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making an ibm ThinkPad hdd bootable

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  • Windows XP
  • IBM ThinkPad
  • Hard Drives
Last response: in Windows XP
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August 10, 2013 5:22:04 AM

I have an old IBM ThinkPad. It has a docking unit. The CD Rom is on the dock. Now the dock is bad and all the use ports are bad too. Worse still, the windows xp Os in the hard drive is corrupted. Can somebody help show me how to make the drive bootable? I have removed the had and used another laptop to install it. It works there but when I plug it back to the ThinkPad it will not boot. Can you guys help me.
The hard drive can be detected in the bios but the Os is scrambled so I need to reinstall the Os, so my challenge is how to make the hard drive bootable so that it can flat install by itself once plugged back. Please help me.

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August 10, 2013 5:48:35 AM

There is a chip on the motherboard that controls all the external, internal port devices.

Since you say the docking port no longer works, or the usb ports of the laptop.
it is also likely that the hard drive docking interface of the board have also failed. And the reason why no boot device can be found.

Go into the bios of the laptop and check to see what the boot order of devices.
If the dock is bad for the cd rom drive, but it is set to check it for a bootable disk first it will just sit there.

If you change the boot device order to the Hard drive first. it should work.
If it does not then it means the board controller has gone.

That chip controls the usb ports, the dvd drive port, and the hard drive port.

It`s game over if that is broke because no device you put in the laptop will be read or booted as the board cannot find the device or see it is connected to the laptop.

In the bios you should at least be able to see the brand name of the hard drive you placed in it, and also it`s size and capacity/ storage space.

If it does not show up, once again it is an indicator that the controller chip set of the laptop is broken.

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August 10, 2013 8:44:17 AM

A dock of that age would cost only a few pounds/dollars/roubles on e-Bay - alternatively, buy a USB powered external CD ROM.
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