Thinkpads Forum

Okay, so the saga continues .

I fixed my CMOS problem. Used the 2025 watch battery fix which worked fine. Very easy. After booting up to POST and settting the date and time, I restarted and voila, the dreaded 161 and 163 errors were gone.

However.... none of my OS disks (all legit MS originals) will boot from the CD. (Goes without saying that I have no floppy for this 600E). I tried 98, ME, and even (god help me) 95. None would boot. The DVD drive spins up and the little WINDOWS flag screen appears, and then the machine goes to DOS prompt. Apparently the HD has a Windows 98 Command.com on it, so it drops to C: prompt. Nothing on the HD except Command.com.

So, I put in a Windows XP CD that I KNOW is bootable, and the machine does the same thing EXCEPT that it also says "CDBOOT: Cannot boot from CD - Code 5."

Just to be clear, I`ve been into BIOS and set the CD drive to be the first bootable device, so thats not it. Any ideas?

I`m dying here!

Try going into the BIOS again and then Initialize the BIOS. Maybe someone modified something.

If it still doesn't work, it could be that the CD-Rom is defective.

Are you able to connect your hard drive to a PC (via hard drive connector)? If so, you can copy your installation files onto the hard drive and then once the hard drive is back in your 600E you can install from the hard drive.

P.S.
Glad the CMOS thing worked for you.

Please ignore - I've figured this out - its an XP problem (old bios doesn't like XP).

Cheers

Some "incomplete info":

NO W95 cds are bootable, unless they are some special proprietary recovery CD's

No 98 Upgrade cd's boot

No 98 RETAIL cd's boot

ALL 98 so called OEM cds should boot--says on the front "to be distributed only with a new cd" or similar

I'm not familiar with ME I don't use it much

W2K OEM should boot. I'm not familiar with other versions.

ALL XP CD's should boot. ALL

440roadrunner wrote:No 98 RETAIL cd's boot

IIRC W95OSR2 CDs are bootable, got a couple arond here but I'm too lazy....... er,... uh,.. BUSY to check right now.

98SE CDs are bootable.

To the OP, go into the BIOS and set the BOOT order to CD, FDD, HD1, then restart.

Sounds like the machine isn't even attempting to BOOT from the CD.

Regards,

James

I'd be curious to know what you mean by a "IIRC" cd

I've got probaly 20 various copies of '95, here, in various forms, and NONE of them are bootable, except for proprietary restore type cd's

It IS possible that SOME RETAIL '98 cds's boot--I can post the lastest date/copyright/part no. of the some odd 15 I've got here, and NONE of mine that are STORE BOUGHT RETAIL will boot.

TO make this absolutely clear, I am NOT talking about the so called OEM version "to be supplied with a new PC" cd, I'm taking about the so caled RETAIL version.

I've got many copies over the years, from various sources, and I've looked at these cd's with software such as ISO buster. NONE of the RETAIL version's I've got will boot.

One other big problem with CDROM bootup, can be a "burned" copy. Some of these, in certain machines/drives, are just plain incompatible.

IIRC = If I Recall/Remember Correctly

440roadrunner wrote:TO make this absolutely clear, I am NOT talking about the so called OEM version "to be supplied with a new PC" cd, I'm taking about the so caled RETAIL version.

As the vast majority of CDs I have around the place are from my MSDN subscription, it's quite possible that I don't even own any retail MS CDs.

But I'll have a look around at some of my older ones and see if I can figure out their provenance.

Regards,

James

Well, you've re re re aroused my curiosity, and I recently acquired a REALLY late version of '95 OEM.

It says on the CD (copyright)1981-1997 Micro........


Microsoft Windows 95 &Microsoft Plus! with USB support

Includes CD Samper! with free games

"for distribution....etc" ...."new PC"

this is a very late version, and it will not boot. I also checked for sure, with "ISO buster"---no boot image.


I also checked, the only versions (I thought I had more) of ME are Upgrades and they definately will not boot.

I have no retail versions of W2K, nor do I have upgrade versions of W2k, only "OEM" versions. They do boot.

Some versions of NT boot, and some do not.

We've had this conversation before in the Forums, I'll have to do a search later as I believe it was on the old one.

I remember that we listed all of the MS P/Ns for bootable CDs.

I don't believe that any of the early upgrade CDs were bootable as that was one means to determine if they were being used on legitimate systems.

Of course, one could circumvent that on some systems by booting to a W98 floppy and enabling CD support. Then run the setup program from the CD and when it asks for the location of an upgradable Windows installation, put a W3.1 or WFW floppy in the machine and point the setp program to it.

Regards,

James