Thinkpads Forum

Hi all:
Can anyone help me? My company recently gave me my old lap top (TP 240) which has given great service. Recently my daughter asked me to upgrade it to XP (which i stupidly did!) Firstly it would not recognise the portable drive bay cdrom. As XP is not supported according to IBM i then decided to format the HDD and start from scratch. Since i formated the hard drive i have not been able to reload any version of windows at all and i get the following error message:

Partition table corrupted or doesnt exsist Run PHdisk save to disk feature is disabled run phdisk for info. FILE create new partition consult manual. Hit any key to exit.

It is recognising the floppy drive but won't recognise anything! when the original error message dissapears it is replaced by:

Invalid system disk replce the disk, and then press any key

I've been through the manual but cannot find any thing that is remotely helpful i have all the disks issued with the 240 including the thinkpad recovery cd-rom diskette and the advanced ether jet feature flast utility diskette + numerous CDs all of which are currently useless!

Any help gratefully recievedjavascript:emoticon(':?')
Confused

As I knew the 240 once (not the 240X), it was a Windows 98 machine. The one I had was equipped with the portable drive bay CD ROM which attached in the PCMCIA port and a Floppy drive that attached in another port. It would load the Windows 98 recovery disk and CD as it came out of the box.

I was able to load Windows 2000 on it by using the Windows 2000 startup disks. Those disks would load and read the Windows 2000 CD off the portable drive bay CD ROM.

I never tried loading XP on that machine.

I had a 240X after that. It came with a USB connected CD ROM (IIRC) and preloaded with Windows 2000. I was able to use the Windows XP startup disks and load XP on the 240X. It worked, but not well enough to be pleased with.

... JD Hurst

I use my 240 with windows xp, and find it much more stable than win 98 or ME ever was. The issues with XP are, of course, memory (and it is a pretty slow machine too - but that's true with any windows operating system). You must have at least a 128mb memory stick, or it just won't work. Also, you have to install the IBM "fixes" posted on the website, and must update the bios. I have a recovery CD with either windows 95 or 98 (not sure what it came with) if that might help you. But I'd go with xp if you have the memory.

According to twbook: The 300 MHz 240 came with Win98. The 366 and 400MHz versions came with Win98SE.

glgermain wrote:I use my 240 with windows xp, and find it much more stable than win 98 or ME ever was. The issues with XP are, of course, memory (and it is a pretty slow machine too - but that's true with any windows operating system). You must have at least a 128mb memory stick, or it just won't work. Also, you have to install the IBM "fixes" posted on the website, and must update the bios. I have a recovery CD with either windows 95 or 98 (not sure what it came with) if that might help you. But I'd go with xp if you have the memory.

How can I g


Hi, I have posted a message, and came across with this post. How can i get a copy of the win98 recovery disk?
TKS

jdhurst wrote:As I knew the 240 once (not the 240X), it was a Windows 98 machine. The one I had was equipped with the portable drive bay CD ROM which attached in the PCMCIA port and a Floppy drive that attached in another port. It would load the Windows 98 recovery disk and CD as it came out of the box.

I was able to load Windows 2000 on it by using the Windows 2000 startup disks. Those disks would load and read the Windows 2000 CD off the portable drive bay CD ROM.

I never tried loading XP on that machine.

I had a 240X after that. It came with a USB connected CD ROM (IIRC) and preloaded with Windows 2000. I was able to use the Windows XP startup disks and load XP on the 240X. It worked, but not well enough to be pleased with.

... JD Hurst

Hmm.. That's funny. I bought a 240 (2609) from a laptop place and it had Win2K on it. It also came with a recovery cd/manual for Win2K and cd/manual for WinNT4, and a software selection CD. And the usr's guide says 240X on it. Did they load the wrong OS and include the wrongs CD's and manual? Does this mean I won't be able to restore using the Win2K restore CD that I got with it???

from IBM twbook.pdf (google search: ibm twbook.pdf) all tp240 US models (model number ends with "U") came with win98/98se and some tp240x US models came with win98se and some came with windows 2000.

Hmm. Does that mean the Restore CD won't work?