IBM ThinkPad OS Help

[Iridium x2]

Ok, this sounds lame, but I have a question. I have a couple of IBM Thinkpads with no OS. One has a CD Rom but it don't work. So I figured I would take the hard drive out and place them on a regular PC to install the OS. Well ... they seem to be some sort of SCSI or something, so I can install the OS from my PCs.
The floppies do work, so any suggestions???
And no, I don't have Win9x on floppies.

[cyberhh]

The thinkpad is an IDE drive that uses a laptop interface where the power is delivered over the ribbon cable - you can get a desktop converter and compusa and fry's electronics.

[Iridium x2]

Thankx 4 your help. So once I adquire this piece of engineering, what do I do? Can I use to install the hard drive on a main PC and load the OS?

[Jallentino]

What kind of thinkpad ? Sorta useless without a CDrom. Go to Ebay and bid on a CDrom for the thing and do it right. You could also get an external CDrom with PCMCIA card. I may gave one for a 600 or 760.

[d0cman]

don't install the opsys from your desktop, but instead copy over your cab files onto the hdd into a location like c:\win9x or something ... most people prefer tohave a copy of the cab files in c:\windows\options\cabs. Then move the hdd back to the thinkpad and run the setup from there.

Beware though, some thinkpad have a supplemental file disk that has files that MUST be put into this temp directory before running setup.

check out the driver matrix for all thinkpads at:
http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/support/thinkpad/tpopsys.html

[JungleMan1]

I would suggest just buying another CDROM drive, not just for the purpose of this installation but for the purpose of having a CDROM drive!

If you can't get the CDROM to physically work that is one thing, but Win98 boot disk should automatically detect your CDROM.

By the way, boot up the computer using a 98 boot disk and install Windows 2000...it rules :-D

[melmo]

what's the model number
I probably have one in the great box of parts out of thinkpads
email me at to get my attention
[email protected]

[exholt]

Don't know about other thinkpads...but on my friend's 600E, I just copied the cab files for win98 into the c:\win98 directory and ran setup from there without installing any other software. Installation ran like a charm. Once Os was installed, installed IBM related software & drivers and was all set.

[sennister]

I think what everyone has been missing is you need to know what to do with the adapter. The adapter will plug into the back of the laptop's HDD when removed. It then has connection points for your IDE ribbon cable from a desktop machine and a connection for a standard power cable. Just set the drive up in the bios of the desktop and it will work just like a regular HDD. (After all that's what it is a HDD) Then you can follow the steps that others have mentioned. Copy the installation files (cab files) over to the HDD and run it from the laptop. It would be nice to get another CDROM though.