Old Laptop Not Booting at All

×

Statusmeldung

You are not a member of this team. If you want to be part of this team, click on 'Subscribe to this team'.
Bild des Benutzers Anonymous
Gespeichert von Anonymous (nicht überprüft) am So, 01/01/2017 - 19:29
Team(s): 
Labdoo Global Support (LGS)

Hi All,

I have an old 2001-era IBM ThinkPad A22m that was donated to my hub. I was skeptical that it could be used at all (800 MHz CPU, 256MB installed memory), but thought I would give it a try.

When I turn it on, it doesn't even boot up. I get the a black screen with the following message:

"ERROR

0271: Check date and time settings

Press to Setup"

I am able to access BIOS and change the boot order so the CD ROM was first, but when I try to boot the Lubuntu CD (which works perfectly in other machines), I get the same ERROR message.

Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Brandon

Kommentare

Bild des Benutzers drotter120
Gespeichert von drotter120 am So, 01/01/2017 - 19:49

Hi Brandon,

Usually when you see a message like this on startup every time, it means that the battery that saves the settings in the BIOS on the laptop is dead and needs to be replaced. I'm not sure if the battery you need is easy to find online or not, but I believe you can find a diagram showing how to replace the button battery here.

Good luck and let me know how it goes!
David

Bild des Benutzers Rhein-Ruhr-Hub
Gespeichert von Rhein-Ruhr-Hub am So, 01/01/2017 - 20:03

Hi Brandon,

this model has a Pentium III CPU, which is less than Labdoo's minimum requirements (Pentium M). And 512 MB RAM is minimum, 756 MB even better, so 256 MB RAM is not enough. Cloning will not work, even Lubuntu will run extremely slow. You can try a very lean Linux distro for a test, but for productive usage at a school...?
My suggestion - keep useful parts like power supply, RAM, HDD (if >= 30 GB), recycle the rest. It is always hard to recycle a laptops, as we need so many, but sometimes is does not help.
Ralf

Bild des Benutzers Durham-Hub
Gespeichert von Durham-Hub (nicht überprüft) am Mo, 01/02/2017 - 22:16

Thanks to both of you for the advice! Is there an easy way to wipe the data from the computer before I recycle it? Would I need to replace the battery first as described above?

Bild des Benutzers Rhein-Ruhr-Hub
Gespeichert von Rhein-Ruhr-Hub am Fr, 02/24/2017 - 14:40

Best way is to open the disc drive, remove the disc, look for a hammer, aim and smash the disc drive :) Theoretically you can use a very lean Linux distribution to run on a Pentium III and delete the disc drive using dd or shred in a terminal. But solution1 it faster and makes fun, too.
Ralf, Hub Rhein-Ruhr (Germany)