First post, by exs1s
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EDIT - WARNING: DO NOT TRY AND INSTALL AN IDE TO CF ADAPTER IN AN LTE LITE MACHINE. IT FRIES THE HDD CONTROLLER.
Hi Guys,
I've had some real success in the past with replacing old failing hard drives with Compact Flash cards and SSD drives. For example, I've successfully installed a mSATA SSD drive in an old IBM ThinkPad, a Compact Flash card in a Compaq LTE 5000 series, both with 2.5" IDE adapters; and many many desktops with Compact Flash IDE adapters. All have worked flawlessly.
I'll just make it clear that the old hard drive still works, although it is starting to make noises indicating it will soon fail. I also have another identical hard drive that works fine from another machine. Same problem with both hard drives and machines.
Bt I'm having some trouble with a Compaq LTE Lite 4/25. One of the problems is that the BIOS only recognises 66 pre-defined hard drive types. For example, mine is type 50 (which is the default HDD type for the LTE 4/* models being 120Mb). Types 65 and 66 are technically custom hard drive types but don't actually allow you to specify custom parameters (like type 47 does on some newer models). So that's the first issue. Keep that one in mind, but that's not the main problem. I could probably mask a drive using EZ-BIOS or something similar to get around this.
The next and main problem is that I'm not even sure the original drive is a standard 44-pin 2.5" IDE drive - even though it's presented in the BIOS as such, and has the standard (what looks like) 44-pin connector. The reason I think it may not be standard IDE that when I plug the drive into a 2.5" IDE to USB adapter, the drive powers up, but does not show up as attached - even when I use Windows 10's disk utility. The USB adapter is shown with nothing attached.
Then when I try and connect a standard IDE to CF adapter with a 64Mb CF card installed and the jumper set to master (yes I've also tried slave and no jumper at all), to the laptops apparent 44-pin IDE cable, the disk is completely ignored as if it's not there at all.
I've also tried the SP2504 floppy version (download here) of the BIOS/CMOS setup utility which gives a few more options than the F10 utility - but makes no difference.
So, in summary, the original hard drive is not recognised by my Windows 10 PC (or my Mac) as even a drive via a USB to 2.5" IDE adapter. Yes, the adapter works with other drives. And the laptop doesn't even recognise any other drive is plugged in (except another type 50 drive and that is recognised by the laptop wich verifies the fixed disk controller works OK).
P.S. This problem does not exist on the LTE Elite or LTE 5000 series. I have both of these laptops with CF and IDE adapters working fine. This problem is unique to the LTE Lite series from what I can tell.
Does anyone have any experience with these laptops and their drives? And even better replacing the old drive with something new and more reliable?
Current Models:
LTE Lite 4/25
LTE Lite 4/33
LTE Elite 4/75
Deskpro 386s
Prolinea
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