A30p please help

[flaco1801]

Good morning this is my first post to the Forum...my brother gave me a thinkpad A30p... it also came with 2 restore disks...he assured me it was working fine....i loaded the first disk and when prompted i loaded the second disk.... the machine froze and i tried again to no avail....i looked at the restore disks and they were for a A30 MT 2652....i looked at my A30p and it had the numbers 2653....did i mess up the laptop with these disks?.. where can i purchase the proper restore disks? i tried google,lenova, and e-bay to no avail.... thanks for any help...Jeff

[ozzymud]

Ok, 1st off, no harm done at all

The difference between the 2562 & 2563 is basically the size of memory/hard disk that came in each, the amount memory on the video card, the speed of the CPU, and some other added features... think of your A30p ad a nicer version of the A30

Check em both out at ThinkWiki:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:A30
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:A30p

The A30 restore cd's should work fine in your A30p... that being said, it is possible you have a bad 2nd disc. Where exactly did it freeze at... as soon as you gave it the CD, or did it start working for a bit?

You can also use a normal XP cd to install Windows, then inject the proper license files later (It uses SLIP technology to activate windows via your BIOS in the laptop)

Depending on what you want to use it for, You can also download a FREE Linux install CD, Give Ubuntu a try, http://www.ubuntu.com/download

This will at least let you play with it while trying to find another restore disc if yours is indeed bad. And you might be perfectly content with Linus as well

But my guess without knowing more info is a bad disc 2

[ajkula66]

Try wiping the hard drive before installing the OS.

[flaco1801]

thanks Ozzie....the second disk worked very briefly (31m remaining) then froze when loading windows....when i tried again from the beginning i answered (y) to the questions and it never moves from a blank greenish screen.....i tried loading an xp os and i get the blank screen with a blinking cursor.....any ideas? thank you...

[rkawakami]

If the system froze while it was in the middle of installing / configuring Windows, then I would say that you should try removing the MiniPCI card, wiping the hard drive and then try re-installing again. If the system continues to boot with a blank screen and blinking cursor after you removed the MiniPCI card, then try the usual diagnostic approach: remove all of the hardware (HD, memory, Ultrabay, modem, ethernet, etc.) and see if you get the 1-3-3-1 beep code indicating bad or missing memory on boot. If you can't even get that error beep sequence, then there's something majorly wrong with the motherboard.

[AMATX]

Before dismantling the laptop, try booting from a bootable floppy or CD. Verify screen, memory, bootability, and try running some simple dos program(s). If this works, then most or all of the hardware is functioning and you likely have a problem reading the restore CD.

When you know more, report back. Chances are good that someone on this board can cut you a fresh copy of the restore disks.h

[flaco1801]

how do i wipe the hard drive if my only options are the bios page and the boot order options? F1 and F11 thanks, jeff

[ajkula66]

Download and burn (on another computer, obviously) a bootable CD of PC Doctor for DOS from here:

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... ty48ww.exe

Boot from the disk using the F12 option at startup, wipe the drive (under utilities) run memory test (under diagnostics).

Good luck.

[flaco1801]

thanks George... i made a cd of the pc doctor... used f12 used cdrom <enter setup> black screen with blinking cursor on top left screen....maybe this laptop needs a new hard drive? thanks for your help sincerely, jeff

[Neil]

Looks like it's still trying to boot the HDD. Did you burn PC doctor CD as a data disc, or an ISO?

Hint: It must be burned as an ISO image in order to boot.

[flaco1801]

i burned as a data disk....how do i burn ISO? only have audio data, data and dvd options thanks, jeff

[rkawakami]

Grab a copy of CDBurnerXP from here: http://cdburnerxp.se/ and use the Burn ISO Image option. The .ISO image format is really a direct data copy of a disk. As such, it will allow booting from the disk as long as it is written as an "image" and not as a "data" file.

[flaco1801]

thanks Ray downloaded the cd burner.....when i browse the iso image i cant find the file in download drop down....i am helpless..... ill take a break and maybe in the morning ill be able to burn it....all your help in this forum is very much appreciated, thank you all....jeff

[rkawakami]

After you download the 1ety48ww.exe file, you are supposed to launch (execute) it. That will create a C:\DRIVERS\WIN\PCDRDOS\1ety48ww directory and the .ISO file will be there.

[flaco1801]

thanks guys....bought a new hard drive and all is well....