thinkpad T21

wont boot

the screen says
press F1 for IBM bios setup utility
F12 to choose temp. bootable device

and nothing happens when I do either

I have a win 98 cd
and have attemptedt booting from cd and floppy
nothing

help me. . . .pls

 

When you press F12 for a temporary boot device, does it then allow to boot from CD? Also is the CD selected in the BIOS to boot 1st?

To answer your signature, anything right before infinity would be inifnity minus 1.

 

no, nothing happens, at all
I went to the ibm site and i cant figure it out at all

 

I cant get in to bios
and 98 isnt bootable is it?
ok so i need to make on?

and f12 doesnt give me any options

 

First, we need to get into the BIOS, that may be the whole issue.

Why can't you, what happens?

 

it says hit f1 to go into bios

nothing

the ibm site said to hold f1 and turn it on
and when it goes into bios (wich it doesn't)
do something

Is it possible that the hdd is completly gone?

 

so how do i get into bios?

 

is there something like
http://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm
avail or would work for 98se?

 

when you see the "press f1...." and you press F1 does that line dissapear and on the lower right the screen say "Entering bios setup" ?

 

nothing happens at all
nothing
the screen displays

I press either or
and nothing happens, no pop ups no farts
nothing

nothing happens at all

the only button/key that does anything is the power button
as a note:
the cd/dvd and floppy drives are enterchangable

 

its most likely not your hardrive then. thinkpad harddrives that are password locked or going bad usually allow you to access the bios but ask for a password first. it almost sounds like your keyboard may not be working since its sitting on the boot screen.

you could always remove the harddrive to be sure. its pretty simple, on the left hand side under the sound ports theres a big screw. take that out and you can pull the hard drive assembly right out.

 

Did you spill something all over the keyboard?

Last time I saw this behavior some guy spilled red wine on his keyboard and fried everything. He didn't admit it until I showed him when I took the laptop apret and everthing was gooey and brownish in color.

 

ha. .no, the keys are fine
but its not mine so i cannot be sure
i will pull it apart if need be

and what exactly would that do? just pulling it out?

 

if you can get into your bios, then you'll know its your hard drive causing the problem.

 

removed hdd
turned on
hit f1
got
"entering bios setup utility"
then
"hdd not installed. . "
am now in bios

so now what?

 

this is where i would put the drive back in and see if you can try booting off your dvd drive. if your run into the same problem, then it sounds like you need a new drive.

 

I replaced the hdd
got into bios
put in the 98 cd
now see a splash screen for win 98
wow. .yea

thanks a much
hope it keeps. . .

 

good deal. best of luck with it.

 

i said earlier that the cd/dvd and 3.5 floppy drives were removable
I have the cd one in but I cannot acces it?

I open my comp and only the c drive and the floppy are there
I cannot open the floppy because its not a floppy

do i need to add new hardware?

it cant find it. .

 

scratch that
its nod a cd rom?
just a dvd?

 

got one going here
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?p=460359#post460359
but I cannot figure out if it is a software or hardware issue
maybe both. . .

is anyone familier with ultrabay 2000?

 

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/search.php?searchid=79225

I guess not. . .lol

 

well i found this more than once
but no help . . .here

 

where can I get ahold of
diskd953.id
anyone?