Thinkpads Forum

I'm having some boot-up/docking problems with one of my 600X's. It's a dual-boot 98SE/XPSP2 system with 3 hardware profiles:
1. SelectaDock III
2. SelectaBase 600 with Ethernet
3. Mobile/Portable

All three profiles were working correctly under XP up till this weekend. I hadn't tested all the different profiles under 98SE, but it booted correctly in the SelectaDock III where I needed it, and it was also able to boot in the Mobile profile under 98SE.

Currently, only the last two profiles are working. I can move back and forth between the SelectaBase 600 and the Portable profile without any troubles. But when I insert the 600X in the SelectaDock III, it gets caught in an endless cycle of screen on, post memory, empty screen with a blinking cursor, long beep, blank screen, beep, and back to the screen on and the memory post again.

The cycle it is caught in seems typical of what happens normally when I change from one profile to the other, except that normally, the cycle ends after running once through it and then it continues to boot with the new profile properly in place. I assume that it is detecting something weird that doesn't jibe with what it thinks the SelectaDock profile should be like, and then it is getting caught up in a reboot that doesn't change anything, so it redetects the same problem...or something???

The SelectaDock III profile is a bit tricky because I've got a PCI video card in there (along with a sound card and a USB card) and it took a bit of troubleshooting to get this profile working correctly in the first place -- in particular, getting the PCI video card recognized correctly.

I've tried the following:
Disable "QuickBoot" in BIOS (currently still disabled) then dock it
Hibernate, reboot, and delete hibernation file, then dock it
Boot into XP then shut down then dock it
Boot into 98SE then shut down then dock it
Change Docking Station IDE in 98SE to use Channel 2 (was 3) then dock it
Change XP startup options to force it to show all profiles then dock it
Delete SelectaDock III profile entirely from XP then dock it

And I still can't get it to boot past this beep/repost/blank startup cycle.

It has taken quite a while to get all these different configs set up, so I am loathe to try to redo it all. In fact, I hesitated quite a while before scrapping the SelectaDock III profile in XP -- and deleting that didn't help.

I don't know much about dual-boot functions, and I'm just using the built-in XP dual-boot system. Maybe there is something I can change there that will allow me to get past this weird hiccough?

Anyone have any other ideas how I might get it to boot up in the SelectaDock III now?

Phil.

I resolved this issue by removing all the devices out of the SelectaDock III and then booting up and creating a new XP hardware profile. The 600X was able to boot up in a bare SelectaDock III without problems. Once the profile was back up and working again and all the old devices inserted again, I rebooted, this time selecting to boot into 98SE, and my old 98SE profile booted without any troubles. Since then, I've gone back and forth between the profiles a few times and everything seems to be working.

I'm not sure what caused this issue, but I suspect it has something to do with changing the "IDE channel" settings in Windows 98SE in the "Docking Station" part of the IBM Config utility. Or else it has to do with undocking without having rebooted into XP before undocking. Or else somehow I managed to enable something that I'd previously disabled and that prevented the PCI video adapter from firing up properly.

Phil.