Trying to install OS on thinkpad x40 via external USB CD/DVD

[lightweightthinkpad]

I just got the msata HD installed , and it is seen in the x40's BIOS

I also just purchased an external CD/DVD Drive for installing the operating system from. However it appears that the BIOS skips past the disc drive and it doesn't have enough time to power up and see the device ? (this is my guess)

It goes straight to saying operating system not found.

I will even set the HD as the last item to boot and the usb cd as the second to last item to boot (hoping to give the cd enough time to be recognized once it powers up)

Does it matter which USB port I use? Left or right?

I'm a bit perplexed as to why the operating system is not loading from cd.

Any suggestions?

[Neil]

When you punch F12 at the IBM splash, does the USB drive show up in the boot option list?

[lightweightthinkpad]

No the USB drive does not show up in the boot options list.

Only the HD shows up.

I'm wondering if the external CD/DVD drive is even getting enough power (it is usb powered) to startup and to be recognized.

This cdrom drive does work. I hooked it up to another computer and it is recognized.

[Neil]

Well, if it's not showing up in the boot list, that explains why you can't boot from it. Check the BIOS set-up again and make sure that USB CD-ROM is not disabled. If the CD-ROM in your boot list doesn't have USB in front of it...it's looking for the one in the base and not a USB device.

Lack of power could be another issue, most of the external drives I've used (but not all) use two USB plugs to boost power.

[lightweightthinkpad]

Under startup > boot it says "USB CD" and I have that set as what I imagine would be the bios making the os boot from the cd in the external usb cd/dvd drive

then the last thing i have booting is the ide msata drive that I want to install the os onto.

Under the Config > USB > I've tried both enabled and disabled

nothing seems to get the bios to get the x40 to see this liteon external usb cd/dcd rw drive

I hope this isn't a lack of power issue

[Neil]

For now, try setting the USB CD as the first boot device.
Try some different bootable disks.
Does the install disk you are trying to use boot in other computers?

[lightweightthinkpad]

I've tried having USB CD as the first and as the second to last (thinking it may have needed some time to get power?) with a windows xp install cd and a open bsd 5.0 install cd.

I know both of these install discs work because I've used them on other installs successfully.

When I plugin this liteon external usb cd/dvd drive to my macbook pro that computer and its OS recognize the drive and it shows itself in finder.

I wonder if the problem is that the ibm x40's bios can't see this external usb cd/dvd drive? Of if it is a usb power issue?

The USB cd/dvd drive doesn't even show up when I press F12 to see the boot options list. It is a pity because this new msata hd does. This machine is almost useable for me but I am perplexed as to why it is so hard to install this via USB cd/dvd drive.

[Neil]

Don't know...last time I installed an OS on one of my X40, I installed from a USB flash drive, and it worked flawlessly. I've never tried using a USB CD though, because I have an Ultrabase with optical drive.

OK, so I pulled out the old USB CD drive and found that the X40 will boot from it in either left or right USB slot. It is a little slow to recognize the drive, however, failing to recognize it the first, and sometimes the second, time booted. I would have to restart a time or two before it would show up in the F12 boot list.

The particular drive that I have (an old Toshiba) will not read CD-RW or even CD-R disks, but when I put my OEM factory WinXP disk in the drive, the X40 was able to boot from it. BTW, all this was without any extra power for the CD drive, it was connected only with a single USB cable.

Don't know if any of this applies to your case or not, but at least we know for certain that an X40 will boot from an external USB CD drive.

[lightweightthinkpad]

This is really frustrating.
The x40 starts up so fast I wonder if it even looks at the usb port.

When the x40 is starting up I don't see the green LED going on for the cd/dvd usb drive

How did you get an operating system on your USB flash drive to load on the x40? What did you set in the BIOS's boot order to make it see the usb flash drive?

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/ ... on-mac-osx

I tried following these directions and I can't even get ubuntu to load via usb flash drive on either usb port

[Tasurinchi]

Using this software ==> click me it's dead easy to get a bootable working Linux stick. You'll see that you can choose plenty of different distros. In fact I cannot remember when was the last time I ever installed an OS using an optical media

(Just be careful with the stick you using, not all the sticks are bootable, I had one or two cheapos ones that wouldn't work)

[ganon11000]

I prefer LiLi (Linux Live USB Creator) and I had the same issues with a £5 eBay caddy I just kept wiggling all the connectors until it worked and to install windows try wintoflash works well but you need to untick something in the advanced tab for xp (forgot what it is) it's basically a big pain without a built in dvd / cd drive!

[RealBlackStuff]

@lightweightthinkpad:
Have you tried with a double USB power connector, like Neil suggested right at the start?

[lightweightthinkpad]

@Tasurinchi I'm on a mac so the pendrive linux software won't work. I've tried in the past downloading and running unetbootin software which is similar to pendrive. I'm giving that unetbootin software a go again but this time I've already downloaded the Ubuntu Iso image.

No luck unfortunately after preparing a usb drive with unetbootin ubuntu. The USB flash drive doesn't even show up in the boot list when I hit f12 at startup.

I've literally gone through all the options in the BIOS looking for some improper setting. Config > USB is enabled. I'm using BIOS Version 1.67 (1UETB7WW)

@realblackstuff I believe so. Here is an image of the usb cable that came with the liteon external dvd drive.

http://imgur.com/UKmf0Hq

The smaller cable plugs into the drive and the two normal sized usb ports can go to the x40 . I've even tried hooking up one normal usb port to the x40 and the other one to the macbook pro for power.

When I hookup the USB port that is the furthest away from the other two the macbook pro won't power the cd/dvd drive. But when I use the normal usb port that is closest to the microusb port it gets enough power to turn on when hooked up to the macbook pro.

I've tried using both normal usb ports but no green blinking light comes on at all from the liteon external usb cd/dvd drive. When the x40 turns on it doesn't even appear to be kickstarting the usb cd/dvd drive or the usb flash drive due to the fact that I see no blinking green lights on either devices.

I can't for the life of me figure out if 1) the usb ports are broken 2) something in the bios isn't configured properly (even though I've double checked this) 3) the x40 doesn't give enough power to an external cd/dvd or usb flash drive... But then why are other people able to boot from their external drives with their usb ports..? I'm starting to think maybe both usb ports are broken?? I've never ran into this much difficulty installing an OS. I'm almost wishing I just brought a new cheap computer because of how much a headache this is becoming from futzing with everything when it should be working imo.

if you have any other ideas or suggestions please let me know!!

After doing some more research through google i've found

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product ... R-53671%20

USB 2.0 connector ports
Note: The ThinkPad X40 system has a supplemental power port for USB devices


Then I found this thread

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=52657

apparently on the left side of the thinkpad there is a supplemental power port.

http://support.lenovo.com/ContentResour ... 035821.gif

[Neil]

Are you certain that the USB ports are working at all?

I own two X40...the USB posts work on one of them (the one I used for the above tests), but the USB controller on the other one failed suddenly one day a couple of years ago. Neither of it's USB ports function, and when it's docked, the ports on the dock don't function either. I've continued using that machine with a PCMCIA USB adapter, but it will not boot via that adapter.

[lightweightthinkpad]

Are you certain that the USB ports are working at all?

I own two X40...the USB posts work on one of them (the one I used for the above tests), but the USB controller on the other one failed suddenly one day a couple of years ago. Neither of it's USB ports function, and when it's docked, the ports on the dock don't function either. I've continued using that machine with a PCMCIA USB adapter, but it will not boot via that adapter.

Could I test this with a multimeter? Or what do you think? I'm guessing the USB ports are shot. When I have the usb dvd drive or the usb flash drive plugged into the x40's usb ports none of the green lights come on for those two devices. Which leads me to believe they don't get power.

[Neil]

It sure is beginning to look like your USB is shot.
Since it looks as though you won't be able to install via USB, if it's worth the trouble, there are other ways to get an OS on the HDD. Like connecting the HDD to another computer to install the core system, then do a net install. Or acquire an UltraBase for the X40.

[lightweightthinkpad]

yea it really does appear like the usb ports are non functional

now i just got to figure out how to do a network install of openbsd.

[DeniS182]

Hi all,
I have same problem with booting from USB. I tried USB DVD drive and USB key (bootable), but it's not work. Only " - " blinking in left corner. I set boot priority in bios correctly. You solve this problem? Any ideas? thanks.

[ilakast]

For those that struggle with usb boot creation: Instead of unetbootin try rufus

[runbei]

This seems to be a universal problem with the T series. I cannot for the life of me get my T43 to boot from a DVD or a USB stick. And no answers anywhere. My T43 is turning into a boat anchor. WinXP is fatally crippled by un-fixable slowness, and due to this issue of not booting from DVD/USB, I'm unable to install Linux. Anybody want a nice sash weight. (Showing my age.)

[Tasurinchi]

I never had a problem booting from USB or internal CD/DVD in my T4 series, are you sure the boot order is correctly set up in the BIOS?

Cheers

T

[runbei]

Thanks. Yes, I've tried setting the HD to boot last, after the USB flash drive and CD-RW/DVD drive, and it just boots into Windows. Windows come up real fast, and there's no prompt to press any key if I want to boot from CD (or USB).

[Cigarguy]

I've never had any booting problems with my T4x Thinkpads. Hitting F12 while posting will get you to a boot menu. You could always pull the HDD, and boot directly to the CD drive or USB drive directly. If it boots then you know that the problem is with the HDD. If it will not boot at all, then it's a BIOS setting or a hardware issue elsewhere.