[SOLVED] [T23] - Strange behaviour - I can only boot from the hard disk

[WarMachine]

Hello,

Grrrr, I lost all I have just wrote ! Well, I go again.

So, I said that I had a trashed T23 in my hands, mint condition, but its behaviour is very strange. I can only boot from the hard disk.
There is a recovery partition, so I tried to install a new image, but when I must enter the password for the Administrator account, there is already a password set, and if I put another or no password, I can't logon. I suspect the image has been modified by or for the previous owner, so that he/she can logon in a domain or whatever.

Well no big deal because the OS is in english, and I prefer a french one as I'm french.
I scavenge my locker to put (sucessfully ! ) my hands on my Windows 2000 CD, I change the boot sequence in the BIOS and I try to boot on the CD. It boots on the hard disk. I check the CD on another machine. Good. I have another functional optical drive, I can't boot either. I make a bootable key with a network install image of Debian 11 (32 bits) with Rufus, nothing (the boot sequence is each time good). I try again with another key, with another image (Debian 10), with Rufus, with Unetbootin, always nothing.

I check the BIOS again and I see that some parameters are locked (the one for the recovery prompt (set on Enabled, but can't change it). The same for RFID Security and IBM Security Chip. I just can clear the errors, but can't change the other options.
I go in the password section, no password is defined, the Lock BIOS settings is however on Enabled, I change it to Disabled (but I don't have a prompt to enter a password (and the help of the parameter indicates that I should have to enter a password with this option.
As I have already removed the supervisor password on my X61s, I try to do the same on the T23. It seems to go OK, I try to activate the Lock BIOS settings with my own supervisor password, I try to disable the locking afterwards, but still nothing. I tried a more conventional reset of the BIOS with the F9 key. Still nothing.

I can only boot on the hard disk and no access to the OS, I can't even flash the BIOS and there, I'm stuck. I suspect a BIOS corruption (or I missed something), would you have a hint to give back life to this laptop ?

By the way, it's a 2647-AG0 and BIOS version is the 1.03b (2001-09-25 / 1AET43WW) and the EC version is the 1.02.

I would have tried things with floppies (well, nothing X rated ), just to try and boot on a floppy (a Windows 2000 one for example). But if I still have a floppy drive (an IBM one, of course ! ), it's an USB one (so I don't think I would be able to boot from it) and, the worst, I don't have unused floppies anymore.

What can do ?

Thanks !

W.

PS : I forgot : nothing in the BIOS to control the black button next to the volume ones.

[WarMachine]

Hummm, it's early in the morning, I didn't sleep much. Or I'm perhaps dumb ! The more older, the more dumber (not a great omen for the years to come ! ).

I just had a look in the BIOS of my other T23 and if the BIOS version is not the same (more recent), I have the same options locked. I also have the same parameters setup.
That brings me to think (a big word ! ) that perhaps everything that is going on is related to the hard drive, finally.

It will be more difficult to find an IDE one in my junk, but I think it's probably a solution to try another one (or I could plug the one of the laptop on another machine as I have an adapter for that, to get rid of all the partitions).

I think I'll try that.

If you have other ideas, I take them !

Thanks again !

W.

[WarMachine]

Aaaaah, well, some interesting news !

I was too lazy to find an IDE disk (hey, it's five in the morning ! ), so I simply removed the 30GB one.
I can now boot on the USB key, and I can boot too on the optical drive (but the one of my other T23), I think my native DVD drive must be fried, and the same for my Windows 2000 CD (it's a burnt one).
I have tried with an official Windows NT (welcome to the museum ! ) CD and the boot is fine !

I think I just have to wipe the hard disk partitions and put it back on then install whatever OS I want !

This forum makes me intelligent it seems ! I'll come back more often !

For now, everything goes fine, but who knows !



W.

EDIT : I wiped all the partitions on the hard disk, I put it back in the T23 and everything is fine, I'm now installing Windows 2000 with another media (it's formatting right now). To resume I was fooled by the electrical activity of the optical drive and the restoration partition of the hard disk. Pfiewwww !

[RealBlackStuff]

Night-owls loose their vision if they stay up too late...
That T23 would be perfect for XP as well.

[WarMachine]

Hello RBS,

Ah ah, nice comparison !
I thought about XP, but with the 256 MB of RAM, it would be sluggish (or I would not install the SP3). The disk is already sooo slow !
Well, everything goes fine this afternoon, W2K with SP4 is up and running, not totally up-to-date because I still haven't found the Update Rollup.
After inspection, it's even in better shape than my previous T23. Not by much but, anyways, impressive ! Doesn't show its twenty years !
A rubber was missing under the laptop, at the left. I have also a T23 for spare, I looked for another rubber, I had one, so I put it on the new and now, it's really complete ! I missed W2K, I loved it very much was very disappointed to let it go when the support finished.
The second machine I have for a total of zero euros ! Always appreciated (the other one being the T440).

I must now wait for the pieces to revive my newly acquired and also in very good shape X41. The screen is dead, I bought another one, and an 1,8" IDE > mSATA adapter too because the hard disk, as you know, is absolutely horrendous. Everything runs - very slow - on an external screen. There won't be much to do. I have also replace the 1GB PC2-4200 RAM stick with a 2 GB PC2-5300 one, woooooow !

Have a good day !

W.

[ThinkPad560X]

I would install a CF "Compact Flash" IDE adapter in the T23 and then you can get any size CF card you want. And they are still available and easy to find in store since the IDE HDD is probably almost ready to die and they are no longer made. Well accept for SATA 2.5 HDDs. I think most of if not all my IBM TravelStar HDDs the head reader arms quit reading on them and would just hear raddle sounds and not boot or read.