Just bought an old IBM "factory refurbished" ThinkPad 760ED (P133/48MB/3Gig) laptop, and have run into a brick wall while trying to install Windows 98. This laptop came with no OS installed (and no software CDs or floppies included), and will not accept a CD-ROM and floppy at the same time, since only one drive slot is present.

Naturally, inserting the Win98 CD is useless, since the laptop doesn't recognize the CD drive until AFTER an OS is present! Also, the CD and floppy drives are not hot-swappable, so I can't switch between them during the installation process.

Anyone have any suggestions for a workaround?

A few things might work.  I have an identical laptop and put Win XP on it, booting off the install CD.  Win200 will also go on it okay.  Another thing which might work is to make a network boot disk, boot it up with that and map a drive on another machine with the Win98 install CD (I used to do this with Win98 and Win NT 4.0).

GunLvr

Copy the boot disk onto the harddrive.
Copy CD onto harddrive.
Run setup from harddrive.

Call me if you need help.
903-926-8219

The problem is that the laptop won't recognize the CD drive until after some form of OS is present. [b]GunLvrPHD[/b], presumably, yours already had an earlier OS present that recognized the CD drive.

[b]Kar98[/b], I don't have a boot disk – the only thing that came with the Win98 software was a CD and user's manual. However, I do have Win98 running on a desktop at work. Perhaps could use that to make a boot disk?

Man, you're really making me reach into the cobweb-strewn areas of my long-term memory.  To do this you will need a second computer, a parallel or serial crossover cable, a MS-DOS boot disk and an old utility from the days of DOS 6.22 (it might also be in the MS-DOS utilities section on the WIN95 CD) called Interlink.  Boot the laptop and the desktop into DOS, run Intersvr on the second computer and Interlink on the laptop, copy the files from the second computer's cd-rom to a directory on the laptop's hard drive, then run the install from the laptop's hard drive.  It has been a [b]long[/b] time since I have had to do this, so I'm fuzzy on the specifics,  but you can find instructions here:

[url]http://www.csulb.edu/~murdock/interlink.html[/url]

and here:

[url]http://www.csulb.edu/~murdock/intersvr.html[/url]

Hope this helps.

If you have a Win98 boot floppy, copy the contents of it to your harddrive. It includes the CD drivers.

([b]Kar98[/b], please see my earlier, edited reply).

Just copying it may not work.  Also, the HD may not even be partitioned.

Here.  Go to [url]www.bootdisk.com[/url], find the right OS version, and make yourself a disk.  Then boot the laptop with that disk, and go from there.  I'm assuming you know how to use FDISK, FORMAT and SYS.

Yep, grab your 98 CD, load it into the CD tray at work, take a floppy (or better two, in case one is defective and you'd have to come back), and on your work computer, go to the Control Panel, Add/Remove Software, there should be a tab saying Create Start-Up Floppy or words to that effect. Follow the on-screen instructions.

[b]Santyth[/b], that's a good point — the laptop came packed with a note saying that it was formated with PCDOS, which doesn't support drives in excess of 2 GB — anything larger must be partitioned and formatted with an OS that supports large drives. Since mine came with a 3 GB drive, will check out bootdisk.com tomorrow at work. If that doesn't pan out, will try making a boot disk.

Thanks so much to everyone for the help. Yet again, [b]ar15.com[/b]'ers deliver the goods!

No No No.....

I have the same laptop. Here's the easy way.
Go to [url]http://dos.li5.org/IMGS/WIN98SE.EXE[/url]

That is a win98SE bootdisk.

Now.... create the boot disk.

startup the lappy with the floppy installed. boot to dos. format the hard drive with the /s modifier. THEN, go " copy A:*.* C:" . It will ask if you want to replace command.com. CLICK NO. then it will continue to copy the rest of the files, including the cd drivers, minus command.com. After it's done, REstart the computer with the CD ROM drive installed.

When the computer boots to the hard drive, it will load the cd drivers, detect the cd drive, and you are good to go. It will issue the cd rom drive the letter R:. go R:setup.

took me forever to figure this trick out with my lappy. but i love the 760. works great.

Thanks, [B]NAM[/b].

Cripes, is this a great site, or what?

No problem. Right after i bought it, i went to reinstall windows. I suddenly realized my dilema. Took me a few hours of tinkering before i devised the above plan.

Always happy to help!

Do a search, find Rainy City, and from them, purchase Filevan.  If the laptop has Windows 95 already, get the Filevan for Windows.  If not, get the Filevan DOS.

Install this program in both the laptop, and another computer that does have a CD-ROM drive.  Get a DCC cable, too.  Available from Rainy City, or the Belkin item from a computer store.  This cable has two male printer port plugs, and is used to transfer data from one computer to another via the printer ports.

Now, plug in the Win 98SE disk into your other computer, the one with a CD-ROM, and when the Win98SE disk autoruns, close it.  Right click on the CD-ROM drive icon in My Computer, and click on Open.  Copy ALL of these files into a folder,  I suggest you name it WinTemp, in that computer.

Next, open Filevan in both computers, with the special cable connecting them via the printer ports, and send all of the files to the other computer.

Once this is done, and it will take a while, make sure you copy ALL files in there, you exit from Filevan on both computers.

I would reboot at this time.

Now, go to your laptop, open the Wintemp file, and start the Windows installation.

I am pretty sure that Win XP went on it directly from the CD-ROM onto the machine which had been formatted and fdisked.  It is possible that there was still some Win2000 boot info on the disk but I doubt it because I had nuked partitons too.  Definitely no version of Win98 or Win2000 on it when I booted off the CD-ROM.  You might have to make a change in your BIOS to get it to boot the CD.

GunLvr

Well, I managed to get it to boot up from a Win98SE boot-disk, but it gives a startup message saying that:

(1.)It doesn't recognize the FAT on my hard disk, and thus

(2.) I may need to re-partition the hard disk before formatting.

However, when I attempt to run FDISK, it returns a "No fixed disks present" message.

Is there some switch or modifier that is supposed to be used with the FDISK command in order to help it find the hard disk?

I had this same delema about a year ago and I took an eraser and cleaned the hard drive connectors and it would reconize again.  There is no switches with fdisk.  If it doesn't see the hard drive then you have a hardware problem.  See if there is any way you can upgrade the bios.  If fdisk works and you put a prtition on it then follow every one else's directions above.  It is pretty much the same as what I would do.

Tried cleaning the HD contacts by lightly brushing them with a ScotchBrite pad — no dice.

I'm wondering if the BIOs does indeed need to be updated. The current hard disk is larger (and presumably more recent) than what IBM originally shipped with this machine, so it's quite possible that the original BIOS wouldn't recognize it. IBM has a newer BIOS version on their web site — Anyone happen to know how you go about updating it?