Hey, Everyone!

I hope you can help me with the problem I am facing with my T43.

I have purchased a new 120 gig WD hard drive to use with the adapter in the Ultrabay as a second Operating System. I have not been able to boot from the installation DVD through the external DVD drive. Just get a blinking curser on a black screen. I also tried to boot from the ultrabay drive just to see if it would work, but, the same results.

I have tried three different OS CDs and DVDs including Windows 98. Same results.

I have made sure the boot list in the bios was correct to have the USB DVD drive listed first, as well as the Ultrabay (when I tried it), and have tried with them listed as the only active boot device. Also made sure the USB drive was enabled in bios. No change.

All of the external USB DVD drive information lists in the bios, so it sees it just fine, but as I said before, just end up with a blinking curser.

With your direction and advice, I recently updated my bios to the current version in hopes that this problem was fixed. But, I have the exact same situation as before.

Am I doing something wrong? Or is there an unusual procedure to load an OS on a new disk in the ultrabay?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

Ken

When you start up your system, remove all external USB devices from the computer or else you will get a blank screen. And if you want to load your second OS from an external drive, i think you need to go and change the "master" and "slave" in the BIOS section.

If you just run your thinkpad from your original OS without plugging in the external drive, does everything work well for you??

NS, thanks for the reply.

I have not seen a "master and slave" drive setting on the bios. I'll look again, but I have looked through the bios quite a few times. The bios sees all the drives okay and lists them in the boot list. The bios will initiate fine with or without the USB drive plugged in. When trying to boot from the USB drive (with or without the ultrabay drive inserted) the light on the USB DVD drive will blink a few times and spin the disk for a minute or so and quit. On the computer screen, I just get a blinking curser--nothing else.

Everything on the computer runs fine from my main drive and XP pro OS. No issues.

I just have not been able to figure out how to load a fresh install.

Thanks,

Ken

There is no master-slave switch in the BIOS. There is no master-slave setting or jumper on slim optical drives. Is sounds like a bad optical drive to me.

Hi RichK, and thanks for the reply.

Both drives, USB and ultrabay, work fine. Play DVDs, etc. It's Weird. I don't understand why I can't boot from them, especially since it is specified in the bios that you can boot from USB CD. You are suppose to just make sure the USB is enabled and in the boot list.

I must be going about this wrong somehow. I hope someone reading the post has encountered the problem sometime and give me some light on what I am doing wrong.

Thanks, guys!

Blessings,

Ken

I assume that in the BIOS, under config/USB, you have "enable BIOS support" set to enable. (I don't have a T43 here with me right now, but that is the wording in a T42) After that, I would make sure the BIOS version is the latest available. My problem is that I don't have a T43 around right now to test. I had 2 here last week, but I sold the last one Thursday.

I assume that in the BIOS, under config/USB, you have "enable BIOS support" set to enable. (I don't have a T43 here with me right now, but that is the wording in a T42) After that, I would make sure the BIOS version is the latest available. My problem is that I don't have a T43 around right now to test. I had 2 here last week, but I sold the last one Thursday.

Hi, RichK! Thanks again for your reply and your kindness to help me.

Yes, according to my bios, the USB is enabled. Just the other day, I updated to the most current bios ( and it is up to date on the current Embedded Controller) hoping it would take care of this problem, but the same situation as before exists. It has been quite frustrating to figure out why I can't install an OS from either of these optical drives (USB and Ultrabay) I have. Everything else seems to be healthy and working properly on the system.

There must be a simple solution. But, I am sure not seeing it yet.

I am almost ready to resolve to the fact that you can't install an OS
through the USB optilcal drive or Utrabay optical drive on this Thinkpad--which makes no sense to me at all. This is my first Thinkpad and not being able to do an essential computer task, makes me wonder about these.

I am new to this community, and looking trough some of the different forums, though, I have not seen any posts of this particular problem. So, it must not be a common problem with Thinkpad owners. Hmmmm....

Thanks again, RichK. Your a blessing!

Sincerely,

Ken

Wait. I read your first post again and you talk about an installation DVD. If you have installation files on a DVD, you still need a bootable CD first. R & R creates 2 disks if you are making a DVD. The 2 disks are a CD and a DVD. The CD goes first.

Well, I gotta tell you, my original idea was to install osx86 on the new W/D hard drive in the Ultrabay. I burned the iso immage on to DVD. But, when I could not boot from the osx-86 DVD, I thought I would try and boot from a full windows 98 CD I have had for years, just to see if that would boot, and got the same results as with the DVD.

The idea is that I want to put osx on the ultrabay HD. Now, are you saying I have to have another CD to prepare the new hard drive for the install on this machine?

Thanks, RichK, and anyone else who can shed some light.

Blessings,

Ken

Try burning a PC Doctor for DOS CD, and see if that will boot up.

PC Doctor for DOS bootable CD - ThinkPad

Edited for erroneous content.

Hi GomJabbar!

Thanks for your reply.

I downloaded and burned the PC Doctor .iso.

I tried to boot from the CD on the external USB drive and the Ultrabay Drive. The same things happened as with the other DVDs and CDs.

I tried to follow the directions on the download web page, but it always took me to the Reset and Recovery area.

When I tried to run the PC Doctor CD without any other drives on the boot list in the bios, same results as the others before. I get message, "no opperating system found", and a blinking curser. Shouldn't I be able to boot right from the CD without any other drives listed in the boot list?

Even though I am new to Thinkpads, I really feel like a dweeb here (and probably am!), but, maybe I need to be shown the basics again on what I am trying to do. Thanks for your patience.

Sincerely,

Ken

What are you doing to try to boot from an alternate device? Yhe right way is to leave the boot list alone in the BIOS and hit F12 when you see the IBM splash screen.

I have tried about every way--with all drives listed in boot list--optical drives first, primary hard drive first, optical drives second, third, power up, F12, select optical drive. Enter.

If the primary hard drive is in the list anywhere, it will just pass by the optical and goes into boot on the primary hard drive and windows xp pro starts up.

If the optical is the only one on the boot list, I get a "no opperating system found" and a blinking curser right under, and it just sits there that way until I power down.

Man, what a drag! Hope we can figure this out.

Thanks again, richk.

Sincerely,

Ken

How did you make the bootable disk from the ISO file? You cannot just copy the file to the CD under XP. You need a utility to extract from the image. (I don't know your experience level. I don't mean to be insulting if this is too obvious.) It just sounds to me like the CDs you have are not bootable.

Hey, richk.

I downloaded the iso file to my desktop, opened nero, added by using add file button in nero, burn. Do you think this process is goofing up my iso boot disk?

And, listen richk, I am willing to look at all the possibilities--I appreciate you checking out the things you think might be the problem. Thanks again.

Sincerely,

Ken

Yes. I think that is screwing up the disk. You are ending up with CD that has an ISO file instead of a CD with boot files. If you have Nero, just double-click the ISO file. That should launch Nero. Click Burn CD

Dang! I am a dweeb!

I thought the iso file was self initiating. Duhhh!

Okay, will do this. I'll post results after a while.

Thank you, richk.

Blessings,

Ken

Back to your original problem - it sounds like you still may need a boot CD to start the R43 recovery.

Okay, let me get this right (I hope), my system is running fine and yet I need an additional cd to boot for recovery? Where can I get this CD?

I am assuming you already know that I want to load OSX86 on to the ultrabay hard drive keeping it seperate from the main hard drive and Windows OS.

Thanks so much!!!

Ken

The problem is that if you want to have another bootable HD and have it in the ultrabay, like if you had 2 bootable disks on a desktop and choose the bootable partition from XP menu. as far as I know, you would need to have installed your OS from a commercial XP disk, rather than using the version that came with the thinkpad. Also, the thinkpad uses a non-standard master boot record that allows access t the recovery image. I really have no idea if that MBR is compatible with a separate bootable disk. What are you trying to accomplish. Maybe there is another way.

It works!!!!!

Yes! The problem was simply NOT clicking on the iso file and burning the DVD and CD. I goofed when I had just burned the iso file intact so it did not open it to a bootable format.

I have successfully installed OSX86 on my Ultrabay drive and it works!! Cool!! There are a few things that are not working yet, such as wireless internet and sleep mode, but, I'll work on that stuff later. I am just thrilled that I finally got it installed on the new drive. What a terrific OS mac has!

Just messing around a little while on OSX, I found that my main Windows drive shows up on the OSX desktop and I can swap files. YESSSSS!!!! I did not see it the other way around, though, when I booted to the Windows drive, but I really did not expect to.

I have the bios set to boot the OSX drive first (after the external USB drive), so when I remove the ultrabay drive and power on, it goes ahead and boots to the main Windows drive. Pretty cool set up. Can't wait to show the guys at work!

I can not thank you enough, richK. You hung in there with me even though I was really thick in the head!

Thanks to GomJabbar and NS too for your posts in trying to help.

Now, I guess I'll be going over to the OSX86 forum for a while to figure out what to do about these other little problems on the MAC OS. Even if I never get wireless and sleep going, I will really enjoy the OS since I can use wireless, etc., on the Windows drive and move to OSX what ever I want.

Thanks so much guys. Your the best!!!

Sincerely,

Ken