Using ultrabay devices externally

Hey all. I'm a longtime forum viewer, but this is my first post.

I've been planning on using the original HDD that my T61p came with (5400rpm 80gb) as secondary drive by using the Ultrabay HDD adapter. I'd like to install a clean version of Vista on the 80gb drive and be able to to boot to XP Pro on my 200gb drive in the main compartment or to Vista on the 80gb in the Ultrabay adapter.

The problem that this presents is that if the 80gb is in the Ultrabay, then I have no bootable DVD drive to begin the clean Vista install.

There are two solutions.

1. Put the 80gb in the main compartment temporarily until all applications needing a DVD/CD install are finished, and then put the 80gb into the Ultrabay adapter.

2. Use a cable to attach my slim DVD burner to a USB or other slot. (my pockets are empty after buying my T61p, so buying an external CD/DVD drive is not a good option)

So my questions are related to options one and two.

1. If I do a clean install of Vista onto the 80gb in the main compartment, will this drive be bootable and function well after moving it to the Ultrabay adapter? I don't want a clean install to all of a sudden not link appropriately or communicate correctly with the rest of the system.

2. I've scoured the Lenovo site and these forums, and I haven't found any information on a cable that will allow me to connect my slim DVD burner to USB or any other ports. Does anybody know of an adapter I could use?


Thanks all, I've already received so much help in configuring my hardware from this forum. Now it's down to configuring the best software options!

 

woos,

Yes you can do that. I just did something similar by putting a separate bootable XP Pro on one hdd and another separate bootable Linux Ubuntu 7.10 on the other ultra bay hdd. Both are separately bootable. This is not a dual boot setup.

You can switch hard drives physically as you please then just use BIOS to set the hard drive to boot that you choose. Click on F1 at boot time, go into BIOS, then move up or down either of the hard drives to boot first.

Let me know if this is clear or not.

 

I was actually wondering something similar. Thank you, OP, for posting the question. Thank you, Alacrityathome, for posting the answer.

Here's another question I have: Let's say I have the order the laptop with the 80GB 5400rpm hard drive but purchase one at 7200rpm. If I decide to keep both and have both of them in the computer, the fact that they run at different speeds will not cause any problem, right? Does one of them not run when the other one is being accessed? In other words, if I'm using 7200rpm hard drive, does that mean the 80GB 5400rpm hard drive will remain idle? Now, I truly believe I know the answer to this as it appears to be common sense, but I'm looking for the reassurance here.

 

Alacrity,

Thanks for the response. Yes, I am aware that technically speaking, it is not dual boot. But this is actually preferable for me because I'd rather not mess with a boot manager, and I'd like to be able to wipe each drive clean independently (someday I'd like to try Linux in more depth than live cds).

So, you are 100% certain that if I install Vista while the 80gb is in the main compartment, I will have no issues whatsoever if I boot from it in the Ultrabay? I am worried that some of the driver/system references might be dependent on the physical location of the drive.

I'm still curious to see if there is a cable or special SATA adapter that would allow me to use my DVD burner externally (let's say I want to keep two drives in my laptop constantly). Is anybody aware of such a cable?

 

Yes, you can switch hard drives back and forth physically and your PC will gladly use either one of them and boot up with either one of them dependent only on how you set the boot sequence in your BIOS.

And, yes, I used to pull my hair out with lilo, grub, mbr difficulties and dual booting until I discovered this approach. This is super clean. I even put a 2nd partition on each hard drive and installed Acronis on XP and Partimage on Ubuntu and have an image of each drive on each of the hard drives on the 2nd partition of each drive. Then, in case of a problem, can restore without a boot CD or external drive either of the orginal hard drive images ... I haven't had to restore either yet... but it is another capability.

You can also easily test and try new o/s on one of the drives without losing your main o/s.

Trust me, you will love it.

 

alacrity,

Again, thanks for the helpful post! I now have the install stuff done, and I'm enjoying my clean (and incredibly fast) install. You mentioned Acronis for disk image backup; this is obviously much more dependable than any type of System Restore option and very easy since I'll have two hard drives connected. I am definitely going to follow your lead and put that software to good use (anybody interested in getting Acronis can check out the following link http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/05/22/one-of-the-best-hdd-utilities-is-free).

I know there has to be somebody on this forum that knows whether or not it's possible to use a Lenovo Ultrabay Slim DVD drive externally using some type of cable. Is there really nobody who knows of such an adapter?!?!?

 

Check out:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-4BYJ5T