T42: Nothing but the IBM Splash Screen

[felyian]

I apologize if this topic has been addressed elsewhere; I searched and found nothing.


I have an IBM T42 that I bought in 2004. It worked perfectly until a couple of months back.

Last summer, the T42 screen gave out, and I figured it was time for me to replace the screen and the laptop. I imported a new screen replacement from the US (I'm in South Korea.) and a W520 to be my new workstation.

The W520 is wonderful, and the screen install went very well. The T42 worked for a few weeks, but I think I did something stupid when I tried to install a new supplementary hard drive in one of those ultra-bay IDE HD carriers.

I don't know what I did, but whatever I did, ever since that time, the T42 will show the splash screen and then not much else.


This is what has happened so far:


1) Splash Screen >>> "PXE-E61: Media test failure, Check cable" >>> "Missing operating system."

2) X'ed out Network boot in BIOS / Set to Boot from CD >>> Use XP CD

3) Splash Screen >>> "Missing operating system."

4) Create and try to boot from several different copies of XP CD, in case the first was damaged >>> No dice; same error.

5) Set to Boot from IDE HD0 / Replaced T42 HD with a new HD

6) Splash Screen >>> Thinkvantage Rescue & Recovery begins to load >>> Restart >>> Splash Screen... (enldess loop)*

5) X'ed out CD/IDE HD boot in BIOS / Set to Boot from USB

6) Create USB Bootable Drive

7) Splash Screen >>> "Operating system not found."

8 ) X'ed out all boots in BIOS / Set to Boot from IDE-HD1 [supplementary drive]

9) Splash Screen >>> Nothing.


*Something really doesn't make sense to me: How did the Thinkvantage Rescue & Recovery start loading when the hard drive I used was completely new?


I'm not a very tech-savvy guy, so I would really appreciate your help in this. My wife would like to use this computer for herself, and I really have run out of options here when even trying to re-install windows from a CD won't work.

Thank you.

[felyian]

::: UPDATE :::


Less than an hour after my original post, I think I stumbled upon the solution:


After writing my account down here for you, I realized that though I X'ed out all the boot devices when I tried to boot from the USB and from the IDE-HD0, I did not X out all the boot devices when I tried booting from the XP CD.

I went ahead and X'ed out all the boot devices except the CD and started again:

Splash Screen >>> BLACK PAGE (~60-90 Seconds) >>> Windows Setup


Right now, I have the blue Windows Setup screen, and it is loading all the install files.

I don't know what I did to cause the install not to work previously or why the install had to have the CD as the only boot device.

I realize the problem resolved itself before anyone could chime in, but I do appreciate having the sounding board.

Thank you.

[felyian]

Maybe I spoke too soon...


I went through the WinXP setup for both of the hard drives I have, the T42 hard drive (Hitachi Travelstar) and a brand-new, spare hard drive (WD Scorpio).

I had the the same problem in both: after the Windows install, there is a reboot. After that reboot, the computer tries to boot from the hard disk, however, nothing happens.

There is not blank prompt, just a black, empty screen.

What could be the problem?

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

It sounds like you are trying to re-install the operating system from a restore / recovery CD onto a hard drive that previously had a working operating system. If so, then I would first erase the hard drive. You can do this by running something like PC Doctor for DOS from a bootable CD or a dedicated hard drive utility (DFT from Hitachi). This ensures that the drive is recognized as "new" and Windows should install correctly.

ref: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... MIGR-56222 (PC Doctor for DOS .ISO image)
ref: http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/ (look for Drive Fitness Test)

[felyian]

Thank you, Ray!

I'm running PC Doctor from CD now.

I can't say whether or not that will work; I have to wait two hours and 40+ minutes until the full erase ends.

I'm a little confused, though. I thought that formatting the disk erases all the data. When I formatted the disk during the Windows install, did that not do a full erase?

I'll try installing windows again after this process is done.

[rkawakami]

Sorry, but I forgot to mention that it only takes about 2% of the full erase to get rid of any disk file structure . From my experience, when re-loading an OS from the restore disks, the installation program does not do any real formatting or erasure. Or if it does, it does not do a sufficient job.

[felyian]

My T42 is alive again! Thank you for your help.

I reinstalled WinXP and everything's working fine now, though I had a heck of a time updating all the drivers.

I think you're right about the the install program not really doing any real formatting or erasure because after PC-Doctor's full erasure, the install didn't recognize any particular partition, instead, it recognized the hard drive as "raw".

All that trouble because the built-in formatting/erasure procedure wasn't good enough for itself.

I'm looking forward to using this T42 for years to come.

[djslime]

ref: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... MIGR-56222 (PC Doctor for DOS .ISO image)


This link is not found when I try to click on it can you help?

how does this work? I am sure that I have to install it on another computer and then I don't know how to do this. Also, I have to ask, will this work on a mac OSX Lion?

[RealBlackStuff]

PC-Doctor has been officially withdrawn by Lenovo.
If you could still find an older version, you could burn it onto a self-booting CD.
It will NOT run on any MAC.

[felyian]

I feel stupid. I broke that very basic rule: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I recently went back to the US, where I found my old recovery CDs, a full set. Since last time I was forced to use a random copy I found in this country I thought it would be nice to set my T42 back up the way it was before.

Well, I'm back here again. First, I tried to use the Rescue and Recovery CD, but after that, the computer kept telling me that "NTLDR is missing."

I tried to use a regular WinXP install CD that I brought back with me from the US. The install went well, but upon restart after the initial install, there was no setup, just a black screen with a cursor.

This was very similar to what happened to me at the beginning of this year, when I came here to get advice, so I thought I would do what I did last time, which worked last time.

I tried to use PC-Doctor from a CD, but that didn't work, so I used the Hitachi Drive Fitness application to fully erase the disk and try the install again.

Did the full erase and install, but now I have a new error: "A disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart".

At every stage and with each error (NTLDR, blank,disk read error), I have tried FIXBOOT and FIXMBR in Windows repair.

So that's where I am. At the beginning of the day, I had a happy and working T42, now I have a glorified paperweight, again.

Last time you guys really offered great advice, so I thought I'd ask again.

Thank you for your patience.


P.S. I don't and didn't have any files on the windows drive, so I didn't lose any work. I just want to use the T42 again.

I have the 1 of 1 Rescue & Recovery CD, all 7 Recovery Discs for my T42, and two different WinXP installation CDs

[felyian]

Any ideas guys?

The PC-Doctor bootable CD I made is not working anymore for some reason, so I can only run the Hitachi HD Fitness Test program.

I have all these product recovery CDs, but I feel so useless because I don't know how to make them work. The computer won't read Disc 1 of 7, but it will read the Rescue and Recovery CD (Disc 1 of 1). When I try the restore factory settings option, it loads a folder called /MiniNT to the hard drive, but nothing else. That folder doesn't do anything.

When I install Windows, from an original WinXP CD, windows doesn't load, and there's just an error.

The only time that Windows XP started to load was then I installed it in an external hard drive, but that failed too after the Windows loading screen.

[felyian]

I don't know what happened, but it works again.

I swear, I followed the procedure from last January to the T after recovery from the factory discs failed. I did it at least three times.

1. Hitachi DFT - Full Erase (Last time I used PC-Doctor.)
2. Install Windows
3. Restart & Boot

I don't understand. It didn't work for at least two installs doing it in that order.

But now it did. Again.

Does this happen sometimes? Is there possible problem that my computer in particular might have?

[rkawakami]

From your descriptions, I would think that you have a problem with either the optical drive reading (all) disks properly, a difficult-to-read recovery disk or a hard drive that has some intermittent problems. To a lesser extent, there may be a hardware problem on the motherboard. Without further diagnosis it's hard to say where the fault lies. If it were me, I'd find a way to make a full backup of the hard drive once it's at a state of your liking (all system updates installed, all of the applications you want/need loaded, etc.). This way you have a copy that you can easily load or swap in case the system give you problems again.

[automobus]

Check the discs for C2 errors. Then, in a different computer with a trustworthy optical drive, test the discs for C2 errors.

If your T42 drive produces C2 errors, while the other drive does not, then you have a bad drive. If both drives produce C2 errors, then your discs are likely going bad. All writable optical media fades with time.

Use readom or readcd. ( readcd dev=/dev/optical_drive -c2scan )
For Microsoft Windows, it might be easier to use InfraRecorder.