Serial ATA setting - Serial-to-USB adapter

[beckoning]

This may be an OS question as it has to do with BIOS settings. I have a 5 year old R60e with Windows XP that runs fine. I have an old program to backup my Sharp YO-610 Electronic Organizer that I refuse to give up. The YO-610 came with a serial cable and sthe backup sw. The interface was designed for Windows 95 and ran nicely under Win2000. The serial cable connected to my former laptop's serial adapter and all worked fine. The R60e has no serial adapter, only USB adapters. I bought a USB-to-serial adapter, but when I connect the YO-610 via the serial cable and adapter to the R60e, the system doesn't recognize it. Could it be with the "Serial ATA settings" in the BIOS? I am tempted to change the setting from AHCI to compatibility to see if that works, but I don't want to lock myself out of my laptop. My only other work around is to find someone with a diskette reader who can load the driver onto their system with a serial port, and do the backup that way. Any ideas?

[RealBlackStuff]

"Serial ATA" is another term for SATA (such as drives), nothing to do with a serial port!
Since the R60e does not have a docking port, you seem to be SOL.
There is a serial/parallel IBM adapter out that goes into the Ultrabay, but I don't know if that works in the R60e, where you may not even be able to remove the CD-drive...
See also this: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=104346

[twistero]

There is a serial/parallel IBM adapter out that goes into the Ultrabay, but I don't know if that works in the R60e, where you may not even be able to remove the CD-drive...

No, it won't work because there's no connector in the optical bay.

[RealBlackStuff]

Not so sure there!
It looks like all R60 models use the same Ultrabay Enhanced 12.7mm high CD/DVD drives.
And the connector should also be the same on all those motherboards.
AFAIK some (but not all) R60e models have a non-swappable media drive, but with a screwdriver and maybe an Xacto knife you should be able to make it swappable.
But I'm only giving this an (educated) guess...

[beckoning]

Can any USB port on the R60e become COM1? When I open the application on the R60e, it says there is no COM1. Any ideas?

[twistero]

Not so sure there!
It looks like all R60 models use the same Ultrabay Enhanced 12.7mm high CD/DVD drives.
And the connector should also be the same on all those motherboards.
AFAIK some (but not all) R60e models have a non-swappable media drive, but with a screwdriver and maybe an Xacto knife you should be able to make it swappable.
But I'm only giving this an (educated) guess...

Indeed, optical drives on R60e's are the same form factor and connector as UltraBay Enhanced drives, and they are removable once you take out that one screw. But the Serial/Parallel Adapter use a separate connector, and that connector is not present on R60e motherboards, as shown by my experience of taking apart a grand total of 1 R60e/i machine.

Can any USB port on the R60e become COM1? When I open the application on the R60e, it says there is no COM1. Any ideas?

No, usually USB-to-Serial adapters show up as COM8 or COM9. Go into Device Manager, find the USB-to-Serial adapter, and check which number it got assigned to. Maybe you can change settings inside your software to use the correct port number.