Can one get a PCMIA HD?

jArgHA

I have an old'ish IBM Thinkpad (model A21m, P3 @ 733Mhz, 256MB RAM), its a real workhorse, very sturdy and still going strong for quite a few years now. However it only came with a 9GB capacity HD.

I would like to buy a new extra HD for the laptop and am wondering if you can get HD's that go in a PCMIA slot (I have 2 free). If so does anyone know where I could source these, I had a quick look on Komplett.ie but didn't find anything...

Thanks in advance,

jAH

Chalk

you could open it up and replace the hdd,
you could get an external usb hdd / pcmcia usb2 adapter then external hdd,
you could get a usb flash drive, a pcmcia card reader and a compact flash card.

theres no direct pcmcia hdd tho.

sceptre

Chalk wrote:

theres no direct pcmcia hdd tho.

Oh there are. Pretty small capacity (relatively speaking) though - up to about 5GB these days. Presumably too small for the OP. And for what you get they tend to cost a bit as well (which is what you'd expect when the entire thing fits in a PC card). I'd just replace the internal drive.

Duckjob

Unless it's a complete dinosaur, you're probably better getting a external USB HD, as someone mentioned above. PCMCIA is confined to laptop use. Plus with USB, you won't need to worry about installing drivers under Win2k/XP.

Chalk

sceptre wrote:

Oh there are. Pretty small capacity (relatively speaking) though - up to about 5GB these days. Presumably too small for the OP. And for what you get they tend to cost a bit as well (which is what you'd expect when the entire thing fits in a PC card). I'd just replace the internal drive.

thats weird,

evne minidiscs are double the thickness of a pcmcia slot and the width at the narrowest part, ie max diameter of the disc is tiny.

how can they fir all the necc equipment into a pcmcia slot?

have you got a link at all?

/edit,
nvm gogle first i guess
500 for 5gb is a bit steep, but they are nifty looking

seamus

Get a USB 2 PCMCIA card (if the machine only has a USB1.1 slot) and a compact, external HDD.

L1011

Chalk wrote:

thats weird,

evne minidiscs are double the thickness of a pcmcia slot and the width at the narrowest part, ie max diameter of the disc is tiny.

how can they fir all the necc equipment into a pcmcia slot?

have you got a link at all?

/edit,
nvm gogle first i guess
500 for 5gb is a bit steep, but they are nifty looking

A minidisc is about the same width as a PCMCIA slot... just checked

Also, remember that an iRiver can have an 80GB 1.5" HDD in it....

You can get HDD's and also Flash adapters that work in PCMCIA slots, but on a Thinkpad, just get the latest BIOS and get a 100 quid 40GB HDD and swap out. My TP600 (1997/8 era) has a 20 in it no problems, for instance.

Chalk

i know that, but i was sugesting that a magnetic plate, and a set of read write heads, remember these are built into a hdd , not a minidisc, would need to be fairly thick,


i however stand corrected and wouldnt mind one for my wallet, if they werent so expensice...

Nukem

New HDD is the way to go i reckon. Or get a nice external (example) for all your files and just use the lappie for the grunt work

sirlinux

Put a new hard drive into your laptop, it's a pretty easy job on those ibm's. You could even just use ghost or powerquest or many of the gpl cloning tools to clone the old drive onto the new drive on a desktop pc before hand, then get a cheap external USB (ebay less then €10) case for your old drive it makes a great portable storage unit.

jArgHA

Thanks for all the advice! The concensus seems to be to get a new internal HDD, which is what I had initially thought of. I guess I'm just afraid of putting in a new HDD and getting all of my data over from the old 9GB HD (not to mention software and configurations). Also the O/S (Windows 2000 Server) is OEM so I don't have the original CDs

Is ghosting a difficult process ? I have Norton Ghost 9.0 but have never tried it out. Would this image the o/s as well so that Windows would not need to be re-installed on the new internal HDD if restored from a ghost image?

Maybe an external USB 2.0 drive would be solution with least amount of headaches, but more expensive and slower access times ..?

jAH

Chalk

a 2.0 3.5" external will be much faster than an old laptop drive.

i have a 4200rpm internal drive and a 7200rpm usb 2.0 drive and the speed difference is incredible.

my latop is about 1 year old...

L1011

Chalk wrote:

a 2.0 3.5" external will be much faster than an old laptop drive.

i have a 4200rpm internal drive and a 7200rpm usb 2.0 drive and the speed difference is incredible.

my latop is about 1 year old...

With Windows, you there hit an issue. To this date, lots of software, including Office, holds the C: drive as being sacred. And he can't boot off the USB 2.0. So when C gets full, no more software installs. No more large downloads in IE 5.5 if not even 6 (buffers to C:\Windows\Temp). And so on

I have a 5400 RPM HDD in my laptop. It gets fecking HOT, which is a problem, but its right beside the cooling fan...

sirlinux

Ghosting is easy, the pc will be exactly the same only with more space on the drive, it doesnt need to reinstall anything, it's pretty fast as well depending on how much data you have.

RicardoSmith

jArgHA wrote:

Thanks for all the advice! The concensus seems to be to get a new internal HDD, which is what I had initially thought of. I guess I'm just afraid of putting in a new HDD and getting all of my data over from the old 9GB HD (not to mention software and configurations). Also the O/S (Windows 2000 Server) is OEM so I don't have the original CDs

Is ghosting a difficult process ? I have Norton Ghost 9.0 but have never tried it out. Would this image the o/s as well so that Windows would not need to be re-installed on the new internal HDD if restored from a ghost image?

Maybe an external USB 2.0 drive would be solution with least amount of headaches, but more expensive and slower access times ..?

jAH

If you don't have the orignal OS disks then I would go messing around ghosting it. Just get an external drive.

Mr T

Why not buy a Hitachi microdrive they come with a PCMCIA adaptor and have a capaity upto 6GB

RicardoSmith

Mr T wrote:

Why not buy a Hitachi microdrive they come with a PCMCIA adaptor and have a capaity upto 6GB

Why would you? a 2.5 drive even externally makes far more sense.