Thinkpads Forum

Hi
I have a problem with a 701C

Im trying to install windows 95, on a CF card. I have formatted the card to MS-DOS, but it will not boot.

I can get it booting with the CF formatted to FAT, and FreeDOS - but i cannot get it to boot MS DOS

How do you get your 701Cs booting?

//Andreas

thats not an option in bios on older models. lucky to do it from CD in dock even on those. floppy was external and hard to do DOS from. I do know you can install windows through madem to HDD then boot from HDD. why you messing with an old 701c anyways? cant even browse much with them now as Flash is too much for them. I own a 701s and a 701c upgraded to 133mz mother board/CPU with max 40mb RAM and 3gb HDD for them and had to shelf it years ago due to web sites not able to load I last ran Windows 98 on it barely. also got lots of PCMCIA cards for it as modem crashed lots so got better one on card plus Ethernet card etc.

btw what is a CF card? you mean Compact Flash or SD or USB thumb drive? that old PC wont see most of those even if you find a PCMCIA card with adapter for one. it would be like USB1 and limited to maybe 128MB size like old digital cameras and Palm Pilots. plus MS OS wont load and run from portable storage devices due to no way to activate/authenticate with Bios serial number etc and not seen as perm storage drive. these are all some reasons why the older PCs are not usable anymore. just collector items or for offline basic PC functions.

n2ri wrote:thats not an option in bios on older models. lucky to do it from CD in dock even on those. floppy was external and hard to do DOS from. I do know you can install windows through madem to HDD then boot from HDD. why you messing with an old 701c anyways? cant even browse much with them now as Flash is too much for them. I own a 701s and a 701c upgraded to 133mz mother board/CPU with max 40mb RAM and 3gb HDD for them and had to shelf it years ago due to web sites not able to load I last ran Windows 98 on it barely. also got lots of PCMCIA cards for it as modem crashed lots so got better one on card plus Ethernet card etc.

btw what is a CF card? you mean Compact Flash or SD or USB thumb drive? that old PC wont see most of those even if you find a PCMCIA card with adapter for one. it would be like USB1 and limited to maybe 128MB size like old digital cameras and Palm Pilots. plus MS OS wont load and run from portable storage devices due to no way to activate/authenticate with Bios serial number etc and not seen as perm storage drive. these are all some reasons why the older PCs are not usable anymore. just collector items or for offline basic PC functions.

The CF (compact flash) Card is in an IDE adapter, thus being primary HDD.

I want to make the CF Card bootable with DOS, put Win95 setup files onto it and then install it.

However, i cannot get MS DOS to Work on the CF Card.

See if this helps: http://www.aetherwide.com/vignettes/20070530-1.html

Hello,

I had a similar problem yesterday with my 240X. Installed a new hard disk in it. Booted MS-DOS 6.22 from floppy disk, accepted the default values to partition the hard disk and rebooted. 240X hung (flashing underscore cursor in upper left corner of the screen, HD light constantly lit, caps lock light wouldn't turn on.
Turned the 240X of / on. Same situation.
At first I thought the hard drive had broken but after installing it as second drive in my A31, I found out that MS-DOS 6.22 hadn't set the partition as active.
I wiped the partition in my A31, installed the drive in the 240X again and booted MS-DOS 6.22 again from floppy.
This time I didn't accept the defaults and made sure the partition I created was set to active.
Rebooted and this time the 240X did not hang.
Formatted the HD, put MS-DOS 6.22 on it, removed the floppy drive, rebooted and the 240X started from the HD without problems.

Maybe you have the same situation on your 701.

Best regards,

emeu1

RealBlackStuff wrote:See if this helps: http://www.aetherwide.com/vignettes/20070530-1.html

This is very similar to the thing im already doing - except i use MS DOS files from an ISO (ISO is confirmed to work)

emeu1 wrote:Hello,

I had a similar problem yesterday with my 240X. Installed a new hard disk in it. Booted MS-DOS 6.22 from floppy disk, accepted the default values to partition the hard disk and rebooted. 240X hung (flashing underscore cursor in upper left corner of the screen, HD light constantly lit, caps lock light wouldn't turn on.
Turned the 240X of / on. Same situation.
At first I thought the hard drive had broken but after installing it as second drive in my A31, I found out that MS-DOS 6.22 hadn't set the partition as active.
I wiped the partition in my A31, installed the drive in the 240X again and booted MS-DOS 6.22 again from floppy.
This time I didn't accept the defaults and made sure the partition I created was set to active.
Rebooted and this time the 240X did not hang.
Formatted the HD, put MS-DOS 6.22 on it, removed the floppy drive, rebooted and the 240X started from the HD without problems.

Maybe you have the same situation on your 701.

Best regards,

emeu1

With FreeDos on FAT32 it will hang with "loading freedos" and an orange ligth - but the partition is marked as active

I can boot FreeDos on FAT disk, but not install Windows.

I cannot boot any combination of MSDOS i have tried, just a blinking cursor.

QWERTY Andreas wrote:With FreeDos on FAT32 it will hang with "loading freedos" and an orange ligth - but the partition is marked as active

I can boot FreeDos on FAT disk, but not install Windows.

I cannot boot any combination of MSDOS i have tried, just a blinking cursor.

I think this is related to how the CF Card reports its drive geometry, possibly in a way that the 701 doesn't understand. Trust me, I struggled with this problem for about 3 years. You want the easiest fix? Get a 2.5" IDE SSD. I ordered some SiliconDrive 2GB from China (that take about 2-3 weeks to get here). Or...

You can get a cheap 1GB Simpletech SSD.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SIMPLETECH-STEC ... Sw4shX9cF0

I had to cut off the master/slave pins on these drives (got my Simpletech drives in the mail today) to get it to work on my 360CE. YMMV on the 701, so try it first with the pins, and bend them until they fall off if it doesn't work. IMO, this would be the easiest solution to have a solid state drive on a vintage ThinkPad.

I should add that the only way I got a CF drive or Microdrive to boot on its own on this era of machine was with Windows 98 SE. With the aforementioned SSD solution, everything else that didn't work, works now.