Thinkpads Forum

I feel silly asking this question, but was curious. Someone said w510 could boot from a usb. If so, could an older os be booted that way...like 98se or xp?

Try it and find out. It's only a USB key. Recommend sticking to USB 2.0 as some of the older Thinkpad's BIOS won't boot from USB 3.0.

Having said that, the main issue is drivers. The w510 shipped with Win 7 so XP with SP2 might work. Win 98? I doubt it. But the only way to really know is to give it a shot. If it works, pop in a cheap small test HDD in there and play with it until your heart is content.

Even XP cannot run from a USB device. I think the chances for 98SE are about 0.

Was thinking of running a WW2 flight sim on it.

If I needed/wanted to run Win98 on a modern machine, I would put Win98 on a virtual machine. Games often don't run well because of a lack of graphics acceleration on virtual machines, but it might be good enough. Likely better than a physical install on such a machine, because there won't be any Win98 graphhics drivers for the new hardware anyway.

If I needed/wanted to run Win98 on a modern machine, I would put Win98 on a virtual machine. Games often don't run well because of a lack of graphics acceleration on virtual machines, but it might be good enough. Likely better than a physical install on such a machine, because there won't be any Win98 graphhics drivers for the new hardware anyway.

This is the most feasible option. Although it is possible to install an unvirtualized W98 to a flash drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qd7cDbtwj4, it is extremely likely you will run into immediate BSODs, crashing, and other issues because of driver and hardware comparability problems.

I figured it would be impossible. Guess I won't waste time trying to force it to work. I tinkered once or twice setting up xp to work on my win7pro w501 via virtual machine and had no success doing so. Probably would have worked if I knew more about such things...but I don't. Thanks for the replies.