Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad 760XL (Type 9547). It has a 2GB hard drive, PCMCIA slots (never used them), CD drive. The battery has been dead a long time. Until now small kids in my home were using windows 2000 installed on the HDD. Recently the HDD died (I can go into the BIOS, and all tests pass, but it doesn't show the HDD connected). I have gone through this forum and am looking at different options. I just want the computer to be running so that kids can play with it (run some kids games, type some documents, etc).
1. Can I boot using the CD ROM using some flavor of linux like knoppix? Does the BIOS support booting from the cd drive?
2. Can I put a 2GB or 4GB CF card in the PCMCIA slot using a CF card adapter and install some OS on it?
3. Can I put some kind of converter (IDE to CF) inside the laptop with a CF card?
4. Can I use a PCMCIA to USB adapter with a USB flash drive?
5. Can I use PCMCIA ethernet card/modem to boot from LAN? I have 2-3 cards with the laptop that I have never used before but I understand that they are in working condition.

Is there any other option?

My motive is to have the cheapest solution to get the laptop working again, because this is only for kids.

thanks,
vK

Welcome to the forum!

I don't have one of these, but I'll add what I can until someone else can chip in.

If you haven't yet, I suggest you remove the drive and re-seat it in case a cable came loose. Cheap and easy possible fix.

I don't know which machines can boot from CD-ROM. EZSetup should tell you that if you try to change the boot order. Hold F1 and turn the power on to get to that.

Some machines (the 570E I have) like the PCMCIA SD card reader I have and will boot from it. Others (600E, 600X) will not. Different adapters work differently in different machines too. If you have one, go ahead and try it out. I've been told more machines like CF readers over SD.

You can certainly use an internal adapter, but they can be more expensive than an old used drive. OTOH, they are more reliable.

You *may* be able to use a CardBus USB adapter with an external drive. However, you will not be able to boot from it. It might not even work depending on if drivers for your OS of choice can work with the 32-bit CardBus controller (which is a TI PCI1130).

I'd wager EZSetup lets you choose a network device in the boot order. However, the devices that actually work with that are very rare. I've never known one to work in a laptop.

Other cheap options are to get a used small hard drive locally. Craigslist may be a good option. Keep in mind that if someone has a broken machine with a good drive, you could sell the other parts and might even come out ahead.

thanks Whizkid. I will keep trying these options and keep you all posted.

1. You can boot the CD-Rom using an external floppy drive with Smart Boot Manager floppy. The EZ-Setup BIOS is an antique.
2. Probably not. The only thing the PCMCIA will recognize during boot is a Token Ring card to perform net-boot.
3. The physical IDE connector is an outdated type. Unless you can find a converter for it it's not an option.
4. Yes with a caveat, you will have to use W98/SE to enable a USB PCMCIA 32bit card (which is the only type of USB PCMCIA available). The reason being is that in W2K and XP it will disable 32bit cardbus support because of the TI chip design. No 32bit drivers availble in W2K or XP, only 16bit.
5. You can try.

phool@round wrote:1. You can boot the CD-Rom using an external floppy drive with Smart Boot Manager floppy. The EZ-Setup BIOS is an antique.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Did you mean external cd-rom drive? Is there a link which illustrates this option? I am looking for Smart Boot Manager at the same time now.

Nope, meant external floppy. Smart Boot Manager is loaded from floppy and it will find your internal CD-Rom and allow you to boot from it. Link for Smart Boot Manager: Link.