Windows 2000

[jtc975]

Can someone please give me detailed instructions on how to install Windows 2000 on my Thinkpad A21m and also retain the original Thinkpad functions? My original OS was 98SE. Thanks in advance for any help.

[Phazer]

Are you having troubles installing 2000?

I don't know how close it is to yours, but I have an A22M that I bought off eBay and the HD was formatted, (no hidden recovery partition). I installed W98 and then used my 2000 upgrade disc.

During the first part of the install, it scans your system and checks hardware and drivers and gives you a list of items that need to have specific drivers installed, (I would assume because the drivers on the W2K disc were too generic). You can print or "save to log" this list. I did neither.

Once W2K was installed, I went to Lenovas' website and downloaded the current drivers for my paticular machine type, (doing the auto detect worked fine for this).

As far as all the added features, (i.e. hotkeys, trackpoint, thinkpad button, etc, etc), these can be downloaded from Lenova also. In my opnion, I have about 99.9% functionality of all the original programs and features. The few that don't, might be considered eye-candy that aren't really essential to operation. "Access Connections" is one that comes to mind. It's a niffty program but doesn't really work that good with a wireless pcmcia card so I just deleted it.

Sorry for the little bit of ramble and hope this helps you.

[Stargate199]

You should be able to upgrade without too much trouble. Windows 2000 can be picky about drivers and such, but you should be able to install. From there you can go to the Lenovo website and download all of the drivers (there will be a lot of them).