Can my t30 boot up even with the hdd?

[ThaHousewife]

What are my options. I had it boot up once before without a hard drive , now it wont.. I wanna update bios ( currently 1.01) and controller is ( 1.07).
I try and boot it via an external hdd which as an operating system, but the screen gets weird and fuzzy grey looking. I have the original hitachi hdd but bo hdd caddy.

My husband has 2 t42s, one works one doesn't , but i love the t30. What should i do?

[jronald]

Im not the authority on T30's but I beleive you would need a floppy drive to update the BIOS in the manner in which you are trying.

Otherwise, while it is starting up, continue to tap the F1 key and it will go into setup/bios.

Ron

[ThaHousewife]

Im very familiar with the f1 bios area. I just spent 12 hours the other day trying to get this sucker to boot.

I downloaded the recent update for my specific bios and controler from my other computer, burned them to a rewritable cd, but its and exe file...and i dont think u can boot them from an exe file on cd....(i did the same with a flashdrive, still no booting the bios.)

From what ive read these thinkpads are complicated. Willi mess things up if ive removed, but replaced the cmos, and added new memory? Took the wifi card out but put it rightback in... From what ive read, taking them out can mess it all up. Am i truly screwed? I have hard drives all over my house butnone will fit cuz i need some sort of adapter in there or something right?

[jronald]

The HDD will slide in loosely, but correctly if you are careful. There is a sleeve/carrier that aligns everything that is VERY important for day to day use, but I have done plenty of them without for testing. Look down the slot and you will see the "plug in" is offset. Line up the HDD and slide in in.
T30 memory slots are finicky, but generally the entire machine is a tank.

If I understand you cant get it to do anything?
Without a HDD, you should get the IBM flash screen then a few moments later "NO OS CAN BE FOUND" or something like that.

Im at work, or I could grab my one remaining T30 and give you more info.

Sorry
Ron

[ThaHousewife]

Ok, i will try to put the hard drive in carefully. Ill let u know how it goes.

Yeah i get a flash of the ibm screen the then the os found.

[ThaHousewife]

Harddrive sticker side up right?

[ThaHousewife]

I got it working but its an ios (mac) boot up screen.... Some hack my husband did years ago on a now, gone, laptop.... Is tjere a way i could still boot it up fully or does ithave tobe in that old toshiba laptop which is no longer around...

[ThaHousewife]

I used hiren boot mini xp on a flash drive so im able to view files, here what my hd looks like... The program my husband used was flyakite using the pearpc pc emulator...
http://thahousewife.webs.com/IMG_00000273.jpg

Admin edit: Removed 153KB inline image. Please try to keep them <50KB and edit the original subject line to include a PIC warning to inform those on dial-up or per-byte data plans.

[ThaHousewife]

Nver mind. Im reinstalling xp home ed... Yay new work computer... Thank u soooo much!!!

[jronald]

Your picture above is probably too big. Big pictures = $'s in hosting, its better to use one of the free services and link to it but anyway................

Looks like you are on your way.

Take a long look at Macbutu if you like something a little different. I dont have a T30 currently running it, but I do have X31's that run like Bats out of Hades on it. The X31 is basically a miniature version of the T30. It is faster than XP, looks a whole lot better than XP and does everything XP does.

By the way, the sweet spots on the T30 are at least the 2.0 CPU and 1.5 gig of Ram. Not sure what your running.

Have fun
Ron

[cadillacmike68]

If you're still having issues getting the T30 up and running with XP, PM me, I have lots of T30 experience, keeping two 10 yr old ones running.