Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

I'd like to install XP or W2000 on 240 and 240X that I have. I searched the forum and found a couple of very informative threads on how to do this WITHOUT the IBM USB CDROM:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... stall++240*

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... light=240x

However, I cant find anything on this process using the IBM CDROM. I have this post at IBM that shows how to make and boot a disk for the recovery CD:

https://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site ... IGR-4Q2KLY

But if I try this with an XP CD, switch to drive X: and go to the i386 folder and type winnt.exe I get all kinds of errors about no drive, hard drive to small etc.

Is it really simpler to do the procedure without the drive, manually installing the partition on the new hard drive?

Thanks,

Hi,

It looks to me like a HD formatting problem.
Your approach is the easy one.
Cheers!

Hi,

It looks to me like a HD formatting problem.
Your approach is the easy one.
Cheers!

It would help to know if your XP and 2K disks are upgrades or not. If they are upgrades then you have to have an older OS, 95 or 98 already on the HD and then do the upgrade, but that can lead to space issues. If the disks are direct install then you either don't have enough memory or, assuming your disk has been formatted, HD space for either OS. You'll also need a floppy dirive to get to an A:\ prompt using a Win 98 setup disk, then you can load the OS with the PCMCIA CD not the USB CD.
The easiest way is to directly copy the OS CD of choice directly onto the HD. You do this by connecting the 240 drive to another computer, with the correct coupler of course.
None of this is easy and is the main reason that this small computer series didn't really take off.
Tim S

Hello,

Thank you for the help and suggestions. I was trying to follow the directions from the IBM (Lenovo) site: Windows XP Clean Installation - ThinkPad General

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... rintLenovo

This features specific instructions for the 240X and references the USB CD-ROM. I did have the correct recovery diskette.

My problem was that I was using an NTFS formatted C drive. When you do this the 240X recovery CD does not recognize it and formats it for you with Windows 95 2GB DOS.

I kept getting the error: "An internal set up error has occurred. Could not find a place for a swap file. Set up cannot continue."

After using a Windows 98SE boot disk to remove the trouble caused by the 240X recovery disk through FDISK and formatting the C drive with system files, C: /s, booting with the 240X does not destroy the hard drive formatting.

Now the 240X floppy boots to finally to Dos where you can get to the USB CDROM as drive X: then once you run CD i386 and WINNT the XP install CD now asks to copy the file to the hard drive. So I think that I am all set.

Again, thanks for the help.

Thanks for posting this information.

I don't have a 240 or 240X but I've been thinking of getting one...eventually, and this will no doubt be useful information.

Thanks for following up once the problem was solved. It's always a big help to other forum members when people do that, and I know I forget it all the time.