Windows XP reformat for Thinkpad R51

[macksdesign]

Hello all,

First post here.. I tried searching on the forums, but haven't been able to come up with a specific answer. If it's somewhere already addressed I apologize..

I'm trying to reformat a Thinkpad R51 with Windows XP. My mother purchased this through her old company so I'm not sure if she will be able to recover the original XP installation cd.

The main problem is that when I start the installation process, it saves all the setup files to the hard drive, and then reboots. Upon reboot it asks me if I want to boot up with Windows XP Installation. I click yes and then it gives me a Line 1 error saying the winnt.INF file is invalid!

Does anyone have any idea how to proceed? I've looked up a couple of other reformat issues one being I need to do so under compatibility mode for Serial ATA. Weird thing is when I open up the startup BIOS, there is no option for this under config.

Any reply would be greatly appreciated

Cheers,

Max

[Harryc]

An R51 has IDE hard drive not SATA so there is no SATA compatibility mode setting in BIOS. If you press the F11 or Access IBM keys on boot, does it give you an option for system recovery?

[macksdesign]

Hi there Harryc,

I just tried. Gives me three options:

ESC to resume normal startup
F1 to enter IBM BIOS Setup Utility
F12 to choose a temporary startup device

There other thing i was potentially thinking was that the XP cd could be damaged?

Max

[Harryc]

It could be damaged, yes. What I would do is to go into BIOS and make sure that the option under security, IBM predesktop area, Access IBM Predesktop area is set to disabled, save and exit BIOS, then boot up with Activekill disk and write zeros to te entire drive. Then retry your XP disc. If it still fails run a diagnostic on the hard drive from the manufacturers website. If it passes than I'd guess your XP disc is toast. You could also try it on another machine or get another disc.
http://www.killdisk.com/

[macksdesign]

So I just tried another XP2 Professional SP2 cd I had at home... same exact error in same position.

If it's not the cd, where do I go from here? Should I still use Killdisk for a clean hard drive?

[Harryc]

Yes, make sure to disable the BIOS option for IBM Predesktop area first. You could also run a hard drive diagnostic first, your choice.

[macksdesign]

thanks for your help harryc.

I'm gonna go buy some cds for booting killdisk.