Problems getting windows onto thinkpad 380ED

[Agent24]

after getting a new hard drive (as mentioned here http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=55712)

I found myself a toshiba 10GB drive - seems the BIOS is limited to 8GB but even if I can only use 8GB it's all good..

Only problem is that I now can't get windows 98SE to actually install!

I put the CD in, up comes the menu 'boot from hdd or boot from CD", both options just cause the machine to hang.

in the case of the 98se boot floppy it doesn't even get to the 'boot with cd or without cd support' menu, just hangs with the floppy drive light constantly on.

I tried a winXP PRO cd which seemed to work fine but obviously I don't want to install XP on something this old...

I can't get a startup floppy created in XP to work either - it seems very picky about what it wants to boot

is there any trick I need to be aware of or anything I need to do before this will work or is it stuffed?

[phool@round]

Have you tried your 98SE boot floppy on another computer? The floppies might be bad or the drive needs a little cleaning of the heads. Is your Win98SE cd scratched up or smudged with fingerprints? Double check and clean up as best as you can. A little rubbing alcohol on a Q tip might be in order for the CD-Rom drive lens and the floppy drive heads. Try it and see what happens.

How much memory do you have installed? Do you have another stick to try with?

[Agent24]

Thing is half the boot floppies used to work, but I think I've found the problem - the hard drive being larger than the BIOS could fully address was (I think) causing a hang when trying to get accessed.

After I used Ontrack disk manager to setup the drive with DDO, I could boot the win98SE CD fine and I've now got windows 98 up and running fine.

Now I just need to get myself an ethernet card so I can get stuff onto it without using floppies (which are driving me mad!) as unfortunately the CD drive can't read CD-RWs.

[phool@round]

Yep, been there too. I've had the same problem where it locks up over a bigger disk being installed.

Great to hear it's up and running! Good job figuring it out......