Thinkpads Forum

Hi all have just bought a 240 from ebay installed with windows xp, the 240 would boot until desktop but would not install the taskbar ect.
I formatted the hard drive in another thinkpad an x30 installed windows 2000 on the x30 refitted the hard drive to the 240 and it will not boot goes too blue screen, i have an pcmcia external cd rom but cannot boot from that. I also have an old toshiba usb floppy which i can't seem to use either.

I really love the form factor and want to keep the 240 any help would be appreciated i am a complete novice with os installation.

Regards Mark.

See my reply to almost the same question in this section ....
thread started on Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:14 pm

Hi Slaz i had read your post but didn't really understand most of it,

thank's for your reply Mark..

Hi,

Search for "win xp 240" in legacy hardware.
All the info and options are there

The USB 'stuff' you have won't work for booting. It won't be recognized by the computer until the OS is up and running.
You need the Thinkpad floppy that connects on the left side in order to proceed. While you're at it you should get (eBay)a laptop to desktop hard drive adapter. Until you have them, doing anything with your HD is next to impossible.
Here's what I did.
I connected my formatted 240 HD, via the adapter, to my desktop.
I copied (not extracted) Win 98SE and WinXP from their CDs onto the hard drive.
I put the drive back into the 240 and using a Win98 boot disk in the (correct) floppy I installed the most basic Win 98 onto the 240. Don't worry about installing all the drives etc, just get to a desktop. Once you're up, you can install Win XP from the hard drive.The reason I went with Win 98 then Win XP is that XP won't install from DOS, just a (PCMCIA) CD which you don't have. I'm not sure about Win2K but I'd go with XP anyway if you have a spare copy.
The 240 series is not for the fainthearted. In oder to get the thing going properly you need the correct floppy, the correct PCMCIA CD/DVD and the desktop adapter, a second drive adapter for your X30, if you have the dock will work as well. You'll have to copy the CDs to your laptop first then to the second drive.
Unless you have these adapters/accessories, it's really difficult to get anything going at all!
Good Luck
TIm S

Hi guys thank's for all your replies i dont think it's worth all the effort,I already have a x30 and a new r61i.
Will just put the 240 back on ebay unless anyone on here is interested.

thank's again Mark...