CD-ROM Blues - New IBM Thinkpad

[jblaven]

I have a new IBM T43 Thinkpad with Windows 2000 installed. Today, my CD-ROM stopped working. I was going to reload the driver, but since this is a work computer, and I don't have access to the Win2000 CD, I am stuck. I don't want to have to stick this thing back in the box and ship it back to PA so they can insert the Win CD.

Anyone have some ideas as to how to get this dang thing to work?

Any help is appreciated!

Joe

 

[AZNBoiOnFIYA]

you should be able to download the drivers off ibm's website.

 

[jblaven]

I spoke to IBM, but they told me that it was a Window's driver.

 

[Gnufsh]

How can you load the cdrom driver off of a cd if the cd drive doesn't work?

 

[Captain Slug]

Laptop CD-ROMs are particularly special when it comes to drivers. The CD-ROM driver is a part of the basic install so you won't need to reinstall to get it working again. Just remove the CD-ROM drive from the device manager and reboot.
If it continues to be a problem the drive itself may be dead.

 

[Xaotic]

Try CS's steps first, but if it doesn't work try this:

IBM has diagnostic SW loaded on the preload.

Start > Programs > PC Doctor for Windows > PC Doctor

It will let you test the hardware and should determine whether the drive has gone bad.

System recovery is also available. Hit F11 or Access IBM during boot. You will need to back up files on other media as the restore to factory state will overwrite the disk contents.

BTW, I wasn't aware that they were shipping T43s with 2K. Is it a business specific load? If so, you can download and create PC Doctor DOS floppy disks from this page:

http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-58597

but it would require the use of a USB FDD.

 

[jblaven]

Laptop CD-ROMs are particularly special when it comes to drivers. The CD-ROM driver is a part of the basic install so you won't need to reinstall to get it working again. Just remove the CD-ROM drive from the device manager and reboot.
If it continues to be a problem the drive itself may be dead.

Crap, things are not looking good. I removed it from the device manager, but it didn't work. It rebooted as it needed, but no CD-ROM.

 

[jblaven]

Try CS's steps first, but if it doesn't work try this:

IBM has diagnostic SW loaded on the preload.

Start > Programs > PC Doctor for Windows > PC Doctor

It will let you test the hardware and should determine whether the drive has gone bad.

System recovery is also available. Hit F11 or Access IBM during boot. You will need to back up files on other media as the restore to factory state will overwrite the disk contents.

BTW, I wasn't aware that they were shipping T43s with 2K. Is it a business specific load? If so, you can download and create PC Doctor DOS floppy disks from this page:

http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-58597

but it would require the use of a USB FDD.

Interesting, So I need my USB flash drive? Funny I just noticed that I don't have a floppy drive!