Thinkpad 760EL Boot Issues

[jnnelson79]

Hi everyone!

I bought an IBM Thinkpad 760 EL at VCF Midwest last weekend. It powers on just fine, and the hard drive even spins up. However, when it gets passed the RAM and BIOS tests, it goes to the standard IBM "Insert Floppy and Press F1" Screen. Of course, I don't have a floppy drive at the moment, but I am ordering one that will work.

​The easy conclusion would be that the hard drive is shot and the computer can't find a boot device. However, when I took the hard drive out and connected it to my modern PC via an IDE to USB Adapter, it read the files just fine, and in fact, I was able to copy them all to my modern PC for backup purposes. There even seems to be a complete Windows installation (probably 9X of some kind) including Command.com and all other important startup files. So, I'm wondering why it won't boot from the hard drive when it appears to be totally working when I plug it into the modern PC.

Also, when I hold F1 at startup to try to enter the BIOS, it ignores this and just keeps trying to boot and stopping at the floppy screen. The keyboard seems to be working because I can press the "switch displays" button (FN+F6 I think), and get it to change displays back and forth. Does it possibly need a BIOS refresh? I've heard of this on older machines.

​Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance!

[panips]

press and hold F1, and then turn on the power to enter bios.
did you mentioned that you do not have a fdd? if you have a CDROM connected, remove it and boot again.
or check the hdd cable

[jnnelson79]

press and hold F1, and then turn on the power to enter bios.
did you mentioned that you do not have a fdd? if you have a CDROM connected, remove it and boot again.
or check the hdd cable

Thanks! I tried powering the machine completely off, holding F1 while it was off, and then turning on the power, and it still seems to just ignore that and keep trying to boot. I can definitely try disconnecting the CD-ROM. I already tried reseating the hard drive after I plugged the HD into my modern PC. I ordered an external floppy drive on eBay for $30, and that should be here soon. The machine I bought didn't come with the Ultrabay floppy, only the CD. Maybe once I get my floppy drive, I can boot it from a boot disk and see if I can access the hard drive that way.

[Misu]

How big is the IDE drive in the box? It can be too big for the old laptop. You can try to repair MBR when it is on the adapter, or even install a fresh installation of some kind of OS and try it in the laptop again.

About BIOS - is the F1 key working (or the keyboard)? Just to be sure

Which key and when is the right time to press it on various old ThinkPads - http://ps-2.kev009.com/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/c3de.htm

[panips]

You may remove the CMOS battery and the error 161/163 would bring you to the BIOS screen.
Sometimes misconfigured CDROM would cause error booting from HDD, remove the CDROM and try with HDD only
Sometimes it does not recognize your hard disk, either it exceeds 4G, or because of some other issue. Use a CF card with adapter and try some images shared by other people.

[solidpro]

I have had experience with unpredictable HDD detection on 755 and 760 machines (which share similar connectivity for floppy and hard drives.

The 760 series has a 3-cell varta battery inside the keyboard palmrest. Remove it immediately. You need to unscrew the palmrest from underneath and lift it off. I would suggest not trying to pull the varta connector out because it's likely to snap and damage the speaker connector. Just snip the cables off and clean any green corrosion you can find. If you do not, your keyboard will destroy itself.

Also there is a battery underneath where the floppy goes which also leaks. That's for CMOS.

This corrosion tends to bleed up through the connector into the PCB and can cause green corrosion on the floppy connector.

With the HDD, I've found that due to the way the HDD caddy is build, you have to be fairly brutal with the HDD IDE adaptor for the motherboard and the thin ribbon can be easily damaged. I would suspect if the HDD works fine outside the laptop, the problem is either the HDD ribbon adaptor or the connector on the PCB itself.

It's also possible that the hard drive simply is too 'new' to be detected properly, I've found some 20/40/60Gb drives don't seem to recognise properly in 760s.

See my notes on the 760 series here: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=136195