Thinkpad R52 (1847-22M) .. starting off from... nothing ...

[BarryDay]

G'day Folks,

Thinkpad R52 (1847-22M)

I have just bought one of these - but with no HD .. thus no
OS & no backup/recovery disks (either CD or floppies) etc.
Also, that means there is no 'recovery partition' either..

I installed a HD .. but ran into.. "Error 2010"..
(From scratching around, it seems that this error is a
tad .. infamous)!

NB: It all works fine with eg: Linux (Fedora 15), after I
press Esc at bootup - and it connects just fine via my (wired)
Lan & to the internet (through another gateway box on the Lan)
ie: under Fedora.

However, I would like to install XP-pro on it .. but when I try,
it barfs when XP tries to reboot to .....
"finalise the installation"... as is its wont...

Even if I press Esc as it boots .. it just .. hangs ...
and won't proceed with the.. finalisation


So please ...

- what's the best way to get around this "error 2010" issue..
(...Preferably without buying a "known" drive)

- any ideas what's causing the XP install to hang ... ie: surely
it should proceed on once I hit the Esc ... but it doesn't..

- how can I get (and update) all the necessary drivers for the
Thinkpad - bearing in mind that I can't connect to the net
via the Thinkpad (yet) .. tho' other wired boxes on the Lan
can do that just fine. Thus I could d'ld drivers on one of them
.... so long as they can then be installed by copying to the
Thinkpad later.

If so .. what is it that I need to kick off all this pls?
And, to do those updates .. wouldn't I have to have got XP
installed first anyway..?

BTW .. please be gentle ) .. I have only dial-up and thus
(usually) can't respond instantly .. I will get on each day
and follow up though.

Many Thanks for any pointers at all...

Cheers,
Barry

[thePCxp]

Hi Barry and welcome to the forum ,

The reason why you are getting the 2010 error is because your hard drive is not compatible with your R52. You can still use it by pressing the ESC button but if you want to get rid of it completely you will have to install an IBM/Lenovo HDD (but you can't use an old generation HDD which is not supported by the R52).

I'm not sure why XP will not install on your R52, but maybe someone who knows can clarify this.

Yes, you will have to get XP installed first in order to install all the necessary drivers for your R52.

[RealBlackStuff]

Ignore the 2010 error for the time being by pressing Esc.
To get rid of the 2010 error, as well as remove the 'whitelist' for the wifi error 1802, install this BIOS: http://www.mediafire.com/?0m8ihsqhdwjn8a1
You need to install Windows first, before you can install this BIOS.
If there was something else previously on that hard disk, it would be best to first wipe the hard disk using DBAN
http://www.dban.org/download
Burn the ISO onto a CD, using e.g. Imgburn.
Run DBAN for only ~5%, then cancel it.
You should now be able to install XP.

[BarryDay]

G'day Folks,

Thanks for the welcome & the responses.

My progress so far....

re: Error 2010:
Thanks for the BIOS alternative - I'll have a look at installing that.

re: XPP won't install fully:
I've made my own workaround by taking the drive to another (desktop) m/c and installing XPP using that one. Of course, the HD needed a 2.5"->3.5" adapter ... & installed with the wrong drivers - but at least it did finish (otherwise) normally.

I then replaced it in the Thinkpad & managed to install some correct drivers that I'd d'lded via a different box in the meantime. I guessed correctly at which choice of ethernet drivers I needed - tho' I had some help from Fedora on that score.

I can at least use XPP now ... tho' I haven't yet tried the BIOS fix - as I still have the Wifi drivers to go - and I'd like to get those working first.

As an aside, it's a tad annoying that Linux can detect & operate the wifi correctly it seems .. but I can't determine which Windows version of the drivers I need, from just the descriptions given on the support page. ie: Insufficient info to know which ones are actually inside this m/c - and no help to explain just how to find out. ....And I really don't want to have to pull the box apart if it can be avoided.

FWIW - If anyone has a good way to detect which wifi drivers are in this m/c ... pls do tell!

Anyway, I took a chance & installed the ones labelled "Thinkpad" .. but they don't seem to have worked, so I have to try the other choice now (ie: Intel) .. and with only dial-up .. it takes a while to d'ld the file... blah blah ... )

I did get the sound/audio going at one point - but have managed to stuff that somehow/somewhere whilst loading something else .. Anyway, it's a back-burner issue for now (& I still have the drivers carefully saved away) . It'll keep I'm sure.

In case anyone else tries my (kludge) technique to get XPP installed ... Be aware that your drive lettering will likely be incorrect by using this method. ie: I forgot about MS's drive ordering system - and so ended up with 2 consecutive partitions labelled "D" & "T". And whilst it still does work ok - I would have been wiser to have disconnected all HD on the 'other' m/c ie: temporarily, so that the lettering would then have eventuated as "C" & "D" ... So..... don't get caught like I did ...

Cheers,
Barry

[RealBlackStuff]

Get all your drivers here: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/researc ... MIGR-58931