Thinkpads Forum

First off, hi everyone. I'm new here, first post and all. There seems to be lots of smart on this board, so I'm excited to join this community and hopefully I'll learn enough to be helpful as well someday. A friend has had several Thinkpads and other random bits and pieces piled up in his basement, but he recently began bringing them to me for attention. They're fated to be used mostly for instruction in basic computer classes (and otherwise I get to abuse them as I see fit.)

I have a 380d hanging out with me this month, but it is a very sad little guy. It has original parts, but it doesn't see them all (the battery is dead/removed but I do have it and i'm not sure about the power cord.)

It boots up with a 1-2-3 beep, then after ~5 minutes flashes a 174 (device configuration) error. Hitting enter (Ok) restarts it and continues the boot. Left to its own devices, it will demand a boot disc with an awesome animation.

If I hold F1 (for the distressingly long amount of time necessary) after the 174 error, it will enter "set-up." From that menu I'm able to run a 'test' on detected devices. System Board, Memory, Display,, FDD-1, Parallel, Serial, Infrared, Audio and PCMCIA-1 all appear and test 'Ok'. HDD, CD-Rom and FDD-2 appear on this page alongside the others but start greyed-out and do not test. PCMCIA-2 appears below the rest, both greyed out and in a separate box.

On the set-up menu there is also a boot-order selection, but FDD-1 and PCMCIA-1 are selected and I can't apparently change this option. If there is a more... normal... BIOS, I'm at a loss for how to get into it.

I have tried booting from a bootable floppy, but again neither the HDD nor the CD-Rom drive are detected. Booting from a Win 98 SE boot disc does load to memory from the floppy.

I have opened the laptop and tried re-seating the HDD and the CD-Rom. No change.

The battery is removed (though I have it onhand) because I noticed it was dead. This is a pretty old laptop and I know it has been sitting off for quite a while so that isn't a surprise.

So the main question right now is if this thing is salvageable. I don't have access to spare parts atm (I can check with my buddy's house for bits that'll fit though) and I'd rather not sink too much money into this one. thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Rari wrote: HDD, CD-Rom and FDD-2 appear on this page alongside the others but start greyed-out and do not test. PCMCIA-2 appears below the rest, both greyed out and in a separate box.

See if this link helps - http://ps-2.kev009.com:8081/eprmhtml/epr2c/h5165.htm

I'd pull those devices out of the machine one at a time until you discover which one (or all three) are defective. (174 error goes away). My money is on a bad HDD. Oh, and get yourself a supply of CMOS batteries. You'll need them if you'll be working on a lot of older Thinkpads.

Thanks Harryc. I'll open'er up tomorrow afternoon and do that. If the HDD is bad (and it'd make sense that if so it'd screw with the CD-Rom, since they share a cable) maybe I'll be able to swap it out for a CF to IDE converter, if that'll work with the 380d. I've seen people talk about doing it with some of the other legacy thinkpads.