How to run PC-Doctor Dos without an optical drive

[Max.mk]

hi, I've just received my x61s. I was wandering if there is a way to make the pc-doctor tests without a cd-rom. Is it possible to run it somehow with a USB drive? Thanks!

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

The only other option for running the PC Doctor for DOS that is provided by Lenovo is from floppy disks. I have tried in the past to create a bootable USB drive containing the images of the floppy but never was able to get it to work. Your question has now got me wondering if it is easier to put the .ISO image meant for a CD-ROM into a USB so I will do some research to see if that is possible.

If you have a floppy drive, then the PC Doctor for DOS diagnostic can be downloaded from here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67910

[Max.mk]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

The only other option for running the PC Doctor for DOS that is provided by Lenovo is from floppy disks. I have tried in the past to create a bootable USB drive containing the images of the floppy but never was able to get it to work. Your question has now got me wondering if it is easier to put the .ISO image meant for a CD-ROM into a USB so I will do some research to see if that is possible.

If you have a floppy drive, then the PC Doctor for DOS diagnostic can be downloaded from here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67910

thanks!
I don't have a floppy either.

I tried to put the files from Iso into a USB, but unfortunately it did not boot from USB. It could boot however from USB with memtest.

[K0LO]

Max:

If you download the bootable CD ISO of PC Doctor from here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-56222, and instead of burning it to CD you use the boot manager Grub4DOS to boot the ISO image file directly from a hard disk or USB flash drive. The most convenient way to do this with a ThinkPad is to create a flash drive that has a CD ISO image file stored on it, and then to make the flash drive bootable.

I use this method to boot all kinds of rescue CDs, repair utilities, and the like that are available in ISO image file format. But instead of burning them to a CD and booting from a CD, I copy the ISO file to a USB flash drive and boot from the flash drive to run software that is normally intended to run from a CD.

The following is a tutorial from a friend of mine that explains how to set up Grub4DOS on a flash drive: Using Grub4DOS to create a Bootable Drive. Although the tutorial was written specifically for an Acronis True Image recovery CD, you only need to change the name of the ISO file to make it work with other bootable CD ISOs.

[Max.mk]

K0LO: Thank!
The solution did not work for me.
Grub gives an error: partition table invalid or corrupt

[K0LO]

Max:

Try installing Grub4DOS to the flash drive with the " –skip-mbr-check" parameter.

Here is some additional information about this problem: http://tsukasa.jidder.de/blog/2009/07/2 ... humbdrives

BTW, I did find an article that states that the author was successful in booting a PC-Doctor ISO using Grub4DOS: http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=24021, so you should be able to make this work.