IBM Thinkpad 760xl

[jrprice]

I have an IBM Thinkpad 760xl, it currently has no operating system installed. I would like to install Win2000, I have boot disk for it also. Heres my problem, I have both the floppy and cdrom drive but only one can be in the laptop at a time. I not sure how to install the software, because of this. I tried just putting the cd in and starting it that way, and it will not run. Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

[pelicanman]

Make an autoexec.bat and config.sys on the C: that will load the CD drivers at boot. You can do this by using a Win98 boot floppy with format.com on it to format the C: drive and make it bootable ie "format c: /s". Then copy the autoexec.bat and config.sys files from the floppy to the hard drive and use edit.com to change the file paths in them to C:\. Then copy all the floppy files to the root directory of the c: drive.

The C: drive will load the cd drivers without needing the floppy and you can then install from the CD.

[jrprice]

I tried that also, but when i try "format c: /s" it says that is a bad command

[pelicanman]

Originally posted by jrprice
I tried that also, but when i try "format c: /s" it says that is a bad command

Are you using a boot disk created in a Win Me or Win 98 machine? The Win ME boot disk can't use that switch but the Win 98 boot disk can. Also bear in mind you need to specifically copy the FORMAT.COM file from the c:\windows\command directory to the floppy disk after the boot disk is created. The create boot disk process does not put that file on the floppy automatically.