[ltp] SATA harddisk in ThinkPad T42

[Helen Borrie]

>
>> At 02:07 PM 23/06/2010, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
>> 
>> >It just works.  Hot*un*plugging can be much nicer (and safer for your
>> >data and disk heads) with some udev help, look for info in thinkwiki.
>> 

I asked:

>> Is hot-unplugging the HDD in the ultrabay also recommended for the T60?
>> I'm always very conservative about mine - shutting right down to Poweroff
>> when swapping the HDD for the optical drive and vice versa.  Am I actually
>> not doing the HDD a favour here, then?

At 08:38 AM 24/06/2010, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:

>As a rule:  tell the kernel to remove the SCSI sd device first, and when the
>device disappears, you can tell the thinkpad to power down the bay.   This
>*needs* a udev script (which your distro may or may not supply.  I don't
>know of any that does it, so chances are you need to read the stuff in
>thinkwiki).

Ah, yes, I followed up on that yesterday and see how to do it (looks a very lucid piece of writing!).  I do have a fairly old Mandriva 2009 on here at the moment but I'm fixing to replace it with Ubuntu 10 in the near future.  Like the OP, I don't often have the need for the optical drive, whereas I'm using the second hdd constantly.

>If the led in the ultrabay is off, it is safe to remove the device.  If it
>is not off, you really should not remove the device.

Ha!  your mentioning the LED made me look for it!  Hadn't noticed it before. ;-) It *is* a brand new ultrabay, a replacement for one that died dramatically, strictly according to the Law of Murphy.  My nervousness about hot-plugging the ultrabay stems from that debacle.

Thanks very much for your comments.

Cheers,
Helen