Thinkpads Forum

hi there, i've looked through all the current threads and while i've found tons of info, i haven't found anything directly relating to my problem, which is...:

i bought my computer (tp600x 2645-5EU) earlier this year and it came with both win98 and win2k installed (i think this was the original installation, because it had all the thinkpad utils installed and it has serials for both OSes). i, in my rashness, and assuming that what i wanted to do would be as easy as pie, erased the whole deal by formatting, with the intention of installing win2k alone.

now, problems abound. i can't get a win98 boot disk to work properly, regardless of how new or error-free the floppy is, the TP almost always tells me that there's something wrong with it! the win2k boot disk set is no better because when i try to boot from it, the machine tells me there's a "disk I/O error" with no numeric code or anything.

win98 cd says invalid system disk and i think it's the same for my win2k cd.

pardon the length of this post, but i'm quite knowledgeable about PCs in general and i've been searching for several days with little or no luck finding solutions, so i'm rather frustrated by it all.

anyway, any help will be greatly appreciated!

thanks
adamg

It sounds like your BIOS is not set to boot from the optical drive. The "invalid system disk" means your hard disk cannot boot.

Go into BIOS and Reset the boot drive order and leave it empty. OR, during bootup, press F12 for the boot menu and select your optical drive.

The 600X can and does boot from the internal CD or DVD drive. I have installed both W98SE and W2K this way.

I have problems with my floppy drive in the internal bay, but it works fine in my external bay. I think the floppy drives are not very reliable.

okay, thanks for the quick response.. i think you're right about the dodgy floppy drive. it's making a mess of my disks..

but i've managed to move on from there somehow and now during the detection and installation phase of the win2k installer, it stops half way through and then eventually beeps at me.

i've shut it off and gone through the same thing several times now..

any ideas?

thanks
adamg

Go to IBM's support page and get instructions for installing your OS of choice on a clean disk. They work, unless something is wrong with your machine.

If it doesn't work, download PC Doctor and test everything, especially your memory.