Thinkpads Forum

My trusty 600x started giving me random BSOD errors several days ago, so I decided to reformat the HD and reinstall W2K. Plugged in the Genuine OS CD, reformatted from Fat32 to NTFS, got to the end, and W2K informed me that the format had failed. Reformatted again to FAT32, the format worked, but OS install failed multiple times. I get random BSOD errors about failure to load NT Kernel, etc. after first reboot on install. One time W2K installed successfully, but died again after installing SP2. At this point I've tried (unsuccessfully):

1. Swapping HDs - tried a 60Gb Hitachi, 20Gb Toshiba, and even the old 3Gb from my 600.

2. Swapping original CD-ROM for both DVD and CDRW drives in case the problem was the CD drive.

3. Installing Win98 instead of Win2K. I still got BSOD errors and random reports of missing or corrupted system files.

4. Verified BIOS set to v55 (the latest).

5. Pulled all RAM before install.

6. Ran Toshiba diag from floppy to low-level clean the HD and boot sector before creating a new partition and reformatting. HD passed all fitness tests.

7. Ran Thinkpad IBM DOS diag from floppy - every test passed with flying colors.

8. Formatting HD in my 600, installing OS, then moving it to the 600x.

If I had to guess, I'd say that during OS installation the TP randomly trashes files being written to the HD. Which leads me to believe the IDE controller is bad. But if so, shouldn't the DOS diag test or the Toshiba test disk have caught this error? Is the IDE controller a (plugin) replaceable part?

Sorry for rambling, but I miss my favorite lappy and I don't want to give it up without a fight. Any more suggestions?

Mark


TP51/TP23/TP600x/TP600 (two of them)

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

Have you tried pulling the MiniPCI modem card out before installing the OS? I know that a bad modem card in a T2x system can prevent a reload of the OS. Although I've never had that particular problem in my stable of 600Xs (due to the fact that I haven't ever performed a clean Windows install; I've cloned instead), it might be worth a shot.

Your guess about the IDE controller seems logical. If you've run PC Doctor for DOS' Fixed Disk tests and they all come back passing, then the controller should be good.

And I believe that the IDE controller is embedded inside one of the large chips that is soldered onto the motherboard. So it can't be easily changed.

While the controller may be good (it passed tests, after all), it may be that in its advanced age, a trace has cracked on the system board. This sounds like the problems I had on an old PPro system with a loose hard drive cable. That could be tightened, but in a laptop, there's not much that can come loose.

You may need a new system board, and those are going for around $50 to $60 on eBay.

rkawakami - I forgot to mention I tried an install after pulling the modem - read that idea in the forum. The TP actually gave me a BSOD after preloading W2K drivers from the CD during system startup before the HD was formatted.

Thanks for the welcome - I was active here back in the day when Bill sold hard drives and the forum was a bunch of e-mails each day. I've been a part-time lurker since then

whizkid - Do you have any links handy to procedure to change the mobo so I can see if I want to attempt it? I'm confident with parts and screwdrivers but not with soldering guns. And I can find a stripped 600x for about $100 if I shop carefully.

As always, this forum rocks!

Mark

The HMM for your machine shows the steps pretty clearly. (Some are a little confusing, but it's still manageable.) See this site's FAQ on how to download your HMM from Lenovo.

Be careful when you shop for a system board or stripped machine: If you have a SpeedStep CPU (650MHz or faster) and put it in a non-speedstep machine, it may not like it (especially if you are a freak like me and run Linux on it).