Hi!
My problem is that I inherited a fairly good laptop (IBM Thinkpad x31), but the bios password is unknown... The only allowed boot device is the HDD and network boot, and the old HDD was encrypted so I can't access it either. Thats why I have to install a fresh version of xp on my new HDD. I do have a IDE adapter so I can connect my new laptop HDD to my desktop. But what shall I do?
The online tutorials I have tried to follow have only ended in "system disk error" or "NTLDR missing"...
Please help
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Take the new HDD in another PC and make it first bootable with any simple DOS on a FAT or better FAT32 partition (http:\www.bootdisks.com).
Hint: Don't re-partition or re-format your HDD. It holds your bootable DOS at this time ;)
http://bootdisk.com/ (That's better!)
IBM claims in the users manual that the password can't be recovered... stupid indeed.
but check this out, just for fun =)
http://sodoityourself.com/
But why am I receiving the NTLDR missing message? I've followed the instructions on thinkwiki.org
"Installing Windows 2000 or XP
* Attach the harddrive to the host computer and install a minimal bootable DOS system i.e. by booting a Win98 Emergency Boot Disk and performing the command "SYS X:" (where X = the laptop's harddrive).
* Copy FDISK.EXE to the laptop harddrive.
* Return the harddrive to the laptop and boot to DOS. (If you have Win98 installed by default, you can skip the first two steps and simply reboot in Windows to DOS.)
* Run FDISK and set up your new Windows system partition on this laptop. (If you do not do this on the laptop, after reboot you will receive the infamous "NTLDR IS MISSING" error.
* Then return the drive to the host and format the drive as FAT32. (DO NOT format as NTFS.)
* Repeat the "SYS X:" step to make the new partition bootable.
* Copy Himem.sys and Config.sys, too. Otherwise SMARTDRIVE.EXE won't run
* Get SMARTDRV.EXE from the internet and copy it to your Thinkpads harddrive.
* Also, from the Win2K or WinXP CD, copy the I386 folder to the harddrive.
* Return the laptop's harddrive to the Thinkpad one final time and boot to DOS.
* Run SMARTDRV.EXE first, then change directories to I386 and run WINNT.EXE, this will allow the installation to begin.
* During installation, choose NOT to format the destination partition, since it contains the installation files. If you want that filesystem to be NTFS you can convert it after installation from within Windows. "
How big is your partition? If you used FDisk it could be between 2-32GB.
I used to do something similar to this with Windows 2000 where I would copy the entire i386 to the HDD and run it from there.
I would create a small partition w/FDisk, and format that partition with FAT-32 (allowing up to 32GB partitions), copy the i386 folder over and run the installer.
/F
When I have tried to install the OS I have chosen in fdisk to partition the whole disk, like 76gb. I tried to use a smaller (like 6gb) partition but then the laptop doesn't even boot. It just gives me at disk read error). And why does fdisk see my hdd as only 10gb?
I'm confident that if I can solve this problem with the HDD formatting and partitioning the os installation method above would work, but right now I don't know how. Should i try some other program the fdisk, or another boot disk?
I am sorry, but I can't recall, does the laptop have a CD-ROM?
If not, there is a linux utility called "GParted", which acts like a free version of partition magic. It rocks!!!
It may be worth moving the HDD out of the laptop again, placing it in a machine, and running GParted.
http://gparted.sourceforge
/F
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by: FirebarPosted on 2007-04-01 at 05:52:41ID: 18831721
Hello,
I would research IBM's documentation for resetting the BIOS password. You may need to get in there at some point...
See if there is a one-time customizeable boot menu, that will allow you to select the CD-ROM as the boot device for that one time.
You must install XP on the laptop you intend to use it and not on another PC.
/F