I am attempting to install win 98 on an ibm thinkpad 365xd. More than half way through the process, the machine says it is going to reboot, but then forgets that it is in the middle of an OS installation, and wants a bootable floppy, then all I get is the a> prompt. I do not have the 30 disks with the old win 95 config. Has anyone encountered this before and more importantly, has anyone found solutions? I can restart the setup process, but it forgets it is installing the OS every time it reboots itself. Thanks in advance.

It's almost always driver errors. It used drivers in the win98 data base but, unfortunately, those aren't the right ones. IBM "device cards" use unique drivers. Wish you had upgraded instead -- it's going to take many hours getting the right drivers off IBM's website. If it was a desktop, I'd say yank all the cards out except video, but removing cards from an IBM thinkpad can be a nightmare (some of them are in several pieces wired together). Get a certified IBM thinkpad guy to do it for you (other than myself), otherwise I don't think it's going to happen.

Wow....That rather well sums the situation up Tony. Simply pull the cards out. Actually, none of the internal boards of a 365 are "wired" together, they use a series of connectors directly on the board to interconnect the boards. I am a "certified IBM thinkpad guy" and have a good bit of experience with the 365XD (although I can safely say I've never seen that discription on any of my certifications or even on the tests to get them...). The ONLY time you remove a board is to replace it because it is bad. Gettin back to the subject... I doubt your problem has anything to do with hardware, it is likely a problem with the Win98 install. I have seen a simular problem with a Win NT 4.0 Server install (on a desktop, but the intent is the same). It drove me nuts for a while until I reformatted the drive and transfered the system files ( I originally reasoned that the drive would not have to be bootable because the OS install would place tham on the drive). On the reboot after the installation files were transfered, the computer asked for a setup floppy. I was doing a floppyless installation, so no floppies should have been needed. On the next attempt, I did a quick format with the /s switch (transfers system files) and restared the install, which ran to completion without problem. I have never done a Win9x install on a non-bootable drive, I always transfer the system files when doing the format because Win9x is dependent on them and it seemed like a logical step. I don't know that to be true for sure, but you might try it to see if it works. If it does not, repost and I will check into my 356 Documentation to see if there are any known Win98 issues (as well as check with some of my fellow "ceritfied IBM thinkpad guys" to see if they have ever seen anything like this.

For anyone interested (possibly with a similar problem) I discovered that the problem was an old system BIOS. Apparently, the IBM thinkpad 365xd's system BIOS was not compatible with Windows 98. Fortunately, the IBM site provides an updated BIOS which is Win98 enabled. I was truly surprised to learn that the system BIOS was the problem, as were my programming buddies, but it was a simple solution and the Thinkpad is now happily purring with Win98. Updating the system BIOS is kind of a scary thing to do, because an error in the procedure might render your MoBo useless! But it only takes about 30 seconds and whammo! your system will install Win98 no problem! Thanks to Bill and TechTony for their responses tho!