Thinkpads Forum

I just got a very used 600E that had WinXP but it didn't recognize the cd-rom (even in the BIOS.) I formatted the HD and now I'm just dealing with the BIOS trying to get it to boot from the cd. I know the cd-rom works and I can use the FDD in the ultrabay or externally. I have startup set to boot from the cd and it spins and the light flashes, but it won't acknowledge it. When using my boot floppy to start with cd-rom support, it says 'device not found.' In Easy-Setup/Test, the cd-rom is greyed out, but in the FRU Connections window, it says 'Ultraslimbay connected (CDROM)'. With the floppy in the bay, it shows up on the test screen and the FRU Connection window says 'Ultraslimbay Connected (FDD), plus it reads the floppy. I tried the 'initialize' button in config, and a BIOS update with no luck. Then I searched this site and found a post called 'Thinkpad 600 HDD Problem' by Mc Drive, where he states having a somewhat similar problem except it was his CDROM and his HDD. He says:

'... i downloaded the ps2 tool and got my cd-rom drive work again with "ps2 IDE2 Enable Ultrabay". but this didn't help for my harddisk.'

Does anyone know about this ps2 tool? I try searching the net for it, but all I get is a bunch of Play Station crap. Or am I just looking in vain because my motherboard is toast? Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

What you are describing sounds kinda' like a bad cdrom drive. You might want to see if you can find someone who will let you borrow theirs to try in your system.

The ps2 utility is part of the dos-based thinkpad configuration package.

agreed, since the ultra seems to work for the floppy, i'd lean toward a bad cdrom drive.
you can pick up a dvd drive on ebay for it for between $30 -$50

I agree. It appears it would be the CDROM... but, the CDROM is known to work (along with the two other known working CDROMs and one known working DVD ROM that I tried.) This old beast has obviously been taken apart before and I recently noticed that its missing the reset button. I suspect there may be deeper issues with it. I've been using the bottom half of it to test LCD screens so I'm not too worried about fixing it (I just get kind of stubborn when I can't figure something out). I was just wondering if maybe there was a simple configuration issue I was overlooking. Thanks guys for your input!

It's strange that your CD isn't seen in the BIOS. Usually even a bad one is seen there. Do you have 2 HDD in the BIOS? If so, enable that one to be the first bootable device. It and the CDrom seem to switch back and forth in my 600E. Next, could the boot floppy not be any good at recognizing your CDrom? I had that happen and found a great little utility boot Floppy disc on the web that boots without using any part of a HDD...in fact it will boot and enable a CD even if there is no HDD at all in the system. If you want me to I can email it to you...don't think it's very large. I use it for everything....Win2000, WinXP, 98, etc.

Only one HDD in the BIOS. I'm suspecting that the floppy uses less (or different) pins in the bay than the CD ROM, and the ones the CD uses have an incomplete circuit somewhere-- making the motherboard toast. Or maybe it has something to do with IDE controllers, but I don't know much about them. I would certainly be interested in trying your boot disk, though. If anything, it would be great to have in my toolbox. My email address is: joeblow@paulbunyan.net. Thanks a lot.