[ltp] t43p, PXE-E61 Media Test Failure, Error 0200 Failure Fixed Disk 1, Operating System Not Found

[Steven J. Owens]

Hi all,

     I posted a month or two ago for advice about the post-lenovo
thinkpads.  It looks like my trusty t43p finally bit the big one:

     The other night, I started getting battery warnings, so I closed
the lid to put it into sleep mode and plugged the power cord in. When
I opened it the next day, I realized it had not gone into sleep mode,
but was still running, although the screen was blank.  

     I held down the power button for four seconds, but it failed to
boot, giving me "PXE-E61 Media test failure, check cable".  It wouldn't
boot an ubuntu live CD, giving me the same error.  I checked the boot
sequence, moved CD to the top, still the same error.  

     I finally excluded PCI LAN from the boot sequence, and I got a
different error message: "Operating System Not Found".  I guess this
suggests that both the hard drive and the CD drive failed.

     I yanked the hard drive entirely, and tried again, got: "ERROR
0200: Failure Fixed Disk 1 Press F1 to Setup"

     I examined the hard drive's pins carefully, to make sure they
weren't bent or anything, then tried to carefully but firmly reseat
the drive and reboot.  Back to "Operating System Not Found".  

     I should point out that the screw that holds drive in was
missing.  The screw hole is stripped, I can't get it to stay in. So
this may be what started this whole escapade, the drive becoming
unseated or something.

     Insert tedious account of various fiddlings with the drive to try
to get it to reseat properly (e.g. inserting it with the laptop upside
down, etc). Same results.

     Hm, one thing I haven't tried yet is a USB boot drive.  I happen
to have an old ubuntu USB drive (about a year old), so... Yay, _that_
seems to work.  Well... what the heck?  

     Okay, so the first USB drive I tried failed with odd error
messages; plugged it into another machine to check it and it failed to
mount, so I'll assume that's just the USB drive.

     So I dug up another, checked it in another machine first, then
tried booting the t43p wtih it.  For some reason I reinserted the hard
drive beforehand (I guess thinking that I could see if I could back up
the disk).  It booted normally off the hard drive.

     So... now what?  Well, obviously step 1 is to update my backups,
in case this is short lived.  But what else?  Ignore it and continue
with my life and pray it doesn't happen again?  

-- 
Steven J. Owens
puff@darksleep.com / (412) 401-8060 cell 
| "I'm going to make broad, sweeping generalizations and strong,
|  declarative statements, because otherwise I'll be here all night and
|  this document will be four times longer and much less fun to read.
|  Take it all with a grain of salt." 
|  - http://darksleep.com/notablog