IBM Thinkpad 240 USB Windows 98 Installation

[Yexazuki]

Hi all,

I recently picked up an IBM Thinkpad 240 in very nice condition, the battery still holds a charge and it is of the Celeron variant. I however cannot get into it as the Windows XP installation is password protected. I'd rather it be downgraded to its original Windows 98 second edition but I dont have access to the installation disc or an external disc drive at that. Is there a possibility I can install it from USB? Thanks.

[fultontech]

As I recall, it was designed to boot from a specific PCMCIA CD-ROM drive or floppy. The early BIOS won't have boot from USB 1.0. Win98 was all real mode drivers as well, meaning the OS had to load the (correct) device driver first to use the device. The device drivers for Win98 were very limited, even generic storage was 3rd party vendor.

[Yexazuki]

Thanks for your reply, I guess it won't work then. I have lying around a Thinkpad T42 that also uses an IDE hard drive, so would it work if I just put it in there and burnt a Windows 98 image to a blank disc, installed it and put the hard drive back in the 240?

[RealBlackStuff]

You can get 240 W98 here: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=126014

If you want to remove the XP password: https://www.lifewire.com/free-windows-p ... ls-2626179

[Yexazuki]

Oh cool thank you. I may very well purchase an OEM image from this guy, the password is not a windows password however its a third party program that looks like it's been implemented for use in an office and I can't log on without corporation login details. Thanks all.