Thinkpad600e

Jeebizz · 08-17-2004, 12:40 AM

I got a thinkpad 600e really cheap, so i decided to wipe everything and put linux on it. I installed partition magic, and had it wipe the drive, and automatically setup the swap and ext3 partition. I then put the first disc (slackware 10) , and let it boot, but it stops and gives me this message:

ISOLINUX 2.10 2004-06-18 isolinux: 0142E98B

and then it just hangs there....... I tried the cd on my regular desktop, and it boots just fine........any ideas before I decide to just get a sledghammer, and kill the damn thing?

XavierP · 08-17-2004, 03:08 AM

Completeley wipe out all the partitions on the hard disk - Slackware (and other distros) will prompt you to set them up during the install.

Jeebizz · 08-17-2004, 03:45 AM

tried that, I tried booting 3 different windows cds.. win2k pro, winnt4 and xppro, and the laptop refuses to boot the cd, i don't understand why! I guess im screwed

Jeebizz · 08-17-2004, 03:56 AM

correction: i got xppro to boot, and so i wiped the partition , so then i tried to boot off slackware again, and came up with the same message:

ISOLINUX 2.10 2004-06-18 isolinux: 0142E98B

either way im still screwed

XavierP · 08-17-2004, 04:26 AM

Before you burned the cd, did you check your md5sums on the downloaded iso? It may be that your disk image has some corruption.

Jeebizz · 08-17-2004, 04:40 AM

The image is just fine, i checked, it works on my desktop, and on the computer downstairs, it just doesn't work with the stinkpad............... :-(

jglen490 · 08-17-2004, 03:42 PM

Does that model TP have a floopy drive? There may be a way to to set up the installer to boot from floppy then grab the CD drive. That's the way I did it on my ancient warrior (IBM TP365XD P120 72MB 3.2GB).

Jeebizz · 08-17-2004, 04:40 PM

nope, no floppy

hw-tph · 08-17-2004, 05:41 PM

The original 600E BIOSes are virtual bugfests. If you got the laptop and the previous owner had run Windows 9x on it, chances are they never bothered to update the BIOS - but Windows 2000/XP and Linux will not boot unless you upgrade it to a fairly recent version. Check over at IBM's support site and download the latest version.

Håkan

Jeebizz · 08-17-2004, 05:56 PM

thats interesting........cause I can boot the winxp cd, so perhaps i can install winxp and try an update.........the 600e that i have originally had WinME(worst windows EVER!) I wish i could boot the windows NT 4 instead, due to performance, instead of xp pro......i know nt4 will run faster on that laptop, because of it's processor, rather than xp, and i would still much rather work with NT4 than ME.........*puke*

hw-tph · 08-17-2004, 06:37 PM

You don't actually need to install Windows to update the BIOS. Just grab the self-extracting archive and extract it to a floppy. Copy the necessary files to a boot floppy (if needed) and boot off of the floppy and do the update.

I think this is the BIOS you want, it's the one I use in my 600E: http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview...&cc=us&lang=en

Håkan

Jeebizz · 08-17-2004, 06:40 PM

I have no choice, I have to install windows, and burn the bios on a cd, I have no floppy drive

Jeebizz · 08-17-2004, 07:00 PM

on second thought, maybe i can make a bootable cd, but im not sure how to do that from win2k pro, to include the bios update with it......... any tips on how to do this?

Jeebizz · 08-17-2004, 07:11 PM

let me rephrase that, i have made a bootable floppy , and i want to make a bootable cd from it by using nero, but nero wants an IMG file , and i don't know how to do that from a floppy, any ideas?

hw-tph · 08-18-2004, 05:28 AM

You can use WinImage (shareware, fully working) to create an image file of your boot disk. If you want to create a bootable CD from the image, make sure you don't enable compression when you create the floppy image.

Håkan