I own a T42 and the DVN Adapter broke when I dropped it the other day, so now the battery won't charge. I called IBM and to replace this part, the entire board must be replaced. This is pricey and even if I shop for the part, the labor would likely be ridiculous. I thought of a solution. I can buy a refurbished Thinkpad T42 off ebay for relatively cheap. My question is, if I buy the same model IBM T42, with the same size harddrive, could I, upon receipt, just pop my old 40 GB harddrive into the new T42, and boot up the computer with now ill effects?

In a perfect world what you describe should work. WinXP wouldn't see any hardware changes. That said, I can see a few possible roadblocks. First off Laptops have alot of built-in security features that can work against you. The BIOS password, the harddrive password and the antitheft features that vary by brand/model. These include harddrives that may be hardcoded to a chip on the MBoard. You should probably contact IBM tech support and ask them that question. Also find out what happens if you purchase a laptop of questionalable origin. Many laptops sold on ebay are stolen and you could end up with a unit that would require replacement of the MBoard as well as the drive. I don't know how far the security features go on your unit. That said, if you bought a used unit it might be easier to just transfer your data over to the new unit, rather than swapping HDrives. That way you aren't locked into the exact model laptop. I just remembered there is a fingerprint reader on that unit. That could be another stumbling block. Just beware when buying a used laptop.

The hard drive in a used laptop of the same model does not have to be the same size. If your present hard drive has a password protecting it, I recommend you remove it before transferring it to another laptop. There's a small chance the password protection is a tiny bit different in the mboard bios of the one you get, and if so, you may not be able to access the hard drive. If a Maintenance manual is available for your model on the web, that has the info you would need to take apart/put back together your model, and if you're handy, you could try searching for just the mboard on the web, and install it yourself. The mboard, or used laptop and it's hard drive if it has one, you buy must have no passwords enabled on it. As OtheHill has said, lots of laptops and laptop parts on the web are from stolen computers / were stolen. If you buy it on Ebay, look at the seller's info - it they have not been a member long, or if there is little or no info about past transactions made, that seller is a lot more likely to be selling stolen goods. If it still has passwords on it, it's very likely the laptop or its mboard was stolen. Don't fall for the "I forgot the password" line - what else would they say - I stole the laptop?. If they had to use a system bios password to be able to use the computer at all, or a password to access the hard drive every time they used the computer, they're not going to forget it if they are actually the owner who enabled the password. If they bought it from someone else, that other person knows the passwords if they are the one that installed it/them. If the latop or a mboard for one is less than about 8 years old, it's probably very well protected - usually you cannot easily remove unknown passwords, unless you are willing to pay some bucks (maybe up to $100 or more) to have some specialist do it for you (they get a special code from the manufacturer to unlock the password protection that you can't get yourself, but can only do that if that option is available for your model and you qualify - sometimes only the original owner does). Password info is often stored on a chip on the mboard other than the bios that cannot be erased by removing the power to it, and common programs found on the web used to get rid of passwords don't work on more recent laptops. Either you have someone replace the chip, or you replace the mboard with one that has no passwords, or you pay to have the code removed, if available and you qualify. Hard drives protected by a password on more recent laptops are another matter. There is info on the drive itself stored in a place not accessable to anything but a laptop bios's password related code that determines whether the drive is protected or not, and only the laptop bios that installed the password, or the bios in a small group of laptops made by the same maker at about the same time, can remove that protection, and only if you know the password. There is no magic code to remove that protection - the drive cannot be wiped if it cannot be accessed - the drive is useless, even if there is no password enabled for it on a different mboard or if you changed the chip that stores the password info.

Yes you can, I think you should do that. Might have to fool with hal in worse case. The only exact copy is a FRU number being the same. The models may or may not have exactly the same FRU board. "Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, are in my top 10