Thinkpads Forum

I'm trying to install Windows 98SE on my thinkpad 600. My laptop has no floppy so I have to do it all from CD. My Windows 98 cd will not boot so I created a boot floppy, and copied it to a CD using the instructions on this page http://www.bootdisk.com/nero.htm. This bootable CD works on my desktop but not on the thinkpad. When the laptop comes up it goes from the first screen (where it says Thinkpad in the bottom corner) to a blank screen with a flashing cursor. From there I can't do anything. I know my laptop can boot from a CD because I have a copy of Knoppix and it works just fine. Any ideas?

Another question, will a thinkpad 600 boot from a usb pen drive?

Sounds like the CD is not set up as the first boot device.....if you have initailized it or updated the bios lately,then that will set the boot devices back to default.....Other than that,..????

Later...

Greg St.l

600's are pretty picky about booting from a CD.
I had to do a lot of experimenting to make CD's that will boot in my 600, but genuine windows disks always booted fine no matter which version I tried.
As far as booting from USB, I have one but I never tried.
If you can boot Knoppix then you should be able to boot to a win 98 install CD, Mine does it no problem.

Make sure your CD is "finalized." If it is still "open" and can be appended, 600E's and X's don't like to boot them...in fact, they often won't be recognized outside of windows.