I bought this for a family member. I currently have a DEll D610, an IBM t20 and A20. I'm familiar with formatting harddrives however this machine has nothing to start with. I did purchase the external cd drive with the pcmcia card. I'd like to know how I can load at least windows 98 on this 560x.

you will need a floppy drive somehow to boot with a win98 boot floppy so you can fdisk, set the c: partition, and make it active. then, you can make a folder on the c: drive and copy over the win98 folder to begin setup, after you use the win98 floppy to format the drive. the win98 boot floppy will cd-rom drivers so you can use the win98 install disk to load windows.
www.bootdisk.com if you need boot floppy

ibm-560x-pcmcia-dos driver etc

The only floppy I have is the one that came in my T20 as well as the one in the T20 docking station. The 560 won't fit into the dock and I really don't want to purchase an external floppy. This computer really isn't worth a whole lot. Suggestions?

ya I would suggest that you make a boot-up floppy (via the link)on some one else's pc
then use that floppy image on a boot-up CD.
Then boot up off the pcmcia CDROM with it,
you should then have full access to 560x

why on someone else's pc? ... why can't I download the link to a cd and then boot from the pcm card. Ah but the problem is also how does the 560 recognize the external cd rom if it hasn't been formatted to the 560? Don't mean to sound confusing.I'm very close to understanding what you are telling me.

... sorry I skimped your post.

" The only floppy I have is the one that came in my T20 " ... ya make the floppy on this (just create the floppy).

you'll need a CD burner and software to create the boot-up CD.....
.... and I'm not sure if the 560x will boot off CDROM via CD ... should do in theory

... one can only try.
... I'll help if I can ....(later)

http://www.computing.net/drivers/ww...

The other alternative is to temporarily put the hard drive in one of your other Laptop's. Therefore you could undertake the MS-DOS portion of the setup...

Hi ajwilliams@pwless.ne ...(t)?

Here's the link of one I've made for you
its a 2.45mb download and is a "iso" file
so all you have to do now is "burn it" and see if it will work. You might have to enter your bios on the 560x to alter the booting sequence to CDROM 1st...you might not even have that option.

link-DOWNLOAD-link

the red link above will be ok for 15 days.

this one is the bootup CD (3day link only iso) :

http://www.mailbigfile.com/2224d8af...

... and this one is just the boot-up image 1.40mb which you can point to make a boot-up CD (.img) (3days link deletes)

http://www.mailbigfile.com/a79144ec...

I'm trying to make sense of all of this...here's a reply I received from another site. Does he make sense?

Hi Arden,
If the 560x can boot from a CD, you could probably install some
version of Linux on it. I doubt any version of Windows would run on
that except for Win98, and that has the problem of rebooting during
the install and thus losing contact with the CD ROM (hence my
original article). Besides, Win98 is too innocent to put on the big,
bad Internet these days. Try Ubuntu (popular) or Damn Small Linux
(runs well on old hardware) or put that thing out to pasture would be
my recommendation.

Good luck!

That is messy, just take the hard drive out of the 560 and install in another Laptop with a floppy.

Follow the tutorial at http://www.mwpms.uklinux.net You wthe ill need to Google driver you need for PCMCIA CD which is ARRCD.SYS.

All you have to do is configure autoexec and config to point to this new driver.

Install hard drive back in 560 and the CD should be recognised in MS-DOS, and you can finsh install.....

Mornings work.......

Why does it have to be a floppy? The 560 came with no disks, software, etc. Just a box.

... download the " iso " you must know some one who will burn it for you(?)
... then boot from it up with the pcmcia CDROM.
Then stick in the 98 CD.

I'd say copy the win98 folder to the h/drive
and run setup from within the folder.

... yes Linux will work on the 560x.

...I suggest that you stick with 98 for now.

... the hard drive will be a pig to get outa that slim case ... it is'nt the easiest
one to retrieve.

so download burn n go

burning isn't an issue, I can do that here at home. I don't have a problem taking out the hard drive, however how easy is it to hook into another IBM labtop? Is there an adapter that is needed?

You aren't going to get the other laptop to boot once you place the empty drive in there. Think about it. If you don't like the ideas presented above get an External enclosure or simply a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter and temporarity install into a desktop as a slave. Format the drive and copy the cab files for win98 into the root directory. I am not sure whatelse you may need on the drive so hopefully someone else will chime in here.

Why do you need to hook up to another ibm
laptop?

... usb file tranfer cable (windows)

... parallel port file transfer cable (dos)

you can hook up to any pc. You can even copy
the win98 folder to h/drive using parallel.

... " there is more than one way to skin a cat"

Mavis007...I agree there is more than one way to skin a cat. I've been given a lot of suggestions and now I'm not sure exactly what or how is the best way to approach this issue? "... usb file tranfer cable
... parallel port file transfer cable"...I don't have either one of these cables. If I get one which do you suggest? Sounds like this would be my best option is to transfer via cable? I really like this idea!

I'm not sure how you can link to a computer with no operating system.

WebsWonder idea:
"...That is messy, just take the hard drive out of the 560 and install in another Laptop with a floppy"...

sounds good... do it in dos though.

ya quite right "OtheHill"

... First try the iso plz try it.

... wants to know lol

"Why does it have to be a floppy? The 560 came with no disks, software, etc. Just a box."

It can also be a Boot CD which NERO can create. http://www.bootdisk.com have the files for a W98SE OEM Boot Floppy, the base files can be used by NERO.

Whatever, it ain't rocket science, Laptops without drives have been around for years, and this subject has been regurgitated many times in CN! Top of Forum does have a SEARCH function.20 posts and counting............

"I'm not sure how you can link to a computer with no operating system."

Maybe it has WOL/PXE support, to remote install ??

.. you can link with no OS on H/Drive you just need the dos os @ boot-up.

The drive has to be partitioned/formated
of course.

Actually Mavis you only need a Boot EEPROM on the mobo with a basic O/S , does not have to be **-DOS, and no drives are needed whatsoever..