Hello. When I booted up my XP equipped R30 Thinkpad a few days ago, I got the message that there was a problem with my \windows\system32\config file (or something to that effect). No problem! I put in a spare hard drive. At first I was getting the dreaded PXE message which I took care of by disabling the network boot in the BIOS setup. Now, it will not boot at all. All I get for my trouble is the "Operating system not found" message. Booting off the DVD ROM is no help, but I did notice that the activity LED on the DVD does not even flicker. I am suspecting that power is not getting to the hard drive AND the DVD ROM. Both Hard Drive and "CD-ROM Drive" are shown in the BIOS setup. Even if I physically remove them! Loading setup defaults only bring me back to the PXE-E61 messages. Can you help? Thank you.
your hard drive is corrupted. To fix it you need to do what is in the parenthesis ( chkdsk c: /f ), this command will fix the system files corruption. This problem happens when there is an abnormal windows shutdown while the hard drive was writing. The chkdsk will fix this problem about 95 percent of the time, it has always fix my computer. You will need your windows installation cd to bootup and use the dos command. The best way is to make a bartpe and use that to bootup your computer.
Thank you very much for your prompt reply jony218. What you recommend is impossible. As I stated, I cannot boot either from (another) hard drive OR the DVD using ANY bootable CD (Windows, Minipe-XT (Bart), Ultimate Technician and so on). Tried them all. As I indicated there is no power getting to either one (it would appear). Thanks for your input. john
If the optical drive is getting any power you'd be able to eject it during the POST. As it's an older machine (Unless they are reusing the R30 name) you could try blowing out the dust with a can of air. It's not likely to increase power output, but I've cured crazier problems with that. I see you've reset the BIOS settings, but have you been able to pop the CMOS battery out and back in to really go back to defaults? Best of luck
Thanks for your reply Shambles. There is no power to the optical drive OR the hard drive at ANY time. I've already had the laptop apart to clean the fan which was surprisingly clean. I did not, however, remove the CMOS battery (which is in plain sight). I will try that after I take that blasted machine apart again (when I regain my cool) and leave it out for a while. Will keep you posted. Thanks again for the tip. John
