Dual-boot 385xd & Easy Setup after CMOS battery replacement

[skyefarmer]

Hello - I'm glad to have found this forum, hope you can help me.

In Tokyo, 1996 I bought a 385XD, s/n 2635-9EJ for work. My friendly tech-support guy made it dual boot, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation & Openstep. I put some work on it, came back to London and left it in a cupboard until now. I would like to get it working again. I've replaced the CMOS battery and got past the 161 & 163 errors, and set the system time, but can't get past the IBM/ThinkPad/RAM screen. I suspect that the dual boot BIOS settings have been lost and this is causing a problem. I have tried pressing F1 (repeatedly and singly) during a power on, but can't access Easy Setup. I tried making a boot disk (Windows NT from Allbootdisks) and inserting that in the floppy drive before power on, but that didn't work either. I get a single beep after power on.

I'd be very grateful for any suggestions. I'm trying to recover some quite interesting work I did on genetic algorithms. Would love to see it again!

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the Forum.
Try taking the hard disk out, to see if you can then get into Setup.
If you need it, get the HMM here: https://thinkpads.com/support/hmm/hmm_pdf/vol4hmm.pdf
(others also from our HMM link up top).
That HMM has quite some good info.
If you have a USB case for IDE drives, try that to read from the HDD.

[skyefarmer]

Thanks.

I removed the hard disk, but no joy. Power on whilst holding F1 didn't open Easy Setup, just got to the IBM/Thinkpad/RAM screen again. I'm going to try a basic DOS boot disk, but even if that works, not sure it would help me edit BIOS... No errors from POST, just a single beep. Since setting Date/Time is part of Easy Setup, I took out the CMOS battery, prompting errors 161 & 163, put the battery back in again, got to the Date/Time screen and hit Esc, hoping to go up a menu level, but that just produced a blank screen. Disappointed!

[RealBlackStuff]

Get the RAM modules out, clean the gold contacts with an eraser, blow off the remnants before you put them back.
Try again.
Check that the CMOS is not on its last legs.
If still no luck, go play a round of golf on the Old Course or Jubilee.

[skyefarmer]

Think you may be right (about the golf) - I'll try the RAM modules...