X24 Boot options

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graywolf · #1 Post by **graywolf** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:43 pm

Hi, I just got an X24. It arrived in the mail Monday.

It seems to work perfectly except I can not seem to get it to boot from my USB CD-Writer. USB support is turned on in the bios. I have CD-ROM as the first boot option, and removable devices as the second, then the harddrive. I have legacy floppy disabled so the system should be able to assign A: to the CD-Writer.

That does not seem to do the trick. It still boots from the HD. Even when I use the F12 option to select boot from CD-ROM. There is no specific "Boot from USB" option showing.

The CD-Writer (HP 8230e) works from WinXP on the X24. The boot CD (Linux) I am using boots my desktop, so it is good.

I did see one post in the list with a similar problem but there was no workable answer that I could find.

It would be nice to have a removable boot option in case Windows XP craps out. Anybody have any ideas what I may be missing it trying to get the X24 to boot from a CD in the CD-Writer?

Mrbounty · #2 Post by **Mrbounty** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 3:45 pm

Unfortunately, I don't think you've missed anything here.
I also own an X24 and have been unable to boot it using my Asus CD writer, although it does boot an X31.
I have read that IBM somehow used to restrict booting with CD drives to IBM only devices. No idea how they can do that, but it's apparently the case with X2x series laptops which you won't be able to boot from (most?) third-party drives.
My advice: buy a basic IBM CD drive.

pcnoob · #3 Post by **pcnoob** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:29 am

I booted a dvdrom drive on my x21 by connecting the drive to a 3.5" enclosure.

aabram · #4 Post by **aabram** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 4:00 am

Mrbounty wrote:I have read that IBM somehow used to restrict booting with CD drives to IBM only devices. No idea how they can do that, but it's apparently the case with X2x series laptops which you won't be able to boot from (most?) third-party drives.

Hmmh, my X20 is booting fine from my Iomega CD-writer and there are bunch of folks who boot from various other devices as well.

Though some bootable CD-s require good timing in hitting the boot option in menu because it seems that the drive sometimes didn't spin up fast enough for the system to reckognise the bootable CD inside. Took me several tries sometimes to get it to boot. Listen to the sound it makes and see the boot times out before the drive has managed to spin up enough.

To the original poster: are you using any PCMCIA USB 2.0 cards? You can't boot from these although devices connted there work fine under Windows.

graywolf · #5 Post by **graywolf** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 11:05 am

aabram wrote: To the original poster: are you using any PCMCIA USB 2.0 cards? You can't boot from these although devices connted there work fine under Windows.

Nope, just the built in USB 1.1 ports. I tried the timing trick you mentioned, it did not work with this drive. Timing however may be the difference between what can boot and what can not, something to think on. I was thinking maybe my CD-Writer was too old, but it is actually about the same age as the X24 so that shouldn't be the problem.

Has anyone managed to boot from a compact flash card? Maybe I could write a boot image to one along with the drivers for the CD-Writer and use that as a resue disk. I do have a small one laying about that I could possibly use.

I guess another option may be a network boot from the desktop although I would have to get a switch before I could do that. I don't suppose you could do that with a wifi pc-card??? Probably has to be a wired connection with the built in ethernet card??? And this has the same problem as buying a IBM usb cd-rom (lack of current discretionary funds; although wireless and more ram are planned upgrades at the moment).

thibouille27 · #6 Post by **thibouille27** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 1:31 pm

I have the same problem

X23 + old Iomega ZipCD 650 on USB 1.1

It will detect the cdrom but will NOT boot.

graywolf · #7 Post by **graywolf** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 9:30 pm

Still no joy.

I am at the point of thinking these old usb cd-writers just do not have the firmware for booting from them. Please note that you can still read and write CD's with them however.

I have not been able to get a bootable compact flash card as XP apparently does not have the stuff to put a mbr onto a disk. Partition Magic formats it as a 144KB floppy. My old Thinkpad 750C (I had forgotten how slow those things were, and how great a keyboard they had) with Win95 that I dug out of the bottom drawer of the dresser does not have the drivers to mount the cf card (in a pc-card addapter). It recognizes the card as a drive but does not assign a letter. So I can not use DOS to write a master boot record to the thing <sigh>. I do believe that if I could get that MBR written on the cf-card I could boot from it.

A couple of other possibilities are an usb to ide adapter to use an more modern internal CD-ROM drive I have. That may be the cheapest way, but maybe I sould just wait until the beginning of the month ad buy one of those IBM branded drives off eBay, but I wanted to buy ram with the money as I can not load Photoshop CS2 with just the 256mb.

I am open to any low cost suggestions.

RageRover · #8 Post by **RageRover** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 1:23 pm

I received my x30 that I purchased off eBay with no OS. i tried using an IDE to USB converter, using a newish (6 months old) 5.25" DVD burner from my desktop.

No luck

Didn't boot. I went into BIOS and boot options, but USB boot is not on the list, although USB boot is enabled.

I too thought timing had something had to do with it, but even when I time it so that it spins up right before the computer tries to boot, I still have no luck.

I pulled the hard drive and put it into my HP notebook and installed Windows, but when I put the drive back in to the X30, it won't boot.

I'm going ot pull the drive again, this time only intsalling the XP boot files. Maybe it will then search for the USB drive.

If that won't work, I have no idea what to do. I guess I can always buy an IBM external drive or UltraBase Slice, but I would ratehr save the money...or use it towards something like more RAM or a larger/faster HD.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

graywolf · #9 Post by **graywolf** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 7:23 pm

Well, my latest information comes from Thinkpad Access. Yes I installed it on my X24. It says you can boot almost anything from a USB drive, except Windows XP. It claims that to boot a XP CD you have to have your CD drive in the Ultrabay. I still plan to try some other options. Unlike many folks my X24 came with a working copy of XP Pro installed, so I am not desparate.

PC Card boot is also a no-no it seems. It will only work after XP loads the PCMCIA drivers. I do not know if the CF slot is wired to the PCMCIA controller or directly to the IDE controller. Does anyone have this info?

I think IBM actually loaded the OS over a network link on these machines. Anyone tried that? There is a network boot option in the BIOS.

I had a problem loading Photoshop as well, it kept hanging up. What finally worked was copying the install CD to the hard drive and installing from that copy. You could probably load XP that way. That idea does not help anyone without some kind of OS on the machine though. One could try loading Win 98 first I guess.

I will keep following up on this thread until I have a viable answer for myself and others.

I just upgraded the X24 to 638MB of ram. Yes I know it is supposed to be 640MB, but the BIOS reports 638. Other than the number it works fine. As it should, the ram actually has an IBM barcode sticker on it.

pcnoob · #10 Post by **pcnoob** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 8:36 pm

Looks like I was pretty luck to have xp installed on my x21. I just pop in the cd and the drive keeps it spinning. Then I connect the usb, hit f12 and select cd rom boot. One second later the cd speeds up and I see the blue screen...

The time it took to install was pretty long since it's only a usb 1.1. One thing though is that I had to keep the mouse moving or hit a random key once a while during the installation, otherwise the computer will go to sleep and won't wake up.

ibmfan · #11 Post by **ibmfan** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:06 am

IF ANYBODY CANNOT BOOT FROM USB-DEVICE and cannot find a 'boot from usb' option on the BIOS setup, i think you can check and update the BOIS to the newest version, but please also make sure you back up your current BIOS in advance.

graywolf · #12 Post by **graywolf** » Thu May 04, 2006 9:12 pm

The saga continues...

IT WORKS!

Today I bought one of those SanDisk Cruzer Mini USB Flash Drives (256mb, $20 at Wal-Mart). I plugged it in and when the IBM logo came up I hit <F1> to enter the BIOS Setup. In the "Boot" menu I hit "+Hard Drives" and there it was. I moved the Flash Drive up above the Hard Disk and saved the changes with <F10>.

The system did a reboot. Or attempted to. Got a message that there was no operating system on the drive. Each time I hit <Enter> it tried to boot the Flash Drive. I had to remove the flash drive and hit <F12> and select "Hard Drive" as the boot option before it would again boot from the system drive.

So now I have to figure out how to put a boot image on the USB Flash Drive without a working foppy drive in any of my systems to copy the boot sector from. Most of the methods I found on the net so far require that, or are so complicated that I do not care to even try. But the X24, and presumably its earlier brethren, can it seems be booted from a USB Flash Drive.

Once you do that, and load the USB CD-Writer drivers, you should then be able to load any OS you want from a CD. In other words using the USB Flash Drive as a pseudo boot foppy drive. I will report again as soon as I find a reletive easy way to get a boot image on that Flash Drive.

Let me reiterate, in the BIOS "Boot" menu, select "+Hard Drives". You will see the USB Flash Drive listed as an option if it is plugged into the USB port. The X24 definately does support USB boot if there is a device it recognizes as bootable plugged into the USB port.

graywolf · #13 Post by **graywolf** » Thu May 04, 2006 10:39 pm

The information and downloads from this site work:

http://www.apcstart.com/usb/rescue/

I have now successfully booted into DOS after using them to format and load the system files to the SanDisk Cruzer Mini Flash Drive. I spelt that out in full because I have seen several references that say you can not make that particular Flash Drive bootable. Anyway now all that is needed is to add the files that will make it a genuine rescue disk.

So, a USB Flash Drive comes up as one of the available Hard Drives in the BIOS Boot options on the X24 and can be booted from (Almost certainly this will work on an X22, or X23 as well as the X24. The X20 and X21 are not quite the same architecture, so they are up in the air until someone tries this and we find out for sure one way or the other).

bigtiger · #14 Post by **bigtiger** » Thu May 04, 2006 11:12 pm

I have a X-24 and it boots fine with my external DVD-RW box.

graywolf · #15 Post by **graywolf** » Fri May 12, 2006 1:59 pm

Another datum:

I ordered a USB to IDE adapter from a seller on eBay. It arrived today. I used it to hook an IDE CD-ROM drive I had laying about to the X24. No problem booting with it which shows, as I mentioned in an earlier post, that it depends upon how old your drive is whether it will support CD boot or not.

The Windows XP Proffesional SP2 install disk took quite awhile to boot. You could go make a cup of coffee and drink it while it did that. It did boot however. A Linux Live CD booted faster, about long enough to pour a cup of coffee.

Set your CD-ROM ahead of +Hard Drives in the BIOS. You will get a "Hit any key to boot from CD-ROM" message upon boot. Note that nothing is said about the USB CD-ROM, or USB Flash Memory being a USB device or a Removable Device when you boot from them. I suggest moving the removable devices item to the bottom of the boot list in the BIOS set up.

I bought the USB>IDE thingy with the intention of using it to ghost the HD image to a new HD real soon now, so I am glad that it seems to work OK. An asside on ghosting to a new HD in a X-series Thinkpad, you want to remove the old hard drive connect it as a USB drive and verify that it will boot, then you want to put the new hard drive in the machine and ghost from the USB connected old drive to the new drive. That will overcome some Win XP, 2000, and NTFS problems that cause a lot of grief to some and not to others for some unknown reason.

So I feel that this is the end of this thread as far as I am concerned. It seems that except for some older USB drives, one of which I was unlucky enough to have, the X20 series will boot from most USB devices.

pschemo · #16 Post by **pschemo** » Wed May 17, 2006 6:21 pm

It doesn`t work for X20 =\\ but works for T23 =D
I`ll try to upgrade BIOS of my X20 and write my results =]

RoxyRose · #17 Post by **RoxyRose** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:51 pm

I've had to install xp on an x24 and x31 and for me one method worked consistently. I would use a 2.5in enclosure to put the laptop drive in. Make sure it is partitioned in Fat32 and formatted properly. Copy the i386 folder and then place it back into the system. Then I use my external floppy drive (made by Toshiba) to boot to Dos and then run winnt.exe. Works well enough. Just have to make sure that the partition is made startable by fdisk. This website has been the absolute best at describing how to do it:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installat ... -ROM_drive

I would suggest everyone save a copy in their documents just in case the website no longer has it later.

X24 Boot options

X24 Boot options

I am having the same problem with my x30

My experience...

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