X60s- tests fine, reads/writes HDD fine, only boots from CD

[rickm88]

Hi all-

I am having a rather strange problem. I have an X60s that has been working fine for 4 years. Two weeks ago, i had a problem with a hard drive. I replaced the drive with a new drive, and when I go to install W7 from a USB CD drive, it copies the OS files to the HDD and does the first part of the setup fine until the machine tries to reboot- - it then gets stuck at the flashing cursor in upper left of screen. I have replaced the BIOS (needed to downgrade and then upgrade again), tried every BIOS setting that might possibly be relevant, run PC Doctor which checks out completely fine, but still the problem won't go away.

I have had 10-12 Thinkpads over the years (small company) and I generally have been able to fix them when they break, but this problem has me completely baffled - any ideas?

Thanks very much-

Rick

[Harryc]

On the BIOS startup screen, set the hard drive to be first in boot order.

[rickm88]

Thanks very much for reading my question. Yes, I have tried all permutations of boot orders - my first try was putting the internal HDD first. It doesn't seem to make a difference - the machine will not boot from the new drive. I was wondering if there is a controller for the HDD that is not tested by PC Doctor perhaps?

[Harryc]

Probably not, but if it will ease your mind I would suggest downloading and running the hard drive manufacturers diagnostic.

[EOMtp]

rickm88: Your problem is a missing or damaged MBR (Master Boot Record). Fix it by booting to a C:\ prompt (MS-DOS) from a floppy or USB flash drive, and run "FDISK.EXE /MBR" (... or any other utility that writes the MBR).

[rickm88]

I think I finally solved the problem after working on it for the past four days.

I had a 640GB drive in the machine before; this time installed a 750GB drive. I used the prior drive as a single partition, as I recall, so I tried to do the same this time. I guess the BIOS choked on a single 750GB partition so it wouldn't boot.

While I was looking for a USB floppy drive that I have, I found an old 100GB drive that came out of some Thinkpad and I tried that - it booted. That got me onto the idea of using a smaller partition, and the OS is installing fine now.

Thanks for all of the help!

[Lino]

I think I finally solved the problem after working on it for the past four days.

I had a 640GB drive in the machine before; this time installed a 750GB drive. I used the prior drive as a single partition, as I recall, so I tried to do the same this time. I guess the BIOS choked on a single 750GB partition so it wouldn't boot.

While I was looking for a USB floppy drive that I have, I found an old 100GB drive that came out of some Thinkpad and I tried that - it booted. That got me onto the idea of using a smaller partition, and the OS is installing fine now.

Thanks for all of the help!

I'm happy you found a solution, however I'm puzzled: if it was a problem just of partition size, how could you even copy the OS files (it requires a file system that requires a volume that require partitioning)?

[IvanAndreevich]

Possibly a bios bug? Windows 7 should install just fine on a 750GB partition.