Thinkpad Hard Drive Firmware Update

You upgrade the BIOS on your Thinkpad; you install Windows updates, but have you updated the firmware on your Thinkpad’s hard drive?

As recent as January of this year the latest hard drive firmware was released for IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads. The firmware is downloadable as an .iso file and you select one of two different files depending on the model of your machine. Burn this .iso file to make a bootable cdrom; then boot from the cdrom and follow the instructions to update the firmware. The whole firmware update process only takes about thirty seconds.


The first firmware update file:
Version: FWSH33Release Date: 09/20/2009

Supported Thinkpads:

ThinkPad R400, R500
ThinkPad T400, T500
ThinkPad W500
ThinkPad W700
ThinkPad X200
ThinkPad SL300, SL400, SL500
ThinkPad R60, R60e, R60i
ThinkPad R61, R61e, R61i
ThinkPad T60, T60p
ThinkPad T61, T61p
ThinkPad X60, X60s, X60 Tablet
ThinkPad X61, X61s, X61 Tablet
ThinkPad Z60m, Z60t
ThinkPad Z61e, Z61m, Z61p, Z61t

Supported Hard Drives:

"x" means a character.
Toshiba MKxx32GSX
Toshiba MKxx34GSX
Toshiba MKxx08GAx
Fujitsu MHV2xxxBH
Fujitsu MHV2xxxBH PL
Fujitsu MHW2xxxBH
Fujitsu MHW2xxxBH PL
Hitachi HTS5410xxG9SA00
Hitachi HTS5416xxJ9SA00
Hitachi HTS5432xxL9SA00
Hitachi HTS543216L9SA01FDE
Hitachi HTS7210xxG9SA00
Hitachi HTS7220xxK9SA00
Hitachi HTS7220xxK9SA00FDE
WD WDxxxxBEVS-08RS
Seagate Momentus 7200.1
Seagate Momentus 5400.3
Seagate Momentus 5400 FDE.2
Seagate Momentus 7200.2
Seagate Momentus 5400.4

The second firmware update file:
Version: FWHD56
Release Date: 05/22/2009

Supported Thinkpads:

ThinkPad A20m, A20p, A21m, A21p, A21e, A22m, A22p, A22e, i1800
ThinkPad A30, A30p, A31. A31p
ThinkPad G40, G41
ThinkPad R40, R40e
ThinkPad R50, R50p, R51, R52
ThinkPad T20, T21, T22, T23
ThinkPad T30
ThinkPad T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p, T43, T43p
ThinkPad X20, X21, X22, X23
ThinkPad X30, X31, X32
ThinkPad X40, X41, X41 Tablet

Supported Hard Drives:

"x" means one or more characters.
IBM DARA-2x
IBM DJSA-2x
IBM IC25NxATDA04
IBM IC25TxATDA05
IBM IC25NxATCS04
IBM IC25TxATCS05
IBM IC25NxATCS05
Hitachi DK23AA-x
Hitachi DK23BA-x
Hitachi DK23CA-x
Hitachi DK23DA-x
Hitachi DK23EA-x
Hitachi DK23FB-x
HGST IC25N0xxATMR04
HGST IC25N0xxATCS05
HGST HTS5480xxM9AT00
HGST HTS7260xxM9AT00
HGST HTS4240xxM9AT00
HGST HTS5410xxG9AT00
HGST HTS7210xxG9AT00
HGST HTS4212xxH9AT00
HGST DK1xFA-x
HGST HTC4260xxG7AT00
HGST HTC4260xxG9AT00
HGST HTS4212xxH9AT00
HGST HTS5416xxJ9AT00
Toshiba MKx09MAT
Toshiba MKx19GAX
Toshiba MKx26GAX
Toshiba MKxx32GAX
Toshiba MK4026GAX
Toshiba MK4019GAX
Toshiba MK6021GAS
Fujitsu MHN2xxxAT
Fujitsu MHR2xxxAT
Fujistu MHT2xxxAT
Fujitsu MHT2xxxAH
Fujitsu MHV2xxxAH
Fujitsu MHV2xxxAH PL
Fujitsu MHV2xxxAT
Fujitsu MHR2xxxAT
Fujitsu MHS2xxxAT
Fujitsu MHT2xxxAT
Seagate ST980825A
Seagate ST910021A
Note: Seagate firmware update program will take about 2 minutes to complete.

Thinkpad WWAN Broadband Option - ATT 3G Info

I've been using a Lenovo W500 with the SIM card reader in the back, under the battery, and wanted to find some information on how to use this function and what additional accessories I may need.

After searching for awhile I discovered this information was not easy to uncover. So after searching a little more, I finally found the part number of a Mini PCI Express card option I would need to purchase and install to get the 3G wireless working.

You install this card option and insert a SIM card and you're on your way to accessing the ATT 3G network. Of course, you have to have a service contract with ATT and airtime charges will apply. You should make sure your Thinkpad has the latest BIOS to ensure the PCI card is recognized properly.

Below I copied the information and specs on this Mini PCI Express option as posted on the Lenovo publications website.

Thinkpad Broadband wireless WAN-ready option offers cost-efficient remote access solutions

Lenovo United States Hardware Announcement 108-681 August 26, 2008

Wireless WAN (WWAN) differs from a wireless LAN (WLAN) because it uses cellular network technologies such as WIMAX, CDMA, GSM, HSDPA, or 3G to transfer data. These cellular technologies are offered regionally, nationwide, and globally and are provided by a wireless service provider, typically for a monthly usage fee.

WWAN is a predictable, cost-efficient remote access solution. Instead of managing the setup, use, and payment of multiple connectivity solutions for your remote workers (remote office connectivity, hotel and airport Wi-Fi, and home office access), you can use a single, cost-effective solution with wide national coverage, consistent
experience, simple setup, comprehensive support, and predictable cost.

Description Part number

AT&T 3G BroadBand Option 43R9152

Technical information

UMTS/3G operates in the following frequency ranges:
Uplink (Mobile Broadband Module to base-station)
850: 824 - 849 MHz
1900: 1850 - 1910 MHz
2100: 1920 - 1980 MHz
Downlink (Base-station to Mobile Broadband Module)
850: 869 - 894 MHz
1900: 1930 -1990 MHz
2100: 2110 - 2170 MHz
GSM/GPRS/EDGE data at 850 MHz, 900 MHz,
1800 MHz, and 1900 MHz
GSM Power Class:
MCS1-4 (GMSK): GSM850/900: Class 4/2W/33dBm GSM1800/1900: Class 1/1W/30dBm
MCS5-9 (8-PSK): GSM850/900: Class E2/0.5W/27dBm GSM1800/1900: Class E2/0.4W/26dBm
UMTS Power Class: Class 3 (23dBm)

UMTS reference sensitivity
Band V(850): Nom < -110dBm, Max: < -104dBm Band II(1900): Nom < -107dBm, Max: < -104.7dBm Band I(2100): Nom < -109dBm, Max: < -104.7dBm Performance specifications:
Peak power consumption
Supported Voltage Range 3.0V - 3.6V (3.3V +/- 9%)
Nominal Operating Voltage 3.3V
Average Standby Current / Power (Radio off) <>

Physical specifications
Approximate height: 4.25 mm (0.1675 in)
Approximate width: 30 mm (1.18 in)
Approximate depth: 50.95 mm (2.0 in)
Approximate weight: 0.012 kg (0.026 lb)
Operating environment
Temperature to operating: -10° to 65°C (14° to 149°F)
Temperature to storage: -30° to 85°C (-22° to 185°F)
Relative humidity: 10% to 95% non-condensing

AT&T HSPA Broadband Option 43R9152 $169.00
* List price does not include tax or shipping and is subject to change without notice. Reseller prices may vary.

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Windows 7 on a Lenovo W500 Thinkpad

Review of Lenovo W500 Thinkpad running Windows 7 operating system.

Hardware: W500 Thinkpad model:4061-AC4
Software: Windows 7 beta 32-bit build 7000


This is my third review of the Lenovo W500 Thinkpad. The first was an overall look at the hardware and the W500 Thinkpad Specifications. I continued with an additional and what I though at the time was going to be the last review titled, W500 Further Review and OS Install. It covered my experience installing and running Windows Vista and the ‘switchable graphics’ feature I wanted to try out. But, it turns out that when I obtained the new Windows 7 beta operating system release I couldn’t resist installing it on the W500 to see how it looked and ran.

Man is it nice. Microsoft has refined the install which is much more clean and easy. All this means is there is less user interaction, it installed and had rebooted before I knew it. Upon the first login it had the same great visual looks as Vista, but I found the usability to be much improved. I could locate easily how to make changes to programs, the control panel is laid out nice and everything seemed customizable.

Looking in the device manager showed almost all the drivers installed except ‘Base Manager Device, PCI Serial Port and Simple Communications Controller’. I resolved some of these by downloading Vista drivers from the Lenovo support site. I’m not too concerned with the other because I think it is the modem.

An important feature of the W500 I wanted to try out in Windows 7 was ‘switchable graphics.’ This enables the user to switch between two built-in graphics chipsets, integrated or discrete, depending on your performance or battery life needs. This feature works great under Vista; you run and install an application from Lenovo and from within the OS you can choose which graphics driver you want to use and it switches on the fly.

This application installed fine under Windows 7 but did not work properly. By default the OS chose to use the ‘integrated’ Intel chipset. When I would choose to other ‘discrete’ ATI FireGL chipset, the system would go blank and come back without switching at all. Both these graphics drivers showed up in device manager but the ATI had an issue. So, I tried to disable the Intel driver and force the machine to use the ATI on reboot. This worked of course and the resolution looked a little better with this graphic chipset; I still could not switch graphics cards though. I never could get this to work, I tried all the variations I could think of in disabling, re-enabling drivers, going in the BIOS and setting the options there. It’s not really a big deal right now; this is still a beta OS and the application was designed for Vista so maybe it will work in the future.

Windows 7 beta has been very stable and in fact hasn’t crashed or encountered problems at all. I installed the updates, added applications, changed themes, and pretty much tried to mess with everything I could. I’ve never been a fan of Vista but so far I like Windows 7 a lot and can’t wait for the official release. The Lenovo W500 matched up with this OS makes a nice pairing; I’m glad the beta doesn’t expire until August. I think I’ll keep Windows 7 on here until then.