Thinkpads Forum

ok heres the problem, have 600x with the recovery cd also....lost my hard drive so i got a new one....system start up to the point of the IBM screen then says invalid system disk.......i dont have a floppy so anything i need to do will have to be CD if possible......i can get it to boot up using my emachines disk, i get option of recover winxp or dos prompt, but does nothing from there...even at dos wont do fdisk or anything...any ideas...i can hear cd working but then just shuts down??? tried many downloads for startup disks but nothing.....thanks

Do you have the lastest BIOS version?

If you upgraded the size of the HD, it might not recognize it without the latest BIOS update.

no upgrade, regular ibm hard drive.....tried to update bios by burning to CD...couldnt get to run...and other ideas

Did you try updating the BIOS with a floppy?

The problem might be that your emachines disk realizes you are trying to use it on a non-emachine machine. Get it, got it, good.

have no floppy.......and i have the actual ibm recovery disk that it wont recognize...just saying it does try at least with the emachines disk....can actually get a dos prompt..get nothing with anything else.

I don't know if this will work, but....have you tried running the BIOS program on another computer to create a BIOS Diskette, then copy the Diskette onto a CD?

As I reread your post, I don't know if you just downloaded the BIOS file and copied it to CD. If that is the case, it won't work. The download is an executable file that creates the BIOS disk.

Please don't take this as an insult to your intelligence, but I just wanted to be sure that I was taking that you performed that step for granted.

Most BIOS upgrades won't work from CD, even if you make the CD bootable. There appear to be lots of references to an "A" drive within the BIOS upgrade files...once you burn the files to CD, the drive is no longer "A," but "D" or some other. My suggestion is for you to get a floppy drive for the purpose of the BIOS upgrade. Another trick you might try is to "copy" the recovery disc to another CD and use that...I use RecordNow software and "finalize" my CD's...never had trouble booting with what I've made.

Did you change the boot order in EZSetup?

whizkid wrote:Did you change the boot order in EZSetup?

Excellent question...easily overlooked...a tendency for some computers to revert back to a previous setting too in regards to boot order, so set it with the CD in the drive and then go from there. Good luck!

Another question that may be overlooked: are you sure that your recovery disk is for a 600x and not some other machine? Recovery disks are model specific.

Another possible issue might be an embedded controller update without a corresponding BIOS update ( I know that this can be a problem with some newer Thinkpads but I am not sure if it would also apply to a 600x ).

There may be a community of ThinkPadders in your area. You might be able to borrow a floppy drive for your BIOS update.

A floppy drive for a 560/E or 570* (andy maybe 770?) will work on a 600X.

MadeInJapan isright, you cant get the BIOS to update from the CD drive as the sys file directs it to the A drive. You might be able to hack the file, to use the CD, but it's better to get a FD.

Your boot prefs should be 1) CDROM, 2) floppy, 3) HD... or FD, CD, HD either way, the HD should always be last.

TJ

FD, CD, HD is best most of the time, including setting up your machine.

If you want to add some security, set your supervisor password (which will set your hard disk password) and set to boot from HD first. It will make the machine nearly impossible to use without that password. (So don't forget it!)