Thinkpads Forum

Hi there, ive just burned a disk with vector linux on it and im going to install this on my 240 400Mhz 192mb 10GB laptop. I havnt got the laptop yet, but can i change the boot settings to boot from a pcmcia external CD drive? Or can i take out the HD, transer the CD image to it using my other desktop and have it boot from there? Its just it would save the purchase of a pcmcia drive.

thanks!

and would i need drivers for the CD rom drive? how would i get them installed without an OS?

man i wish this thing came with a docking station!

I'm not familiar specifically with the 240's, but this depends on several things.

First, the 240 must support booting from a PCMCIA boot device, and it of course must be "set" in the boot order in the bios setting

The drive you buy must support this. I have an old 4x Panasonic (scsi pcmcia) and it does NOT)

(Also, many newer drives just plain don't address DOS at all, and the manufacturers play dumb) Make sure the drive you get has DOS mode capability--you'll find you'll need it sooner or later

Last of course, the CD itself must boot.


No floppy?

IMO, get a parallel port CD ROM. You can probably get a used one on eBay for less than $10. They come with a bootable DOS floppy that lets you load drivers, without any OS on your hard drive.

The 240 won't boot to a pcmcia drive. You'd have to use a boot disk to load pcmcia drivers.

If you've got the adapter, you could plug it into a desktop and make it bootable & copy the data to the drive.
BUT
first make sure that you partition and format the drive on the 240. Use that partition when you move the drive over. If you partition & format on your desktop, you're on your own.

I have just added the floppy drive into the scenario (thanks ebay!) BUT i have decided against linux for the time being. SO......

right, im now exploring the option of installing XP onto the 240 instead. My desktop has the installation files backed up into the c:/i386 folder, and my desktop is in need of being chucked out so i will not be in need of the XP home licence anyway. (im getting XP pro:) ) I plan to copy this folder to my hard drive via USB, and the hard drive will have windows 98SE on it (installed on a 570, so could be plugged straight in?) plug the 98SE drive into the 240, hope it boots, run winnt32.exe from the i386 folder and supply the COA code during the install. Will this work?

you mentioned that the HD would have to be formatted and partitioned by the 240, how can i do this without and OS and with just a floppy?

do you think this requires a different thread or maybe this should be in the windows OS section?

thanks for your help!

lol, went a bit overboard there sorry!

Do yourself a favor. Make at least one FAT32 partition for your install files, and the \I386 folder, maybe even leave the C: partition as FAT. XP runs just fine on FAT, specially if the drive isn't all that big, and it's easier to access and troubleshoot.

If you DO get an external drive (cd) make SURE you have DOS mode drivers available.