Thinkpads Forum

I have a 310ED, which I recently showed on another thread:

http://forums.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=82205)
^^Warning! Large Pictures. Slow connections or mobile devices beware.

I want to know if these Thinkpads are capable of booting from the CD-ROM. I tried booting from an XP setup disk I have, as well as a Win 98 setup disk, after I start the laptop with the CD in the drive, it reads it for a few seconds, then goes to the BIOS setup menu, which is very primitive, and the Basic Settings doesn't work, when I hit enter to go to it, it freezes.

Do I need a BIOS update? That's what I'm thinking, but I appreciate any responses.

This page claims it is a bootable device
http://sps.nus.edu.sg/~chongss/thinkpad ... 310ed.html

Have you tried to clean the lens? It may be dirty.

Ah! Ok, I'll try my lens cleaner CD tonight and see what that does. Hopefully it will fix the problem.

But then there's the weird BIOS issue where going into Basic Settings freezes the computer. Perhaps it's the fact that the CMOS battery is dead? Data from the Basic settings is stored in the CMOS if I'm not mistaken.

if you have a floppy drive, suggest you try "smart boot manager," small
floppy utility that renders the CD-ROM on reluctant thinkpads bootable

Ah that is another issue I forgot to mention:

There is the port on the back that allowed connection to an external floppy drive, but it didn't work. I tried the same external floppy drive on a 760ED, and it worked perfectly. It was also able to boot. So, I have no way to boot except from a Hard Drive. Unless I'm certain the CD-ROM can boot.

So I can't use the smart boot manager... but then how will a BIOS update be possible if that's the problem.