OK here goes - I am desperate for some assistance. I recently formatted the hard drive on my IBM thinkpad 600. Thing to know right away is that i do not have a floppy drive, but only a cd rom drive attached to my laptop. anways, after i earased all my data in my HD, i tried to install win98 from the cd rom but when i enter the prompt to enter the cd rom drive the computer says that it is a invalid drive. I then restarted the computer but all i got is the invalid system disk, i can't even get to the dos prompt. I tried to access my bios and change the start up option, but the start up option was disabled. is there neways to help, please.

try looking again in you bios. There should be a startup sequence available. Make the cd rom go first then the hard drive. You cannot make a dos cd to boot from (as apposed to floppy bootdisk) because you need to write information on to the cd in the process. Try to see if your windows 98 cd is bootable on another pc. I know some of the copied ones aren't...and i think even some of the orignals. nicks

just a quick question...how did you format the drive without a bootable floppy? did you press f8 before windows loaded and did it like that? i was under the impression that windows did not you do that...

hi I formated the disk by starting the windows in dos mode, then i entered "format c:" to format the hardrive, everything went wrong after that. I have tried to change the start up sequence but the bios says its not accessable. I even tried to remove the cd rom drive but the same error message still shows up (invalid system disk)

I have one of these and have no idea what you did. First, what do you mean by "it is not accessable"? Can you get into the bios, or do you know how? (With computer OFF, hold down "F1" and then WHILE STILL holding down "F1" power up the machine. Are you trying to use the cd IN the laptop, or are you trying to use it from the external adaptor bay? ( If so, I don't know if these will boot) What are you using for a CD? NOT ALL system cd's are bootable. I've seen people on here insist that ALL whambos 98 discs are bootable AND THEY ARE NOT!!! I have a RETAIL stor bought W98SE cd that WILL NOT BOOT. As far as I know ALL "OEM" cd's will boot. If worst comes to worst, buy yourself a cable adaptor that will allow you to plug the laptop hardrive into your PC. You can then fdisk/format the drive, and "sys" or "format/s" the drive, then copy your install files to it from there. BE SURE (if you have not) to visit IBM.com for info on this machine.