Thinkpad & Portable Drive Bay--Code 10

[Chuck Humphrey]

In a previous thread I asked for help on getting my portable drive bay
2000 working on my Thinkpad (a-21m). The drive bay worked on the
initial install of WIN XP. However, after installing the 14 some-odd
updates that Microsoft suggests, it stopped being recognized and
installed.

WIN XP did "see" drive bay, but it could not properly install the
device. Device Manager said the device had an "Error Code 10"
problem.

I spent the better part of a month exchanging e-mails trying to solve
this problem with Microsoft. They could not help. Now I have come up
with the solution

I have finally gotten my portable drive bay 2000 working under WIN XP.
I bypassed the operation of the device on battery by plugging in the
external power supply that came with the unit. Now it fires up just
fine with the PCMCIA connection or with the USB connection. So, it
appears there is something in WIN XP and/or the Thinkpad interface
with WIN XP that, at startup, refuses to recognize the power being
provided by the batteries.

Strangely, if I unplug the external power connection and run on
batteries after getting the drive bay (and its contents) recognized
and running it continues to operate just fine.

Even more remarkable is this. After getting the unit going the first
time with the external power source, It will properly start on
batteries if I turn off the computer and then turn it back on.

Amazing!

[Jon Splane]

Chuck Humphrey wrote: In a previous thread I asked for help on getting my portable drive bay 2000 working on my Thinkpad (a-21m). The drive bay worked on the initial install of WIN XP. However, after installing the 14 some-odd updates that Microsoft suggests, it stopped being recognized and installed. WIN XP did "see" drive bay, but it could not properly install the device. Device Manager said the device had an "Error Code 10" problem. I spent the better part of a month exchanging e-mails trying to solve this problem with Microsoft. They could not help. Now I have come up with the solution I have finally gotten my portable drive bay 2000 working under WIN XP. I bypassed the operation of the device on battery by plugging in the external power supply that came with the unit. Now it fires up just fine with the PCMCIA connection or with the USB connection. So, it appears there is something in WIN XP and/or the Thinkpad interface with WIN XP that, at startup, refuses to recognize the power being provided by the batteries. Strangely, if I unplug the external power connection and run on batteries after getting the drive bay (and its contents) recognized and running it continues to operate just fine. Even more remarkable is this. After getting the unit going the first time with the external power source, It will properly start on batteries if I turn off the computer and then turn it back on. Amazing!

All the symptoms you list could be caused by a battery that isn't
delivering enough power to spin the disk up fast enough at boot for the
system to detect it properly. It takes a lot more power to spin up the
drive than to keep it spinning at the proper RPM range. I've seen a
similar situation many times with desktop PCs that have inadequate power
supplies. When you do a cold boot the system throws a hard drive
detection error and won't boot. If you hit reset it boots fine as the
drives are already spinning at that point. Sometimes you can "fix" the
problem by changing settings in the BIOS setup to slow down the boot.

Jon