Thinkpads Forum

I have a brand new x61 here that I need to load with XP. It came preloaded with Vista but that's not an option because this is a government machine.

I'm trying to load it with our standard XP SP2 Corporate install disc but the drivers for the hard drive controller are not loaded from disc. You would think that simply using the F6 to install drivers from floppy would work, but there's a catch. After the "Press any key to boot from CD" screen the next thing that shows up is the "Welcome to setup" screen. I can hear the CD drive spinning as it loads all the files but it stays on the black screen. I tried pressing F6 at the beginning but that only got it to pause to ask for the drivers with the black screen still up. It sat there for a good 10 minutes before someone came by and pressed enter and it continued to the "Welcome to setup."

I'm not looking to integrate the drivers into the disc but if there's no other option I will. I'm using the ultra dock with a DVD drive from a T43 to load it and a USB floppy drive connected to the bay as well for the drivers.

A common subject here. Go into bios - config - sata and set it to compatability mode. The drive matrix driver can be installed after win xp.

andyP wrote:A common subject here. Go into bios - config - sata and set it to compatability mode. The drive matrix driver can be installed after win xp.

Well that sounds like an easy fix. I don't know why I never thought of that before. Thanks!

kextyn wrote:snip.........because this is a government machine.

Good to know, last time I got the hype government was reluctant towards post IBM machines.

ryengineer wrote: Good to know, last time I got the hype government was reluctant towards post IBM machines.

don't you mean Matel?