CR-ROM support

[Rex]

Hi there,

I have recently bought a refurbished T22. It came with a bootable CD that has a Ghost image of the HD as it would be if I had the IBM system disks (W98SE; DVD player; Configsafe; etc.)

I have reformated the HD but am trapped in a never ending circle. The W98SE Start-up disk asks if I want CD- ROM support. Select 'Yes' but as the CD drive is not in the Ultra-bay, it is not found and the CD-ROM driver files are not copied, hence the computer does not see the CD drive. If I put the CD-ROM drive in the bay, I get an error message telling me that the drive is not recognised (or something to that effect.)

So how do I get the computer to see the CD-ROM drive using the W98SE start-up, when the W98SE start-up disk has to be in the Ultra-bay?

Thanks in advance for any advice,

Rex

[ian]

If you can get hold of a copy of Windows 98 it's more simple - as I'm sure you've already imagined - whenever I load Win98 I format the drive, FDISK etc. and then copy the Win98 'CAB' files to a file I create called 'C:\WINDOWS\SOURCE' - I then install the system from this file rather than the CD - this means that all drivers etc. are copied to the disk and I don't need the CD anymore. The point of all this is that even if the system doesn't recognise the CD afterwards, the generic drivers are all already on the hard disk and therefore up for grabs!

As for the Ultrabay problem, this is probably a stupid question, but did you put the CDROM drive in the Ultrabay BEFORE starting the laptop? I only ask as I believe there are problems with hot swapping if certain drivers/applications are not loaded - in addition, check in the BIOS to see if there's something inhibiting use of the CDROM drive - startup pressing F1 until the BIOS prompt lights up...

[n3il]

If it is a bootable CD then there should be no need for a boot diskette...

Make sure that the CDROM drive is first in the boot list in the BIOS. WIth it set up like that and the cd in the drive before starting up, it should boot from the cd as soon as the machine starts.

If the CD is not bootable, then it is more complicated. IBMs answer is to use the CDROM drive in the Ultrabay 2000 slot and connect the floppy drive using a parallel cable. These are expensive from IBM - but can be found on ebay UK for less than a tenner.

Another (and perhaps better) option is to dump Win98 and use Win2000 or WinXP - the M$oft CD versions of which are almost invariably bootable.

HTH

[Rex]

Gentlemen,

Thanks for your replies and advice.

The answer is as usual, very simple. I changed the boot order in BIOS and hey-presto. I had been changing the boot order from F12 (Change Boot Order) but it did not do the job.

Many thanks,

Rex

[ian]

Glad we were able to help - although most of it came from N3il (he knows EVERYTHING about Thinkpads)

Lived in Leatherhead in the early eighties - I imagine it's still there...