IBM t21 dvdrom help - detection and bootability

[windshear]

Hey Guys,

I have a problem with my IBM thinkpad t21. It claims to have a dvd rom drive in it, but it does not detect as such under Windows XP. But this is really a side issue. I tried looking for newer drivers from IBM, but it doesn't make a difference.

I want to install linux on it, but when I reboot, it does not detect the cd/dvd drive as being bootable. I set it up in BIOS, and chose the cd-rom from the Boot devices list which comes up after POST... But it immediately reverts to booting from the hard drive. The cd/s I have used to try to boot are bootable, as they work in my other computer, but not in this one. rrrr.

Can anyone shed light on this?

[confus-ed]

Welcome to wd forums windshear. Can you get this to work at all ? (I'm a bit unclear about what you are saying about xp) - the dvd unit sounds faulty from over here (no boot== 'busted'), have you tried re-seating it ? (generally they can be taken out).

Is there a floppy drive in this unit ? if there is, try getting a '98 boot floppy' from somewhere (maybe bootdisk.com ) & see if you can start from that & read what's on a cd from dos to try & establish if there's any function at all ? ..

Can you see, in this particular bios, if that thinks this drive is connected or not ?

[windshear]

Sorry... here's what makes it strange... the drive will read cds, it will read the cd in windows.... (but it doesn't read dvds) Hmmm.... Got a slight problem with the second option... no floppy drive... rrr. (scarily enough, I've had this for a month or so and I only just noticed there was no floppy drive)

hmmmm.

The BIOS isn't terribly informative about what is installed, but it doesn't appear to see the cdrom drive.

[confus-ed]

..The BIOS isn't terribly informative about what is installed, but it doesn't appear to see the cdrom drive.

Some 'see' cd roms/dvd's & some don't mention anything at all, it varies by bios implementation, but its working 'if only a bit' as you've got cd function in xp...

I think I'm going mmm too ! - are you sure this isn't just a cd rom ? The support page for this, doesn't mention anything dvd, at all it just talks about a cd rom .. hang on idiot 'ed .. read your own links, its optional ! maybe take the unit out & make sure ? there should be some serial numbers or marking that hopefully make sense.

& I think I sussed why linux isn't 'having it ' - here 'Not all options are supported on Linux models' (which must be something to do with its bios, but I didn't dig about to make sure of this).

[windshear]

It has DVD-ROM on the front, and Windows detects it as a dvd rom... I pulled out the drive and it says DVD-ROM model SD-C2202... serial no. 9y5a200704... Can't see anything else useful. I have tried booting with a FreeDOS boot cd that I created for my main pc which also lacks a floppy drive... hrm.

[confus-ed]

..pulled out the drive and it says DVD-ROM model SD-C2202..

So that's a toshiba unit (s/be 4 x dvd rom & 24x cd) &, probably fitted as a replacement or upgrade (though since Toshiba & IBM were 'hand in glove' at the time this unit was made, it may have gotten added originally) .. now I can't find the full specs for this anywhere as its an OEM unit, but I can google quite a few descriptions quoting this as a 'combo' or 'dual laser' unit, which is a very common explanation for '1/2 workingness'

.. units of this type have seperate mechanisms for both cd & dvd function, quite often the mechanisms end up mis-aligned, but the error correction routines are far more robust for cd reading than for DVD, & you get this situation ..

So I'm not being much help ! .. if this were me, I could test the drive somewhere else to make sure.

[windshear]

Hmmmm... I think I might ditch the idea altogether... I was thinking about selling it anyway, but wanted to use it to play with linux on... *shrug* *sigh* meh...