Thinkpads Forum

We have an old Thinkpad 755CX with a 810Mb harddrive and a 1.44 floppy drive that has Windows 3.1 & Dos 6.22, and would like to transfer some data files to a newer media for storage--but it seems almost impossible to get there...

The newer computers don't have floppy drives and the thought of formatting and saving files on floppy looks like a dead end.

There are PCMCIA card slots on the thinkpad, but they don't seem to be active and no control panel setup for them. My thought was to install an ethernet card and access the files from a modern pc thru a router. i found a directory "diskett" on the C: drive which looks like it has the original factory load. There is a subdirectory "TPPCMCIA" that i'm guessing has the necessary file to install and activate the slots--but how do i load/run the setup? Also there seems to be a file "oemsetup.inf" missing whenever i try to change any settings.

i have read here about using a caddy for the harddrive, but it is not an IDE connector--i don't recognize it at all.

Without a way to communicate to another machine it is difficult to tranfer any files or load any software since there is no CD drive, no USB, no NIC--only floppy drive.

Has anybody done this before and can suggest or recommend a good solution?

One of the easier ways is to use a CF card + PCMCIA CF adapter. The combination should be recognized as another hard drive by the system. Then you can copy files over to the CF card, and use a card reader on other computers.

kennybobby wrote:ut it is not an IDE connector--i don't recognize it at all.

You are probably looking at the caddy connector. Remove the hard drive from the caddy to access the IDE connector.

HEH..
welcome to the forum..
i actually HAVE a 755CDV and 755CD..
but no 755CV which, sadly, does not have a CD drive..

wait, that machine SHOULD have... ohhhh, ok..
what you are looking at is the hard drive CADDY..
black plastic with what looks like a downward facing trapezoidal connector..

what you CAN do is pull the HDD from the caddy and the you will see a normal IDE connector.. then using a readily available USB to IDE HDD adapter you should be able to see the files..

now the question becomes what would a present day computer think of a HDD formatted with DOS 6 or whatever version of DOS was used then..

i could easily pop that drive out of the caddy but my guess is there is no way you'll let that out of your sight.. let alone out of your facility..

SO, let me describe how to get the drive out of the caddy anmd excuse the typos..

first, remove the plastic label and remove the screws and nuts from each end of the plug end of the caddy..
next..
you will see, along the sides of the caddy, three rectangular opening into which matching "hooks" are in place..
what you need to do is carefully spread (or cut, thus destroying the caddy) the sides..

then the caddy should open up like a clamshell hinged at the opposite end from the connector..

after opening it the HDD should be able to be removed and the plug/adapter can be prised off the HDD..

send me a PM if you need a tel # for voice hand holding..

Hello, I am just wondering how this went? I have the same issue. I got the HDD out of the caddy and got a converter for a 2,5 to a 3,5. And the drive is not reconized by any computer I tried it on? Not even in the BIOS.
The computer does not want to boot in windows either? I can get to the c: in DOS and a Dir commend does not return much files?

Does anybody have any solutions to propose?

Please help,
Joel

what i do is copy the files (on the old machine) i want to keep to a floppy disk on the old machine and then use that same floppy disk with the files from the old machine and insert into my USB floppy drive attached to my new computer.

JackTheHAck wrote:Hello, I am just wondering how this went? I have the same issue. I got the HDD out of the caddy and got a converter for a 2,5 to a 3,5. And the drive is not reconized by any computer I tried it on? Not even in the BIOS.
The computer does not want to boot in windows either? I can get to the c: in DOS and a Dir commend does not return much files?

Does anybody have any solutions to propose?

Please help,
Joel

just saw this now, joel..

you might need to use a small jumper block to address the drive as "master" for any other computer to recognise it..

saying this without knowing exactly what hardware you're using..

as long as that old 755 drive is working and is or was using a M$ OS you should be able to get the data from it..

Is there any info on the drive such as a model #? There should be sticker on the hard drive itself with a manufacturer name, maybe an FRU# if it's an OEM IBM drive, and also a model number.

If we have that info, we can try looking up the spec sheet for it and seeing if you have to jumper the drive.