Thinkpads Forum

I am in desperate need of help. I have been given a Thinkpad 755CDV with both of the interchangeable the floppy and the CD drives. It was given to me as "was running Windows 95 but that won't boot up anymore" meaning that files have become lost and/or corrupted.
What I have is access to the Net through someone else's computer and the ability to download ISO disk images and convert them on that machine. I have already checked the laptop and it seems fine save for needing a new operating system. As it can only boot from the floppy drive I pray (as in beg) any of you who could recomend a Linux distribution I can download onto a Windows XP desktop, convert the disk images, save to floppy then install on the Thinkpad. The only candidate I have found through repeated trawling of the Net is Slackware 8.1. I confess I'm a Linux noob and just want to get a working OS onto this machine that can handle Open Office, perhaps Firefox, at a stretch play music.
I know it's a tall order made worse by intermittent Net access (circa once a month) for anything more than e-mail. Even any possible suggestions of (preferrably free) distros would be gratefully received as I am at my wit's end after weeks of searching and I only put a good machine down when there's no other way. With thanks, Opus Fluke.

A couple of questions. First, how much RAM and what processor is in that machine? Secondly, are you saying that it is impossible to boot a CD in the machine? Have you tried?

I bet that a CD won't boot in it. BUT, you should be able to get an external case for the floppy drive, and get a diskette that will boot and then use the CD drive and "reboot" from that. I forget what that floppy is called, sorry.

You can try thinkwiki.org, but I fear you won't have much more luck than I do (which is nil) running Linux on my 750P.

Up to Fedora Core 5, you could make a stack of five floppies that would let you install over a network. It was lovely.

As I said this was the last gasp I had of getting any pointers as I've already trawled the Net and found only one single person who got it working and that was the notoriously obscure Slackware. As to the specs it's the standard model as far as I can tell from the BIOS as listed on ThinkWiki.
http://en.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:755CDV
What I was hoping for is that someone here or someone knew someone who could post "I've heard that distro XXXX has worked in the past, try that and see" but it was always a long shot. At worst I have an ongoing project to tinker with. And yes, this model will positively not boot from CD-ROM, even Win95 had to be booted from floppy if it need installing from what I've read. What I need is more than a couple of days a month online so I get sit down and read the manuals and tinker with it right there in front of me. Anyways thanks for your comments so far and who knows? Maybe someone will suddenly have a eureka moment and post the ideal solution. Ifd I get the thing to work I'll divulge everything. Everybody needs a hobby after all.

http://www.[censored].org/install_from_floppy.html

http://www.[censored].org/

Harry: You, sir, are a god! DSL is the obvious choice. I was so caught up in the "It's only really a pendrive/livedisc thing" that I didn't spot it's potential. Cheers. It's four in the morning here so I won't do more than try not to sleep feeling like an idiot. I will, when I rise, post on my weblog of this revelation and ask why none of those who are employed as pro computer people didn't suggest DSL. In fact the last person suggested "give up." Thank you again.

You're welcome. I've run it many times on older machines. Hopefully it will work for you. Good luck.

I bet that a CD won't boot in it.

It won't, same as the 76x Thinkpads that also only boot from the HDD or a floppy.

BUT, you should be able to get an external case for the floppy drive, and get a diskette that will boot and then use the CD drive and "reboot" from that. I forget what that floppy is called, sorry.

Smart Boot Manager, at: http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/download.html

Make the boot disk, boot it from an external floppy and you can boot from the CD drive without any problems. I've done it many times.