like my Word files, etc) they went across okay...so....I am reluctant to try to copy my entire HD (which has 80kb in bad sectors) in case I damage the new one. Will this happen? Am I missing something? Am I doing something wrong? Are my concerns legitimate? Sorry if any of these questions are naive...

Thank you for your help...

Rc

 

You will not damage the new one - that's impossible. Bad sectors aren't contagious. But when trying to copy bad sectors, the program may crash, as has happened to you.

What you need to do is do a full CHKDSK that will mark all bad blocks as unusable and make sure no file resides inside a bad block (some files that were in such blocks may be permanently corrupt). Then you can clone the hard disk.

 

Dr_st is right, you can't damage the new hard drive with the programs I listed. They move data independently of the operating system.

NOTE: What you are describing COULD....MAYBE.....be virus related.....MAYBE, not saying it is, but do a new virus check as soon as possible. I recommend you do the new check with a different Virus check program. Some times different programs catch different patterns. You might try "Avast 4 for Home" from www.avast.com. It's free and runs a different algorithim.

Good Luck
WildBill Rowell

 

Thanks WB...I didn't think it was a virus but I have run a full check on my HD and my anti-virus software has found no infections. I'm guessing it's just an aged HD (three years now) and 9 bad blocks I can do nothing about. It's only a pain that I can never predict what it is I do on my PC that will cause the HD to try to access those sectors and then result in Errors in the event viewer. When I do my CHKDSK I notice that what is happening is it deletes a couple of index entries, cleans up minor inconsistencies on the drive, cleans up unused index entries, corrects errors in the MFT BITMAP Attribute and the Volume Bitmap as well as allowing Windows to make corrections to the file system... Then, after that, the system goes back to working fine for a few days until - for some reason - the HD spins through a bad sector and I get the errors all over again... Hopefully a new HD will solve the problem... And I will try to use the method you suggest to make a mirror copy... Although I have got the recovery disks from IBM so I was thinking about a clean install... Any thoughts of one versus the other?

Thanks

Rc

 

Hmm I would so that if you have about 512 mb to 1gb ur memory is fine.

HD Get new 1 if it messing u up.

Over 1gb in a r40 = way to much memory...

 

Thanks waterloo - actually only got 256 memory right now so buying a 512 stick and intending to put it in second slot so I have 768 memory...

Rc

 

OK, Your chkdsk shows that your setting and locking out the current bad sectors. The only difference between the disk copy and a clean install would be the loss of any programs or documents installed since you bought the machine. If you chkdsk and then run copy, all your data and settings are copied, and you have your setup with a new non-dying drive.
As for your install disks....treasure 'dem bad boys like gold. Big Blue is not known for giving out a lot of them.

I was a IBM/TSS Field Service tech back in the mid-90's and we had a devil of a time getting the right ones. I could order any screw on any 20 year old tape drive, but I couldn't get the right restore disks the first try to save my life.....Good Luck.

WildBill Rowell

 

Make sure you run the 5-step CHKDSK, not the 3-step one, because only the former checks for bad sectors.

 

Dr_st...Yep I am running the five (takes forever) step CHKDSK...

Bill - 'CHKDSK then run copy' - Do you mean that 'copy' is a command or do do you just mean run copy on whatever software I get to do the mirror backup? Sorry for my ignorance...

Rc

 

The mirror backup.

 

Right again, (dr_st is WAY faster than me). I'm referring to using a disk copying program like EZ-Gig or True Image. These move all the data on the HDD as blocks, not as files within your operating system.

 

Yes a full-step CHKDSK including the marking all bad blocks as unusable takes a long time. You sometimes also have to run CHKDSK several times in order to get the job completely done.

Afterwards check if your system still boots up correctly and if those defect and now marked as unusable blocks didn't corrupted important OS relevant files. There are sometimes circumstances which make the OS unusable, if bad blocks of the media surface have been encountered in places where sensible OS files resided, which might be now corrupted.

If you have an external disk for backup storages, you should use indeed after a successful reanimation of the hdd something like TrueImage to save a backup image, of your now hopefully again working internal hdd, to the external one.