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I've got an old laptop which has just had the hard drive formatted. I want to put a copy of windows 98 on it, but when I put in the floppy disk of the boot disk it comes up with a line drwing of a floppy drive, a floppy disk and arrows telling me to press "F1". WHen I do that, even if I've put another disk in, it shows a number on the screen (I9990305) and just sits there. Whatever I press after that, nothing happens.
Any thoughts on what I can do to get it working
Thanks
You need to enter the BIOS as the PC is booting up and check to see what the boot order is set to. In your case you want the floppy drive first.
If that isn't the problem, put a cleaning floppy in the drive in case your floppy drive is dirty. (If the BIOS is set to he floppy first, just put the floppy cleaner disk with the cleaning solution applied into your floppy disk and boot up the PC. The drive will spin and hopefully clean it.)
If that doesn't work, you may be looking at a faulty or disconnected floppy drive.raincheck
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Thinkpad?
I9990305: No bootable device.
"1. Check that the operating system is installed in the hard disk drive. If not, install the operating system.
2. Reseat the boot device.
3. Check the startup sequence for the correct boot device.
4. Check that the operating system has no failure and is installed correctly."
Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience
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If you have a picture of a floppy I believe the computer is asking for a special startup disk know as a 'reference' disk. I think you can download one from the IBM website. Make sure you get the one for your model.
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It is a thinkpad. But I can't do any of those steps because I can't get past that number, whatever I do. There is no operating system installed, that's what I'm trying to do, but I can't get past the boot disk point.
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Yes, well, check the boot order in the BIOS, as suggested - it's independent of any OS, and/or investigate the reference disk suggestion - there are links on that IBM page, try entering your make&model#
Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience
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Yes and for the TEN THOUSANDTH time, WHAT is the Make and Model of the laptop?
On most thinkpads, you enter the bios by
START with the machine TURNED OFF.
HOLD DOWN the "F1" key and CONTINUE to hold it down while you TURN ON the machine, and again, CONTINUE to hold "F1"
WHAT is the MAKE AND MODEL???????Possibilities?
Bios set wrong
Defective floppy drive
Defective floppy disc.
Most thinkpads (for troubleshooting) that I've worked on, will boot with NO battery, NO extra RAM, NO hard drive, and if they have swappable CDROM/floppy bays, they will boot from EITHER swappable drive.
Some (like my 600X) will boot from the external bay floppy drive, also.
I don't know if all models will
WHAT IS THE MODEL???
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.. took you long enough ; )
Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience
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That is EXACTLY what we needed.
Well, no it's not. According to this page, there is more to the "2635"
http://www.ibm.com/products/finder/us/en/finders?sid=946828691102033627129&tmpl=%2Fproducts%2Ffinder%2Fus%2Fen%2Ffinders&rsLst=on&lc=en&oldC1=5000002&collection=dblue&pg=ddfinder&Ne=5000000&finderN=1000100&cc=US&collectionN=4294967280&C1=5000002&C2=5000067
Did you get into the bios? That machine should boot either from the CDROM or Floppy, if the bios is set.
Here's some "stuff" from IBM:
http://www.ibm.com/products/finder/us/en/finders?rsLst=on&Ne=5000000&collection=dblue&cc=US&oldC2=5000067&oldC1=5000002&finderN=1000100&sid=946828691102033627129&collectionN=4294967280&lc=en&pg=ddfinder&tmpl=%2Fproducts%2Ffinder%2Fus%2Fen%2Ffinders&C1=5000002&C2=5000067&prodSelect=-1&x=56&y=8
Here's the list of hardware maintenance manuals:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-39298.html
Still more:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/multiplefiledownload.do?validate=true
and still yet, more
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/product.do?subcategoryind=0&familyind=50071&brandind=10&doccategoryind=0&modelind=0&doctypeind=4&validate=true&partnumberind=0&template=%2Fproductpage%2Flandingpages%2FproductPageLandingPage.vm&operatingsystemind=49979&machineind=58719
Unfortunately, IBM has succeeded in burying their support stuff pretty badly. You have to paw around in there and spend some time, but "it's there."If you can also find the "driver matrix"
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Hi
I have almost the same problem.
I just installed a cd-rom. Now
I have a I9990305 error. I have
a thinkpad 380e Type: 2635
Model: 40u. When the cd-rom
is discontected everything woks
just find, but when I contect
the cd-rom. The bios doesn't
see the cd-rom, and the hard
drive has a error message,
and doesn't work. If you find
the answer please let me know.Thanks
Joe McMahan
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 missing harddrive
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I/O Port error message at...
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