Hi y'all,,,can't get my thinkpad 760 to boot from floppy (image from bootdisc.com) to reload w98. It kept going for the hdd despite boot option in bios being set to fdd1,fdd2, hdd1. (no bootable cd support). Removed hdd1 from boot devices, it now goes for the fdd, but the machine will not boot to the c prompt.I have 2 identical fdd units so can assume one at least works ok, but how to get round this? It was running 98 ok until my daughter somehow meddled with it , after which when trying to boot98 from hdd, after splash screen,gives message "....himem corrupted/missing, also ,,,,,dblbuff the same, and ,,,,command.com". It won't let me switch to a: drive. As\stated, boot disc download won't fire it up. Its an old klunker, but I don't want to let it beat me,,,,it still has useful life and I can gainfully employ it, soooooo- what think you guys? BTW, its floppy OR cd- one at a time only so I know I need to do some file copying, but need to read fdd first. Any comments warmly welcomed! Happy new year!!! Dave

Hello billy, welcome to PCHF.

Can you explain in more detail, exactly what is happening when you try to boot to the floppy drive, what do you mean by "it won't let you", what error message do you recieve? If it doesn't quite reach the A:\> prompt, please can you tell me the last thing you see on the screen?

Have you also tried pressing F8 during startup, and selecting the Command Prompt only option, to see what you get?

Hi MadMonkey, ta for the welcome, happy to be here (I think LoL). Tried the f8 option, get the message about missing or corrupted files of various names as noted, when using bootdisc, no error code in plain lingo, but a number that starts either 990xxxxxxx or it could be 190xxxxx, in small type in top left, cursor the blinks on left of next lower line forever. I have had this before with older x86 base w98 systems, and have never had any success with a homemade bootdisk, or a downloaded one. Is the bootdisk.com image the same as the original w98 pre-install floppy, which is what I ended up using before? 'm sure it can be done,,,,,let us see.. Happy New Year!

Hey Billy,

Yes of course, should have thought of that from your first post, command.com is missing so you won't be able to boot into command prompt.

Still a little lost about your problem with the floppy. Are you absolutely sure that this is all that is showing on the screen, just a bunch on numbers? There is a part of the startup procedure where it searches for an appropriate driver for your CD-ROM, but you'll need to wait for this to load. It sounds like your in the right place though (bootdisk.com), not sure if you have downloaded the right one either, try this one: http://ephemeral-designs.com/downloads/boot98c.exe

Ayup 'monkey,,,,, will try the other bootdisc, when I get time. Only thing re cd driver, is this machine can use either / or cd or floppy, not both together. Cd is non bootable too. It won't boot from a usb either, (its quite old,,,,,) so what ver happens, I'll end up having to copy files onto hard drive from a boot image, and start up with cd in place. Thats not too hard, but its chicken and egg with command.com etc. The floppy powers up, but appears not to read after about a minute, can't hear the head reader whizzing to and fro either. Patience,,,thats the key! (I don't really believe that of course! )

Hey billy, not suprised you can't bootup with that USB one, like you said that laptop is quite old. There is still new PC's that don't have or have limited USB facilities during boot.

There will be no problems getting that OS re-installed, as long as we can boot to floppy. You'll then be able to copy the startup files from the floppy disk, including command.com. You may even find that once the system files are back in place you'll be able to boot normally without re-installing at that point (unknown, since we don't know why/what files have been deleted alltogether). If not, then it's just a simple matter of getting the CD-ROM driver to start at that point using MSCDEX, and then you'll be able to use your Setup CD. Sounds complicated, but it's really quite easy. The major problem at this point is that retched floppy.