Boot X20 From USB Pen Drive?

Message

faberryman · #1 Post by **faberryman** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 8:24 pm

I have been unable to boot my X20 from a 1GB SanDisk Cruzer USB pen drive. I have prepared it using the HP Drive Key Boot Utility with no luck. I also installed Puppy Linux on it, also to no avail. I have USB enabled in the BIOS and have tried it with Floppy Enabled and Floppy Disabled in the BIOS. Am I doing something wrong or is it just not possible?

The Spirit of X21 · #2 Post by **The Spirit of X21** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 11:46 am

As far as I know it is not possible to boot from a USB drive on the X20. I have an X21 and am unable to boot from a flash drive. You must use either a dock or an IBM USB floppy/CD-ROM drive.

faberryman · #3 Post by **faberryman** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 11:50 am

Thanks for responding. Your answer was the one I was afraid of. At least I now know it wasn't just my bumbling!

The Spirit of X21 · #4 Post by **The Spirit of X21** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 1:46 pm

I actually have an IBM USB CD-ROM drive. I never tried it out, but it's in brand new condition, and you can have it for the cost of shipping. The only problem is that I don't have the cable that connects the CD-ROM drive to the computer. This cable is a little difficult to find, but you might be able to get it from a member of the forum.

faberryman · #5 Post by **faberryman** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 2:10 pm

Gee that would be great! Please e-mail me at faberryman@gmail.com so I can make arrangements. Thanks.

ephem · #6 Post by **ephem** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 6:59 pm

You CAN actually boot from a USB thumbdrive.

I have a X22, and that's how I re-installed Windows XP Pro, before I got myself a 5.25 External USB case with CD Drive.

I'm at work currently, but I'll post up the little tutorial I found to get it working...

From the top of my head, I used the "HP Thumbdrive" tool, and once I used that to make it "bootable" I copied the contents of a Windows 98 boot disk onto the thumbdrive.

From there, I put the contents of my XP pro cd onto the thumbdrive, then just ran the setup. 1 hour later I had a fresh XP install.

The Spirit of X21 · #7 Post by **The Spirit of X21** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:56 pm

Hmm. Interesting and valuable to know! There have been questions in the past from forum users regarding the ability of certain older ThinkPads to boot from USB drives. Perhaps this tutorial-in-the-making should be made a sticky in the forum?

christopher_wolf · #8 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 9:05 pm

I am not sure if the X20 has the ability to boot from a UFD or other USB drive at all although the X22 does. A crucial factor in all of this is whether or not the BIOS and the planar/motherboard revision support booting from a USB device on the X20 in the first place.

Note that it is, however, important to get a correctly formatted bootable USB stick, as mentioned a few posts above; but it will all be for moot should the USB not actually support booting from a USB device to begin with.

The Spirit of X21 · #9 Post by **The Spirit of X21** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 9:08 pm

Do you know where we could research this? If not, I would like to ask other users (myself as an X21 user included) to try this to see if it is possible with other X series machines (X20-X24).

pianowizard · #10 Post by **pianowizard** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 9:12 pm

The Spirit of X21 wrote:Do you know where we could research this? If not, I would like to ask other users (myself as an X21 user included) to try this to see if it is possible with other X series machines (X20-X24).

I installed Windows XP on my X22 by booting from a USB CD drive, but have difficulty remembering whether that's also how I installed Windows on the three X20's that I owned. The Spirit of X21, what boot options does your X21's BIOS provide? Also, do you have the most recent BIOS version?

UPDATE: I just found an old post from April 2006 where I said that my X20 could boot from a USB CD drive.

christopher_wolf · #11 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 9:14 pm

I actually don't know where there is a really good source for checking the USB device boot support of the planars in the X20, you can try older IBM docs and maybe ThinkWiki although I suspect that you would get better results if you and a bunch of other users chipped in a little research on it. Back past the X22, I don't think you can boot from USB but it would be great if you and others could check.

pianowizard · #12 Post by **pianowizard** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 9:30 pm

According to IBM/Lenovo, BIOS version 2.07 for X20/X21 enables boot from an "IBM USB Portable CD-ROM drive".

The Spirit of X21 · #13 Post by **The Spirit of X21** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 9:36 pm

My boot options (I upgraded to BIOS 2.25 several months ago):

-Removable drives
Legacy Floppy Drives
-Hard drive
HITACHI_DK23BA-20B-(PM)
-CD-ROM drive
Network Boot
Intel(R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.17

I'll try the HP Boot utility soon, probably later in the week after exams

Aivarss · #14 Post by **Aivarss** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 11:02 am

I want to tell about my expierence. I bought X21 without Ultrabay. One my friend ask me recover information from notebook hard disk. He had an USB DVD-RW and I tried to play with that. For example Hiren's BootCD is possible to boot up one time from 50. WinXP installation start without any problem. And huge of other bootCD's don't want boot up with USB. And one more WinXP live installation on CD boot up with USB. It's named ''boot cd with winXP nero 6 diskcommander mcafee, stinger, mozilla, ghost 8, network support, usb drives support''. And You know where to get it

Size is 224Mb.

califas · #15 Post by **califas** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 3:32 pm

I'm trying to install XP on a new X31 with a blank HD. Am I suppose to use the recommended settings with the HP boot utility.

I also received a X3 ultrabase. Can I put a CD drive from a T42 in it?

The Spirit of X21 · #16 Post by **The Spirit of X21** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 4:18 pm

All right,
I have used the HP Boot Utility on a 1GB Kingston DataTraveler flash drive. Installed on the flash drive are the contents of Emergency Boot CD v.0.6.0. I have updated my X21 (2662-65U) to the lastest BIOS (2.25) and am still unable to boot the contents on the USB device. When I access BIOS setup, I am unable to see my USB key as a bootable device.

It should be noted that I tried the same USB key on my T40 and I can boot the CD contents from the flash drive.

Any success stories, anyone?

Yen · #17 Post by **Yen** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 3:52 pm

Hi,

I've got a thinkpad X21, and I was able to install XP by using a specific USB cdrom drive (hitachi), which is hard to supply with enough power.

But would it be possible to remove your harddisk, attach it to desktop trough a 2.5" external HD case (I did that to format my HD) and make two partitions: one on which you copy the installation files, and one blank. The laptop then has to be able to boot from one partition and install on the other.

Y

pianowizard · #18 Post by **pianowizard** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 6:43 pm

Yen wrote:But would it be possible to remove your harddisk, attach it to desktop trough a 2.5" external HD case (I did that to format my HD) and make two partitions: one on which you copy the installation files, and one blank.

I do it slightly differently. I format the HDD into just one bootable partition, and copy Win98SE files into one folder and WinXP files into another. Then I put the HDD back into the laptop and install Win98SE. Finally, I boot into Win98SE and start a clean install of WinXP.

claudeo · #19 Post by **claudeo** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 2:43 am

The X20 can definitely boot from some USB floppy drives (like the OEM Teac branded as Thinkpad). There is however limited compatibility. For example, it seems that it won'd boot from a Sony floppy. The BIOS does not seem to have the "universal USB driver" that would allow it to boot from an unknown USB device. So, it can't recognize a USB Flash drive. That BIOS will probably never be updated, so you want to keep that special USB floppy around...

em500 · #20 Post by **em500** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:59 am

Yen wrote: I do it slightly differently. I format the HDD into just one bootable partition, and copy Win98SE files into one folder and WinXP files into another. Then I put the HDD back into the laptop and install Win98SE. Finally, I boot into Win98SE and start a clean install of WinXP.

You can start the XP installation from DOS (or the DOS portion of Win98), no need for a full Win98 installation. Just execute winnt.exe in the i386 folder (and make sure you have smartdrv.exe loaded beforehand).

pianowizard · #21 Post by **pianowizard** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 11:30 am

em500 wrote:You can start the XP installation from DOS (or the DOS portion of Win98), no need for a full Win98 installation. Just execute winnt.exe in the i386 folder (and make sure you have smartdrv.exe loaded beforehand).

I knew about that and have tried it but like many others, I encountered problems. Installing Win98 first has always worked for me, and doesn't take much longer. I like to stick to methods that always work, to save time in the long run.

amtun13892 · #22 Post by **amtun13892** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:22 pm

can you explain briefly step by step how you load win98( which file you copied from win98 cd to the hd bootable partition) etc.
thanks

amtun13892 · #23 Post by **amtun13892** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:25 pm

by any chance, anybody learn how to boot from network port( ethernet). I am really curious about it and never sofar able to find the answer for that. that would be great if we can boot ibm X series from network cable.

Yen · #24 Post by **Yen** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 8:12 am

I'm also interested in a step by step procedure to install winXP by first making those two maps (with the external USB case) and install win98. (or if possible a direct installation of winxp or even ubuntu).
I think its a great alternative to those USB floppy and cdrom drives.

From what I heard, booting from a network requires a server with specific installation files and settings and is the last thing you want to do.

Y

Sweet Pete · #25 Post by **Sweet Pete** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 10:21 am

amtun13892 wrote:by any chance, anybody learn how to boot from network port( ethernet). I am really curious about it and never sofar able to find the answer for that. that would be great if we can boot ibm X series from network cable.

I used the instructions on this page to network boot an X31 using my T22 as a server. Once I booted to DOS, I was able to copy the Windows XP installation files to a partition on my HD and then install XP. Because I had never used DOS to network anything, I had a few issues with the "net use" command. When you get to this point, make sure to use the server name, rather than the IP address. It took me a while to figure that one out. Other than that, those instructions worked like a charm.

Yen · #26 Post by **Yen** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:14 pm

Can someone submit the procedure to install xp by using the external usb harddisk case?

thnx

The Spirit of X21 · #27 Post by **The Spirit of X21** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 1:50 pm

Yen wrote:Can someone submit the procedure to install xp by using the external usb harddisk case?

You can't do that (at least, I have never heard of it being done before.) You can either:
1. Boot from an external IBM floppy drive/CD-ROM
2. Install from a network
3. Pull out the laptop's hard drive, use a laptop-to-IDE adapter to connect it to a desktop. From there format using a DOS boot floppy, copy the desktop's i386 folder to the notebook drive, insert into the laptop and run the setup program from DOS (most popular from what I have seen on the forum.)

wilsonhs · #28 Post by **wilsonhs** » Fri May 25, 2007 7:36 am

sorry for pushing up a old post
But i hv a sticky but traditional Question.
My X21 is using the Newest EC and BIOS version,
and i am having a USB Hitachi CD-Drive.
But couldnt even find the option in Bios to boot on USB-CD,other than USB Floopy only..
My CD is a OEM version WINXP disc, and i tried on another Non-IBM notebook that is bootable with this disc.

Can any one teach mewhat to do, before i can use this piece of XPcd to boot on the notebook and install it?

ps: i hv been trying to copy the I386 to D: to install by Winnt.exe, but always hang in installation.

Boot X20 From USB Pen Drive?

Boot X20 From USB Pen Drive?

wild guess

Re: wild guess

Re: wild guess

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booting from hd and network

Network boot

hello?

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