Thinkpads Forum

I have a thinkpad 240, stupidly I formated it thinking I would load XP on... FOOL

Now I cant load anything on it??? It boots up and says "invalid system disc" I have an external Floppy drive and an external cd drive. even when they are not conncted it says the same??? HELP PLEASE....

I have another computer (desk top) so getting os and boot disc from net is easy also am not scared to take 240 to bits with correct tools or hammer if needed and will fit new parts but other than that , I am an idiot so if you know how i can fix this please please put it simple for me.....?

P.S also what is the slot on the left hand side of the thinkpad for?

Welcome to the Forum percy!

Did you call my name, I thought I heard phool!

What did you do? Are you mad at it?

What model floppy (is it an IBM external?) and more importantly, what model external CD-Rom (is it USB or PCMCIA and of course IBM). (Starting to sound like one of the Village People....)

No need to take anything apart unless that's you inclination but I hear they have classes for that, something like anger management.

By the way, if your and idiot and I am a phool then we must be cousins.

With a 240 (and not a 240X), you need the CD-Rom designed for it, and the floppy drive designed for it, and the Setup diskettes for XP (available from Microsoft).

I used the above process to put a new, larger drive in a 240, the Windows 2000 setup diskettes, and the Windows 2000 CD and loaded it that way. Worked great.

I used a similar process (different CD) for a 240X to load XP on it (using the Windows XP setup diskettes). That worked as well.
... JDH

Well, there ya go person percy, you've got mail.......

Thanks JD. Most excellent explaination!

The slot percy..... if it's white and thin it's for an external IBM floppy, if it's the closest to you it's the PCMCIA slot.

Thanks for the speedy reply both of you,

Firstly yes the floppy is an IBM ASM P/N 05K8973, FRU P/N 05K8990, and loads of other Numbers on it????Not usb (little socket on left loads of pins????)

The CD is a NIKIMI Model no: RW-2412E CD RE- Writer 24x/12x/40x, USB, both worked great untill the Format???

The "Invalid System Disc" comes up as soon as switched on even when Nothing plugged in????

JDH, I don't have any origanal disks. What can I do???
Cheers for your help.

to install xp, you need the ibm floopy drive, and a usb or pc card cd rom, (or a usb
to ide adapter) i would first use a windows 98 start up disk to
f-disk the drive, it will also tell you if the bios sees it (i had a problem when the hard drive was not fully seated in its socket, and the computer did not see it) if the 98 start up disk sees it (use the NO
cd rom support option) go ahead and partition/format the drive.
the next step is to copy the xp 386 file using another computer,
or use xp floopy disks to start the install process. you CAN NOT install any operating systims without the floopydrive and disks. search this topic
and you will find detailed instructions on intalation of 98 or xp on 240's good luck, adrian

The setup diskettes for XP are available on the Microsoft website - one set of diskettes for SP0 and a different set for SP1. ... JDH

Followup: After looking for my files, the SP0 filename is embedded in WinXPsp0_EN_PRO_BF.EXE and the SP1 filename is embedded in winxpsp1_en_pro_bf.exe

I change my filenames on download so look in Microsoft for the latter part of the name.