ICTLTD

Hi, I have never used the sidekicks but I am a bit of a battery geek and have noticed they use NIMH batteries(http://www.earthwalk.com/wp-content/uploads/SideKick-PP_Spec.pdf) which in reality is an older technology with a usual limit of 1.2V per cell. So compared to Li-po (arround 3.7V per Cell) which nearly everything uses now you need a lot more cells to make up the voltage and capacity. That in turn gives you more points of failure, it would only take a few cells to die to make the pack useless due to low voltage. Also NIMH only have a long life if you discharge them and recharge them properly, that means individually (each cell, not each pack in serial). That kind of pack will use many cells in a serial connection and they would soon become out of balance and the odd one would start to become over charged as I can't see it doing individual cell delta peak charging. (that is presumably why they only give 90 day warranty as standard). That is why Li-po became popular over Ni-MH as it was light weight and due to low amounts of Cells they can use a BMS (Battery management system) that charges individual cells. As a comparison something like the sidkick will be using around 50 X 1.2V 2000Mah cells to make that battery most laptop (Li-Po) high capacity batteries are 6-9 cells. Pack charging Ni-MH is tricky and unless proper individual cell charging/discharging is done it will result in cells failing after a few cycles.

I found this, not the same drive but perhaps worth a shout. http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?101133-Vertex-4-not-found-on-1st-boot/page9 Probably unrelated, but again worth a shot.

Can you drop it in an external box, will it then detect on the laptop? It wont sort the problem out but would maybe sort out if it was some sort of bios incompatibility or just some weird hardware one if it still does not detect. It is on the crucial compatible list so you may be able to get some tech support off them as they must have tested it (you would think)? Computer memory upgrades for Lenovo ThinkPad T410 Series Laptop/Notebook from Crucial.com If not it gives you a solid reason to return it as faulty.

No Reason, but if it wont work in AHCI mode it is worth checking the other options. It was a suggestion to see if detected in other modes. As It does not I am not sure how to detect it to be honest.

I know some of the Dell DRACs have SD card slots in them but not sure if they would be any use, also likely to be fairly pricey compared to the other options shown.

Checked in the bios that the SATA channel is set up correct and not a ahci mode? (Dells used to default to AHCI for some reason)

Ill be honest I have never sold one so I don't have a clue who supplies them or distributes them.

How about ARASAN CHIP SYSTEMS STANDARD SD HOST VER 2.0 PCI BOARD

I am a bit surprised on this thread, that's a bit of a con by those manufacturers. From our experience Dell can supply (with a bit of persuasion) master reset password, I am a bit shocked other manufacturers don't have them. (or they probably do but like charging)

Problem is in 1-2 years it is unlikely you would be able to get the same MB so a failed MB or CPU could lead to buying a new CPU, Mainboard and Ram (should server boards in X years have different RAM as standard). For about £1750-1800 you could have a Dell tower server with 3Y NBD Warranty for the spec you wanted. I think the security of that may be worth the extra IMHO. (That is using a Current Gen Xeon E5 CPU)

You could with Dell standard kit also. But for high end consolidation into minimum spaces no other kit comes near to Equalllogic IMHO. Equallogic is expensive but some may have the money and the need. I know of one school that needs to run the entire school (over 1000 client 2000 user 80TB+ Storage requirement) network including power failover and swtches in one rack due to space. So although there may be cheaper options they may not always be practical or offer sufficient support. If money is no object Ecuallogic is great, but for nearly every school money is an object.

Very True, to be honest equalogic rarely is an option for most schools so they tend to have a mixture of PowerEdge RXXX Servers and MDXXXX Storage as a more cost effective solution.

We have fired some of them out, also also if you are looking at consolidating storage you could look at Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 Blade Array | Dell

Dell Kace is around £6K could be less could be more depending what you want to bolt on to it, but there can be additional discounts for education.

No, I supply them. Just that we supply ones with Diagnostics SW. I agree the mem is an easy job, but on an intermittent fault I would rule out the external factor first (monitor and cable). That is the only bit with a seperate warranty I presume on his PC's (Monitor warranty is usually direct) if he can rule that out he can just boot the PC back at them for them to sort out without delving inside. On a new build it should be treated as a DOA IMHO.