Hi guys ,last days something terrible happened to my 760CD laptop.It won't boot anymore!It looks like the system files are corrupted.It worked fine but Windows gave me 2-3 times drive C Read error and after the last restart it just asked me for bootdisk.However maybe you already know that the 760CD has exchangeble CD and floppy but don't have the floppy so I must figure out another way to fix it.A adapter for the HDD won't do it because it has password and it doesn't work on other computers. The CD isn't bootable.I could buy a floppy for $20 but I am having soem financial problems and it won't be soon.I my school we have some Toshiba 220cs or 210cs ,can't remember clearly ,and they have external floppies.My Thinkpad haves a socket for external floppy on the back side.So my question is : Could I use a floppy from Toshiba on it? Are they compatible with IBM . In tuestay I could try ,but I wanted to ask you first because I don't want to have problems after I burn some school property ,you know 
Really big trouble with my favorite 760CD
June 25, 2004 - 3:58pm
#1
Really big trouble with my favorite 760CD
try plugging it in, it may or may not work, the chance of it messing up the laptop is almost nonexistent BUT you may mess up the floppy drive. wait a second i plugged the floppy cable in backwards on one of my old computers and the drive still worked fine, so dont worry just give it a try
hmm.. as for the hard drive requiring a password, i'm assuming that you know it since you use the laptop, what about going into the bios of the think pad (i usually just hold down a key when the thinkpad is booting, that gives it a keyboard error and then an option to enter the bios settings) and once in the bios, just removing the hdd password all together??
Is that something doable?
Also, i'm betting that the 760cd is new enough that it supports booting off the cd. Here's what you can do on another computer that has a burner: First put your windows 98 cdrom into the comptuer and copy the cab files folder (its the folder on the win98 cd called "WIN98") to a folder called say "WIN98" (note, you do not need to copy the subfolders in the win98 folder, those are just the extra crap like aol/compuserve/att worldnet files). Once that is done, goto www.bootdisk.com and download the windows 98se boot disk with all the drivers. Unzip that win98se floppy to a blank floppy.
Once you have the floppy and the win98 folder on the computer, then use your favorite burner program (I perfer Nero, but Easy CD creator should do it too) and burn a BOOTABLE cd. Put that win98 folder onto the cdrom. Stick in the win98se floppy into the drive when the burner program wants you to. Once that is done you will now have a bare minimum bootable cd that will install windows 98. You can then boot to that cd. Once that cd is bootable, if you need to format, change to the cdrom drive (probably c or d) and then change into the win98 folder, then you can format the c drive.
Personally I think that your existing hard drive is failing (since yoiu said it was having read errors).
But anyway, my above steps should work (and most laptops that have cdroms and are pentium 166 or faster usually can boot to cdroms) provided you have access to another computer that has a burner.
Aha ,well first I can not remove the password - the manual says that I should enter my old password followed by space and press enter to remove it ,I did this many times but the HDD stil doesn't want to work with my 2.5" hdd adapter on my pc - the IBM HDD manager gives me media error.The disk work good in the laptop and the errors are due to it's connector - it isn't holding very much and sometimes when I transport my laptop the HDD pulls out and give's me error 174 when turned on - if the same thing happens when I'm running Windows I receive HDD Read error - It was a nightmare before but I used some double sticking band to stick the disk to the laptop.It worked fine for a year but the errors started again this week.Second it is not a bootable cd.I don't need to make myself a bootable 98 cd ,because I have the originall CD which is bootable(I have tried on my desktop).However my 760CD was build in 95'and isn't very modern.
And here ,on the end , I found something interesting in BIOS when you press Ctrl and A in the Diagnostic Section in Easy Setup a Tool menu appears.What is it for ?
In an IBM BIOS, Ctrl-A usually brings you into an "a"dvanced mode. You can do more extensive testing, and maybe better tuning of option, depending on the machine in question. I've never used a 760CD, but I've got several PS/2 machines and 360 series laptops. IIRC some of the diagnostics require special hardware, like serial/parallel loopback dongles but I don't recall if there was anything special for the HDD. I doubt that there is.
I think that I would not have to try the Toshiba floppy ,it can not be used on all Toshiba models so what should I expect for IBM model.I found myself internall floppy for 760 for about $15 and I'll buy it this week.I think that this would be better than trying other way because when I buy it it will be around even after I fix my laptop and may become handy sometimes.However thanks for your effords people.
well, myself i have a 760 E and a select a dock II, and i decided to rip it apart, and found that it has a spot inside where you can put a scsi hdd in there, *although, i'm not too fimilar with scsi, but i think it's 60 pin??? but nonetheless, i thought if you could get a hold of a dock, and put in a scsi hdd, you could format the hdd in the dock, load windows, and format the laptop from the hdd in the dock, and WallA, you'd *hopefull* you'd have a useable laptop!
yeah, although, i want to put a scsi hdd in my dock, i have no means to do so, since they are kinda rare down here in hickvill *oops, MS* hahaha yeah, i was wondering if my laptop would accept a hdd over 10 gb, cuz i iknow that they came stock with a max of 2.1 or somting like that max OE, so i was wondering 1.. if i could install a bigger hdd in the dock *poss. abv. 10gb. or just find a 2.5 inch scsi hdd for my laptop abv. 5 gb *but it would have to be aftermarket i guess,* if anybody had anyideas, can you e mail me at comp_j13 yahoo com thanx!!!
Well , first of all the SCSI actually has 50 pins and second I don't have a docking station and I can hardly find one for 760 series here in Bulgaria. For my last few days I found out that I can not find here even a floppy for it.I am thinink to build myself a cable for standart floppy on the External floppy port of my laptop
Here is the pinout.Do you think it's possible ? :?
Thinkpad External Floppy Connector
1 + 5V
2 /INDEX
3 + 5v
4 Drive Select ( 0 for A: or B:)
5 + 5v
6 DISKCH
7 NC
8 NC
9 NC
10 Motor On
11 NC
12 DIR ( Direction )
13 NC
14 /STEP
15 GND
16 /Write Data
17 GND
18 /Write Gate
19 GND
20 /Track 0
21 GND
22 /Write Protect
23 GND
24 /Read Data
25 GND
26 /Side 1 Select (HDSEL)
Standart PC Floppy Drive Connector
1 GND
2 /REDWC Density Select
3 GND
4 n/c Reserved
5 GND
6 n/c Reserved
7 GND
8 /INDEX Index
9 GND
10 /MOTEA Motor Enable A
11 GND
12 /DRVSB Drive Sel B
13 GND
14 /DRVSA Drive Sel A
15 GND
16 /MOTEB Motor Enable B
17 GND
18 /DIR Direction
19 GND
20 /STEP Step
21 GND
22 /WDATE Write Data
23 GND
24 /WGATE Floppy Write Enable
25 GND
26 /TRK00 Track 0
27 GND
28 /WPT Write Protect
29 GND
30 /RDATA Read Data
31 GND
32 /SIDE1 Head Select
33 GND
34 /DSKCHG Disk Change
35 GND
I don't need it anymore I bought a floppy for $20 in one local shop.Now the problem is the hardly OS choice.I don't want Windows anymore ,linux don't support Mwave so i'm thinkink for BeOS