Thinkpads Forum

Hi. I just recieved a TP 240z, some 10-20 year old mini laptop. There is a USB 1.0 slot in it, no CD tray, and i did not attain any of the accessories that came with. I was wondering if anyone knew how i could put an operating sytem into this computer.

If i were to take it out, and do a fresh install from another laptop, will it run on the TP 240Z?

Otherwise, is there any fail-safe method to approach this.

i'm new to this forum. Appreciate it.

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

The general procedure to load an OS in a system which has no CDROM drive usually begins with connecting the laptop's hard drive to a computer that does have an optical drive and copying all of the files from the CD onto it. Here's two threads from the archives which describes the process:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=52219
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=12908

Depending on the "other" laptop you might use to install the OS and then transfer the drive into the 240Z, there is probably enough of a hardware difference that you'd get a boot error or "blue screen" if you try this. Thus, I can't say that it would be a "fail-safe" method for installing the operating system.

It is a near fail-safe method for a light weight Linux frugal install. Or with Win98 just copy the CAB files and system files with the other computer, then put the HDD in the 240Z and let set-up run there.

I found these directions helpful: from virge, feb 19 2009
thread: Help I have a 240 with 2 partitaion
in x2/3/4/

"Since you have a USB/HDD adapter and a floppy, you should be able to get an operating system back on the 240.

1. Connect your 240 hard drive to the USB adapter on another computer. Copy the contents of the Windows XP CD onto the drive. Put it in a folder named WinXP or something similar that's easy to remember.

2. Make a Win98 Boot floppy boot disk with your PC running Win98.

3. Put the HDD back in the 240, plug in floppy with boot disk. Power on.

4. From the Dos prompt, navigate to the i386 folder within WinXP folder you made earlier. Run the winnt.exe file to start intalling XP.

5. Make sure you choose the right partition to put it on..."