Thinkpads Forum

I have a T40p that has inexplicably died and I’ve been utterly unsuccessful in reviving the darn creature (see separate thread for details of my misery ).

So… being creative, I took the disk out and shoved it into a desktop machine – Intel server motherboard with dual Xenon processors, SCSI drive, and Windows 2003. I used a 2.5 to 3.5 connector urgently purchased from CompUSA. Lo and behold, the drive was instantly recognized and all my data accessible.

Oh the joy!

But my T40p was configured with all my application. The desktop doesn’t have any of that.

Now being even more creative, I figured I’ll just disconnect the SCSI drive and let it boot from the T40p drive. Sure I’ll probably need to change the video driver but other than that it should work – a bulky MEGA ThinkPad of sorts to use until I have my T40p fixed.

Well, wrong thinking, naïve me. The stubborn thing won’t boot. Won’t do anything. Just a black screen with a blinking cursor and that’s it. I tried holding F8 to get to the boot menu but no luck – same black screen.

Grrrrr!

So what am I doing wrong??

I'm not sure it follows that just because you can see the drive in your desktop machine that you can boot from it. ... JD Hurst

It will not work, because the software/OS will be looking for the Thinkpad identification (ie. BIOS, systemboard), that it was instructed to work on.

Darn, so that’s the reason.

Thanks for the info.

You can be able to use Windows off the drive if you boot in Safe Mode - lots of hardware will not work though (e.g. video will be 800x600, only PS2 mice and keyboards and mice will work etc etc. And as was previously mentioned, basic motherboard stuff is different eg chipset, Northbridge/SouthBridge etc and while most of those should install via Plug and Play without issue, if you are using an OEM version of Windows, the specific drivers for the hardware in the desktop will not be available for Plug and Play to use from the OEM disk.

If you have XP SP2, you will probably also be forced to re-activate since Windows forces this every time it finds major changes in the systems' hardware. That will probably fail too locking you out of the PC even Windows can boot OK (assuming you are using a retail version of Win XP, if you are using the IBM OEM version this might not happen)

Bottom line, it won't work, Windows has stuff built in specifically to prevent pirating Windows simply by cloning the Windows installation drive as an anti-piracy measure which is what Windows thinks you are doing.

Sounds like the MBR may be corrupted...

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-62978

Settings are generally in
\Documents and Settings\[your user]\Application Data
I think it's a hidden folder.

On the sunny side, this provides a great opportunity to try linux, risk free!