Thinkpads Forum

i want to update my 600e's bios but i dont have the extrenal floppy drive. is there a bios update that doesnt need a floopy.

IIRC, someone around here has made ISO images for CD from these floppy disks, but I'm not certain about that. On the other hand, you could just get a floppy drive. They are not expensive, and sure come in handy for tasks like this.

I have a few external floppy drives made for 600 series. What is cool about this is that it is basically a SCSI enclosure that contains the UltraSlim Bay floppy drive. You can take the drive out and put it in the machine if you choose. I can spare one.

i looked o ebay and they are pretty cheap. anyway im having driver issuses i have all the drivers but theres an unknown device and i have no clue what it is. and i have a trendnet tew-421pc wifi card, installed it and it doesnt work.

Not sure about the unknown device, but I would certainly expect a driver issue first. And you don't think it is just the TrendNet wifi card?

You say that you have all the drivers. You mean you used the driver file matrix here and installed everything applicable to ME?:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... SHY-3TLQ2L

You've got ME installed it looks like. Did you follow the instructions for installing the supplemental files for ME listed in the driver file matrix? They are available directly from here:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... NVU4Q.html

On a typical Win98 install, there is at least one unknown device that gets removed by applying the APM2APM.reg patch, and though I've not installed ME on one of these machines before, I notice that the same patch exists in the ME supplemental files.

As for your TrendNet wifi card, you will need to have ME-compatible drivers installed separately for that. But if you've already installed those, then it'll be difficult to figure out why it's not recognized.

Phil.

Googling shows 3 devices normally on ME and question marks:

Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller <-- apm2apm.reg patch
PCI Communication Device <-- modem driver
PCI Multimedia Device <-- sound driver

If it is not one of those 3... or the TrendNEt... what resources does it report in device manager? This will be a clue to cross reference with to figure it out.

I'm not sure about your current status with respect to the driver files I linked to. Have you applied the apm2apm patch? If so, then that is not the cause of the unknown device. If not, then apply it and at least one unknown device should go away. Applying it a second time if you do not know whether or not is has been applied should not make any difference. It is just a simple, one-line entry into your registry.

Same with the modem and sound driver issues. If you've installed the drivers I linked to then those should not show as unknown devices.

Is this answering your question? I'm not quite clear where you are trying to go with your investigations into resources.

Phil.

before i installed ME i put 98 on it and i did use the apm2apm patch, ME was an upgrade. anyway about the bios again. i got the external floppy and made the bios floppy but(not to sound stupid) how do i install it. and thanks again

Make sure the floppy drive is first in the BIOS boot order, then boot from the floppy and closely follow the instructions on the screen.

the battery is doesnt hold a charge what so ever, will i still be able to do the update?

booted the floopy and a pop up said "diskette in the default drive will not run on this system". wtf

Are you sure you have the right BIOS update for your machine? Or, could be because of the dead battery....

2645 AMU http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 6HLKQ.html

is there a way i can get passed this with a dead battery

Yup, that looks to be the correct update. So, let's see if this thread has any useful pointers:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=78263

http://www.wimsbios.com/forum/topic7229-15.html ill try this out 2moro