Help with 560E

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Blindduffer · #1 Post by **Blindduffer** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:04 pm

My hubby just got a 560E (running Win98). I have a PCMCIA wireless card that fits, but can't install the driver, as this thing has no CD drive. If I could just get the darned thing onto my home network, I can get it set for him to use. I have NO idea what the easiest/cheapest way to load this driver would be. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Website · #2 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:15 pm

Does it have a modem? Can you email yourself the file and then pick it up with the 560E via dialup?

Another option might be a thumb drive, if it has a USB port (I forget).

Blindduffer · #3 Post by **Blindduffer** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:23 pm

No, unfortunately no modem. Just the wireless card. It does not have a usb port either (and from what I've read, won't support it anyway)

#4 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:25 pm

What I did to load all my files onto the 560X I have when I got it two days ago was use an external 2.5" laptop IDE to USB 2.0 enclosure to turn my laptop hard drive into aan external usb drive. From there I copied my files, put the drive back into the laptop and had everything I needed.

Website · #5 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:29 pm

I couldn't remember whether or not it has USB support.

The only other easy way that I can think of would be to pick up an external floppy drive. They 560 and the 600 series use the same external floppy drive. Having the external floppy is not a bad idea, as it will also help you when or if you need to update your BIOS.

EDIT: One last option that I can think of would be to remove the hard drive and piggy back it to a regular PC via external HDD adapter or a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE cable converter.

Blindduffer · #6 Post by **Blindduffer** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:33 pm

I saw somewhere that a Panasonic KXL-D740 CD drive might work, but cant find anything that says it really is compatable with a 560E.

Nolonemo · #7 Post by **Nolonemo** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:34 pm

Here's an old-tech way, assuming you have a floppy drive for your 560e. Copy the CD to your desktop, then use winzip or winrar to zip or rar the files onto floppy disks (spanning several discs). Actually, rather than copying the entire CD, just copy the directories that contain the driver and wireless utility files for the OS you're running on the 560e. If you don't have winzip or winrar on the 560e, you can creat self-extracting .exe archive. Then just unzip the floppies onto the 560e and install from there.

For future situations, you may find a usb PC card and a usb flash drive handy. Or, you could just get a Compact Flash card and PC card adaptor, which won't require any drivers, even under Win98.

Blindduffer · #8 Post by **Blindduffer** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:47 pm

I dont have a floppy drive. I was really hoping that someone had some experience with a cd drive for this so I wouldnt have to go thru all the business with floppies.

I'm about ready to throw this darned thing right out the window!!!

#9 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:53 pm

There are a couple of external CD drives that use the PCMCIA port to connect to the computer. I have an old HP external SCSI CD drive and an Adaptec SCSI PCMCIA card for whenever I need to use CDs. I think IBM at one point made an external CD drive as well.

Website · #10 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 8:01 pm

I think that the floppy drive might be your best option.

There are external CD-roms that use the parallel ports on the back of the system. Such as this one.

Blindduffer · #11 Post by **Blindduffer** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 8:19 pm

WOW!!!! That looks like exactly what I need! And it seems that's what the previous owner had done, since I found a "backpack finder" file in the control panel.....and might also explain the "BPCDROM not found" message I see before windows loads (duh)

Thank you sooooo much!

Website · #12 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 8:23 pm

Good, then that means that you probably won't have a problem with getting drivers for the CDrom.

You might have run into a driver problem trying to attach a PCMCIA cd drive.

Sounds a lot like the old adage: "which came first the chicken or the egg?" (ie. "how do you get the cdrom loaded without having a cdrom to load the cdrom drivers")

440roadrunner · #13 Post by **440roadrunner** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:20 pm

I saw somewhere that a Panasonic KXL-D740 CD drive might work

It's possible that I posted that. These are a PCMCIA card driven deal, and are available from DOS when loaded with the correct, simple driver. THEY ARE NOT cold bootable.

However, WITHOUT an alternate bootable device, such as a floppy or CDROM, it is VERY difficult to perform serious maintenance on a machine like this. I REALLY would recommend that you research what was originally available for this machine, whether it had an available bootable CDROM setup, external or otherwise, and if not GET A FLOPPY if that was available.

if you DO buy an external cdrom, MAKE SURE that it comes with or that you can download or otherwise obtain, DOS mode drivers. MANY of the newer USB CDROM drives have no DOS support.

Now, for additional methods. If the machine has the .cab files, and therefore, can setup native drivers in windows, there may be several things you can do.

One is to obtain a modem, which you might find locally in thrift stores. There are loads of 14.4 and even up to 56K external, serial modems lying around in thrift stores for cheap.

The above would be one of my latter choices.

Another would be to buy a "null modem" cable, which are available either for the serial or parallel port. These cables are know additionally, and commonly, as "Laplink, PCanywhere, Direct Connect, and data transfer cables.

One of these will allow you (in DOS) to use a file transfer program such as the old "XTlink" from XtreeGold, or Laplink3 (ll3.exe), as well as Laplink4 or 5. There are places on the 'net to download these. Additionally, "File Maven" used to be recommended, I've not used it.

(The thing is, the old Laplink3---ll3.exe---can be installed REMOTELY--right over the cable you are going to use to "use" it with.)

Additionally, using THE SAME CABLE should be able to establish a sort of network connection with Window's pain-in-the-___ "Direct Connection" program.

I'm not familiar with the hard drive caddy setup in that machine, but if the hard drive comes out easily, you can get one of these:

http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?c ... adaptor%29

which will allow you to temporarily slave the drive into your desktop and copy files to and from the drive.

The other problem, of course, is if you get one of the CDROM drives, loading drivers for it might be a big huge problem. You have no floppy, and if you can't load the drivers FOR the cdrom, you still won't be able to use it..........

Nolonemo · #14 Post by **Nolonemo** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 12:43 pm

At this point, I'd say the way to go is with the laplink parallel port cable, you should be able to pick one up for a few bucks at a place like Fry's. (The parallel cable will be faster than a null modem serial cable. Just be sure you go into the bios on both machines and set the parallel ports to bi-directional).

This page has a link to LapLink 3 and 4 for DOS:
http://oldfiles.org.uk/powerload/msdos.htm

I have the Panasonic PCMICA CD Drive for my 560X, and the poster is right, to use it you either need to boot from a floppy with the drivers on it, or install the drivers (there's no support for the drive under Win2k or XP for the older -slower - models). Once drivers are set up, it's quite handy, they selling on ebay for 10-20 plus shipping (I paid $70 for mine about 7 years ago, a good price at the time, nothing like obsolescence to drive
prices down!).

I also would invest in a floppy drive, you can get one for $15 shipped on eBay. If you use imaging or backup software, you will need to be able to boot from a floppy to start the recovery after a catastrophic crash.

w0qj · #15 Post by **w0qj** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 10:20 pm

If you want trouble-free CD-ROM access, you might consider this:

Eagletec brand PC-Card external CD-ROM reader.
http://www.eagletec.net/proditem.html?uid=1734

-For my English Win-98 second edition, *no drivers* are needed.
Just pop in the PC-Card (connected to the CD-ROM reader), and your computer should recognize this automatically).

Also, should need no external power supply.

I suspect your 560E Thinkpad is Windows 98 first edition...

440roadrunner · #16 Post by **440roadrunner** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:35 am

That drive (or any other) is almost next to worthless, without DOS mode drivers.

If you ever need to reinstall the system, you're sunk.

I've got a USB CDRW drive, and it's about useless for drive imaging and other tasks--it works fine if Windoz will run, but DOS mode drivers for it are very unstable and undocumented---with Norton Ghost.

Rick Aguinaldo · #17 Post by **Rick Aguinaldo** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:47 am

I suggest you get the external floppy drive from eBay - very cheap. It will solve a lot of problems specially if you do an OS fresh install in the future. Most of the solutions offered previously require a DOS/Win driver/program to run (I had it all: usb flash drive, Backpack cdr/w and Laplink and the 3.5"/2.5" ide adapter) or residing in your hd so you will be back to square one. The external floppy drive and ide adapter will solve your problem but I find the latter cumbersome unless I am transferring a lot of data.

Website · #18 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 11:24 am

I completely agree with the need for the floppy, even if you don't carry it around for everyday use, it can be a real life saver.

kskim91 · #19 Post by **kskim91** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 9:56 pm

I'm really digging in my memory here, but wasn't it possible to transfer files using the infrared port in win98? I remember a long time ago I tried it once to see if it actually worked or not (this was the days before radio wireless) between two 506E.

But, then again you could buy a external floppy drive off ebay for cheap.

#20 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 10:46 pm

IR does work under 98 but you must keep in mind that it is slower than molasses.

Website · #21 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 5:33 am

Yeah, I had to use the IR port to transfer files from a 760ED to my T21 for AlphaKilo470, and it took about 15-20 minutes for a 2mb file.

#22 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:07 am

Since my 600E and 560X both have USB ports, I use an external USB drive of some sort when network isn't availible.

#23 Post by **schen** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 11:34 am

Blindduffer wrote:WOW!!!! That looks like exactly what I need! And it seems that's what the previous owner had done, since I found a "backpack finder" file in the control panel.....and might also explain the "BPCDROM not found" message I see before windows loads (duh)

Thank you sooooo much!

If you are still looking for an external CD-ROM, I just realized that I may be able to track one of these Backpad parallel port CD-ROM drives for you. I bought my wife's grandparents a 560 some years back and used the Backpack with this computer. I upgraded them to a i1400 last year so they don't use the external CD-ROM any more. I can find out if they still have it sitting around if you are interested.

kskim91 · #24 Post by **kskim91** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:57 pm

AlphaKilo470 wrote:IR does work under 98 but you must keep in mind that it is slower than molasses.

It was real slow. I think we just tried it for the novelty value rather than any pratical value. Also, there was a laser printer with an infrared port that you could print to, that came out then. You had to have the laptop real close and it was real slow...

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