IBM ThinkPad X21

[Plotloss]

I think I may have made a somewhat drunken error.

I bought an X21 sub notebook whilst somewhat inebriated off ebay on Saturday.

Its got a Win2K license, but no software installed.

Being a sub notebook its got no floppy and no CDRom also it doesnt come with the UltraBase X2.

How do I get an operating system on there?

I am guessing that a USB CD Drive will be no help due to lack of drivers.

Any ideas?

Remember kids, booze and ebay dont mix...

[GregE240]

Parallel port CD Rom? Copy the XP CD onto it, bingo.

Start the copy this week, you might be ready to carry on by New Year.

Silly boy.

[Plotloss]

Bugger, have you got one?

I was considering, having the Notebook HDD out, buying a 3.5 to 2.5 IDE Converter and installing it onto the disk in a Desktop PC then putting the disk back.

Apparently there is hope with a USB FDD

But I cant understand why a USB CD ROM with a bootable CD would show up any differently to a floppy...

[Bodo]

Plotloss said:

I am guessing that a USB CD Drive will be no help due to lack of drivers.

Set the BIOS to boot from USB. Should do it.

[Plotloss]

Google Groups are suggesting that there is no legacy support for USB in the BIOS

But then I can but try...

[Bodo]

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-4TFT8J

help?

[GregE240]

I think the groups are right, Matt.

Seem to recall trying this on one a while back, wouldn't play.

I might have a para port CD somewhere, or maybe I know a man who does. If so, it was kept for some Charlie who blew a wad on a lappie with no peripheral devices whatsoever....

[Plotloss]

Cheers for that Bodo, I'll have a look now...

And thanks for that Greg, you appalling little man...

[GregE240]

Steady on Duffers, I wasn't the inebriated tit who blew the carol singers money on a foot rest....

[JonRB]

Get the PCMCIA CD-ROM kit - they're on eBay.

Otherwise, you're welcome to pop over and use mine if you wish, Matt.

Edit: Actually, I've just remembered that this won't work - the PCMCIA CD-ROM isn't bootable so you can't use it to install an OS with.

What I did was to create a bootable floppy with MS-DOS and the CD-ROM driver on it, boot from that and FDISK the whole HDD and then run the DOS-based Win2K setup program on the PCMCIA CD-ROM drive. That worked like a charm.

You could just as easily do the same with an external FDD and an external USB HDD, I would imagine.

Edit2: The external FDD are all over eBay and are fairly inexpensive.

>> Edited by JonRB on Monday 20th December 13:03

[Plotloss]

Smart, thanks Jon.

Is it the X21 that you were battling with?

It looked like a right bargain at the time...

[JonRB]

No, it was the older 240 (with a stonking Celeron 300Mhz and a knee-trembling 130Mb RAM), but the problems and solution are much the same.

[sadako]

Take the hard drive out. Connect the hard drive up to your main PC and seed the drive with a basic OS and windows 98 cabs or whatever. You'll need a 2.5" hard drive to standard lead which is £5 from maplin. Make sure you plug it in the right way round - the laptop end has power lines.

That laptop should also run vector linux nicely, just install it on your main PC and transfer the drive. Works for my p166 toshiba tecra installed on an athlon xp1700+.