Service Forum

[bobbi]

hi, i have a t43 purchased from the internet a few years ago.
During that time the psu had to be PAT(electrical safety check) tested to be used on location.
Before i gave the laptop and psu to the company to test, I put on a supervisor password. I cannot know remember that password and I dont know if it was with passphrase on or off.

Anyway recently my hdd was getting many erros and slowing down the laptop so i thought i would replace it. I cloned the laptop to new HDD, and then swapped them over.

The laptop will not now boot. It says OS not found.
Will the laptop not recognise a new HDD without me having access to the bios?

Only the supervisor password was set, NOT power or HDD.

I can access the old HDD via usb slave.

To be honest its an old, but working machine and great laptop and not worth much nowadays. I rather have it working, but If i have to reset the supervisor password with your kit (may be the whole kit if passphrase is set) the cost is not worth it and a good Laptop is just wasted.

btw - i have a rough idea on the supervisor password. how many times can i put in the password before the laptop lockouts, and is that permanent lockout?

Please any guidence.

Thank You.

[victor]

Hello,

Ok, I read your post and i will try to give you some hints:

[bobbi]

Thanks Victor for the reply.

I have tried everything you said.

I had tried f12 before, but the bios is not showing the New HDD, just CD Drive and option to go to BIOS.
My new drive is a samsung, the old was a Hitachi.

My friend has also used the samsung in his, and said the bios said to his the the new drive is not fully authorised or something by IBM, but can continue
and had to change a setting in bios to bypass the PAUSE in boot.

The OS is win7. I have tried booting from Windows DVD and repair option, but it cannot find any OS installed. I have looked at the Partition table on the samsung via another laptop. The 3 windows partitions, the correct one is primary and active.

So Im totally stuck.

btw - i have a rough idea on the supervisor password. how many times can i put in the password before the laptop lockouts, and is that permanent lockout?

thanks so far..really appreciate the help

[victor]

Yes, but has no sense to try anything I said if the drive is not even shown in boot list, it does not "exist". You must solve the drive connection problems.

T43 has indeeed some issues working with drives not having proper firmware, due to a fault in the initial design where they wanted to use SATA but changed their mind and finally used ATA IDE.

The best drives to use for replacing are Fujitsu, seems lke Fujitsu's can cope with the timing requirements and even without a firmware update from Lenovo they work very well.

Are you sure that drive was in a T43 before? Because the drive could be a non supported size or is simply not working.

As far as I know, a T43 does not do a permanent lockout, just cycle power off-on and try again...and again..until the end of times...
_________________
Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania.

[bobbi]

Again victor thanks for the reply.

new fujitsu drives are hard to get. the samsung was cheap so i brought it.


- dont know what you mean here:
"Are you sure that drive was in a T43 before? Because the drive could be a non supported size or is simply not working. "

the samsung is new. not been in a t43 before, if thats what you mean.

i will keep trying. so it should get recogised even without the password.

i will try at figuring out the password..

At the moment i am using the old hdd again. i will have to throw the laptop if the new drive will not work, because the old one is dying. i haved backed up my work. unless i can get a reasonable used hitachi or fujitsu from ebay etc..

thanks again.

[victor]

Ok, You're welcome.

BTW, did you try that drive in the ultrabay? Worth a try, there is no limitation regarding the HD's firmware, ultrabay is using the normal IDE port.
_________________
Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania.

[bobbi]

OK. nice catch on that ultra bay. I will see if i can get my hands on one.

thanks for your help and honesty.

I will definately recommenf you if someone does need your kits..

Thanks again

[Reo51st]

The bios of T43’s has what is called a “WHITE LIST” and only those drives in that list will work on the T43’s.

T40, T41 and T42’s do not have this list.

You may want to try the firmware update for the new drive that you have if it is supported in the update.

This is something I know can be done but I have never tried.

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS013951

All the T43’s we get in we just put them in the mix and ship them to China.
_________________
Low flying aircraft.
The sound of freedom.