I have recently bought a thinkpad. I guess they formatted the hard drive. When I type A:dir the only thing there is COMMAND.COM. I have tried several drivers, but can not figure out how to get to the mscdex. Please offer any advice

try typing
DIR /a/s

Get the MSCDEX.EXE from the computer you used to write your post and put it on the diskette.

NO, you didn't buy a THINKPAD. You bought a thinkpad, came here, and didn't tell us WHICH thinkpad of the many that are made that you have.

DO THIS. Go to www.ibm.com, select "support and downloads", look where it says "Find technical support by selecting a product area:" and select "notebooks" in the selector box. When the page reloads, hit the arrow in the "Product Family" and find your model. From there you just have to browse. There is ALL KINDS of info there for various thinkpads, including, hey, listen,. . . . DOWNLOADABLE INSTALL DISCS FOR CDROM DRIVERS!!!! It seems to me that when I made my 380xd bootdisc, that I used the downloaded install disc for the CD and INSTALLED IT ONTO A BOOTABLE FLOPPY, thus making a "custom" start up disc which would allow me to read the cd in dos.

ALSO, the machines which came with a recovery cd (like my 380xd) will also show a downloadable boot disc on the site to use with the recovery cd THIS DISC may or may not help you out much with a generic Windoz cd, because they have special menu's and so on to go with the recovery cd.

ALSO, it might be an idea to get on ebay/computers, and search for "recovery disc" or "recovery cd" and get one (if it was made) for your model. The good side of this is that it will configure the machine with all the proper drivers no sweat. The bad side, is that these recovery cd's pretty much want to fdisk/format and redo the hd, thus dropping any info that you have on there.

Some of these machines will not work with the "generic" cd drivers on common "factory" Windoz boot/start/install discs.

Sure wish you people would put the model of your machine when you do this.

The way I understand your problem is that you bought a Thinkpad that has nothing on the hard drive and only COMMAND.COM shows on the boot disk. If this is the case:
If you are going to run MS-DOS, install it. You do not need the CD-ROM for that. Then use the MSCDEX.EXE you have just installed in the DOS directory. This will still leave a Device= line in the Config.sys for the CD-ROM driver.
If you are going to install Windows 95 or up, get a startup disk with CD-ROM support somewhere and use it to install from the CD-ROM.

Sorry, fred, nice try. Most CD's on these laptops won't recognize the drivers on a startup disk that "you got somewhere".. Generally, you need to go to IBM and get the IBM drivers for the machine, and create a startup disc with the IBM drivers, and then, you can start the IBM machine. Most of these thinkpads will NOT operate the CD with a generic install of DOS or Windoz9x. You need the , uh, IIIIIIIBBBBBBBMMMMMMMdrivers. Guess what?? They are at IBM.com

If you will just GO there, and SPEND SOME TIME there LOOKING AROUND you will find ALL SORTS of info, drivers, discs, downloads, tutorials, I mean, its its its UNBELIEVEABLE

also AT LEAST YOUR HARD DRIVE WASN'T PASSWORD PROTECTED!!! LIKE mine. sniff*

Sorry guys, I didn't put all the info in here that you need. I have a thinkpad 760EL.
I have tried downloading the cd-driver from IBM.COM several times. I cannot get it to work. When I try to execute it says the file is corrupt. In my orignal message, I put A:Command.com, I should have put when I type in Dir there is C:Command.com. As you guys can probably tell, I don't know much about computers, but I am trying to learn as much as I can.

Thanks again for all the input.

Well, if you can't get the IBM downloaded file to work, I don't know what to tell you. a few questions.

Did you read the page carefully from where you downloaded the file? Most of thes files GENERATE an install disc, that means you do not copy the file you downloaded directly to a floppy, in most cases you download the file to your hd, RUN the file from the hd, and it GENERATES an install floppy for whatever component you are dealing with.

In other words, an install floppy for video, sound, cd, whatever.

I'd try and find a friend's computer and re-download it, who knows what glitch there may be.

http://www-1.ibm.com/servlet/support/manager?rs=0&rt=0&org=psg&doc=DSHY-3SBNHE

Above is the page for the "file matrix" for your machine.

(select Cdrom, select cdrom for dos and windows 31 because you are making a dos startup disc)

http://www-1.ibm.com/servlet/support/manager?rs=0&rt=0&org=psg&doc=RMIE-38CEKN

Above should be the page for the CDrom driver stuff.

Down the page, download the file marked "cdtpqdos.exe"

cdtpgdos.exe 99,846 English - version 3.12 - CD-ROM Driver for DOS & Windows 3.1 [DSKEXE]

Then go further down and "click here" for further instructions on downloading and creating the disc.

That should take you to this page::

http://www.pc.ibm.com/qtechinfo/DSHY-3TEPF6.html

Actually that page may be confusing.

Dowload the file:: "cdtpgdos.txt " 4,948 README for English - version 3.12 - CD-ROM Driver for DOS & Windows 3.1

After you have downloaded the file, Go to wherever you downloaded it to, and click on it to run. You will get several screens, " If you agree to the license bla bla hit ENTER" etc, and finally you should see, "insert a blank discette" etc.
When you successfully do this, you will have created a INSTALL disc for the CD. You should be able to now use this disc to INSTALL the cd drivers onto either a bootable hd or a floppy drive.

Installation Guide
------------------
(Note)
To determine if you should update the CD-ROM driver, refer to the
"Summary of Changes" section.

1. Start DOS.
2. Insert the CD-ROM Driver diskette into the diskette drive.
3. Type A:UINSTALL and press enter.
4. Select "Install IBM ThinkPad CD-ROM Driver for DOS/Windows at the
Installation Option Screen.
5. After the installation is complete, remove the diskette from the
diskette drive and restart the computer.

Trademarks
----------
* IBM and ThinkPad are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation.
* Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Now, it appears to me that this disc is the same for my 380xd. That means, that possibly, if there is no downloadable bootable disc for your 760, you MIGHT ALSO TRY looking in the 380xd related stuff for a downloadable startup disc.

Also at the bottom of the "file matrix page" http://www-1.ibm.com/servlet/support/manager?rs=0&rt=0&org=psg&doc=DSHY-3SBNHE

There is a downloadable "Windows 95 Recovery CD Reload Diskette 12 May 1998
v2.50 "

This disc may help you out in building up a usable startup disc, if you can't get things to work another way. If you ABSOLUTELY can't figure this out, repost next week and I'll send you a bootable disc for my 380, however, it's about 50 miles away, and I don't get there every day.

I also have this problem, but with the added complication of not having a floppy disk drive... thinkpad 365xd. I dont particularly want to buy one, as I rarely use floppies. I've downloaded the file, got it on my hard drive.. any ideas how to install it into dos so I can get the cd drive recognised there (want to clean install)

dear sir,

my cd rom drive not functioning. if i see the bios settings by pressing f1 on startup it shows cdrom bay not connected and thinkpad 380 port replicator not connected. pl help me