Failed Thinkpad?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I have just received a Thinkpad through the post which was supposedly in good
working order when it left the seller (an ebay sale) but is anything but when
it arrived. Using either the battery or mains, it won't boot up -- nothing
appears on the screen and the amber light shows against both the hard and
floppy drives. Is it dead? Or does the amber lights indicate something else?

TIA,
Paul

 

[Charlie]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On 16 Jun 2004 23:42:40 GMT, PaulA@co.uk (Paul A) wrote:

>I have just received a Thinkpad through the post which was supposedly in good
>working order when it left the seller (an ebay sale) but is anything but when
>it arrived. Using either the battery or mains, it won't boot up -- nothing
>appears on the screen and the amber light shows against both the hard and
>floppy drives. Is it dead? Or does the amber lights indicate something else?
>
>TIA,
>Paul


Well, if it wasn't in good order when you got it, you should be
inquiring about returning it. It could be something loose, or it
could be much more serious. BTW, what model is it? I have an A30 that
has a problem with the charging circuit.... it will work fine with a
charged battery... but not on the main. The problem is getting another
computer to check to see if your battery is fully charged (if your
computer has the same problem as mine).

Charlie Hoffpauir
http/freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

hi,
first thing i would do is remove and reseat the memory . may have come
loose during shipping . what model thinkpad is it ?
hope this helps,
terry

==============
Posted through www.HowToFixComputers.com/bb - free access to hardware troubleshooting newsgroups.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Paul A wrote:

> I have just received a Thinkpad through the post which was supposedly in good
> working order when it left the seller (an ebay sale) but is anything but when
> it arrived. Using either the battery or mains, it won't boot up -- nothing
> appears on the screen and the amber light shows against both the hard and
> floppy drives. Is it dead? Or does the amber lights indicate something else?
>
> TIA,
> Paul
>
Hi,
Is there anything on the HD?(like Windows OS)
Can you access BIOS?
See anything on the display even a flicker?
Something could be loose if it was really in working order.
Tony

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Thanks for the responses. Did of course get back to seller who said 'when it
left me it was in perfect working order'; battery condition not relevant
because have tried with mains power unit; haven't yet checked memory, etc BUT
have since discovered something rather interesting.

The laptop (an old 365x) was advertised as having Windows 95 installed and 'in
perfect working order'. I managed to couple-up the harddrive to my desktop and
found....the last time it appears to have been used was 6 weeks before it was
sent! And it does not have an operating system installed. It has a large
drvspace.oo (?!) file (dated 6 weeks ago) which takes up 95pc of the 800mb
drive (advertised as 1.8gb). It does have a Windows folder but it is largely
empty.

Am about to remonstrate with seller. Any ideas about that large file?

TIA,

Paul

In article <40d0daf0$0$22829$cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com>, PaulA@co.uk says...
>
>I have just received a Thinkpad through the post which was supposedly in good
>working order when it left the seller (an ebay sale) but is anything but when
>it arrived. Using either the battery or mains, it won't boot up -- nothing
>appears on the screen and the amber light shows against both the hard and
>floppy drives. Is it dead? Or does the amber lights indicate something else?
>
>TIA,
>Paul
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"terry_b17" wrote
> first thing i would do is remove and reseat the memory . may have come
> loose during shipping . what model thinkpad is it ?

Please let me add the possibility that the CPU-card may have been shaken
loose during transport.
If the ThinkPad is an older one, it could have been on it's way out anyway
and the transport could've given it the final shake.

Regards
--
Brian Hougaard Baldersbæk
Frejasvej 14
6400 Sønderborg

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Paul A wrote:

> Thanks for the responses. Did of course get back to seller who said 'when it
> left me it was in perfect working order'; battery condition not relevant
> because have tried with mains power unit; haven't yet checked memory, etc BUT
> have since discovered something rather interesting.
>
> The laptop (an old 365x) was advertised as having Windows 95 installed and 'in
> perfect working order'.


Ah - I know the 365X. If its taken a bash in transit it could well be :-

There's a plastic lug in the base of the bottom plastics that
(effectively) supports the CPU sub-assembly ... this lug is prone to
snapping off. Try this :-

Turn the machine upside down on a flat surface (with the lid closed
obviously). Pick a spot near the middle of the bottom surface, but
slightly nearer to the rear panel, and slightly nearer to the left side
of the machine (as viewed from when the machine is the right way up).
Press with your thumbs ... difficult to describe how hard to press -
maybe equivalent to placing a bag of sugar on it ....

Now see if it boots.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

PaulA@co.uk (Paul A) wrote:
> The laptop (an old 365x) was advertised as having Windows 95 installed
> and 'in perfect working order'. I managed to couple-up the harddrive
> to my desktop and found....the last time it appears to have been used
> was 6 weeks before it was sent! And it does not have an operating
> system installed. It has a large drvspace.oo (?!) file (dated 6 weeks
> ago) which takes up 95pc of the 800mb drive (advertised as 1.8gb).
> It does have a Windows folder but it is largely empty.
>
> Am about to remonstrate with seller. Any ideas about that large file?

Memory is hazy here, but it sounds like that would be a compressed
drivespace 'drive'. If you don't recall that, the idea was that you
could (appx) double the amount of data you could put on your drive by
compressing the files. Think of winzip or pkzip, where the individual
files are compressed and all rolled into one zipfile, which takes up
less space that the sum of the originals. What drivespace used to do
was create a large sort of "zipfile" to hold the contents, then use a
driver (drvspace.bin, ISTR -- look in the root directory) at boot time
that allowed you to access the contents directly as a separate drive
letter. Your actual hard disk partition would become something like
'H:' and the virtual volume inside the zipfile would take over as
'C:'.

If I'm right about this, you got taken. That's not a 1.8GB drive,
it's 800MB that's been drivespaced. Win95 may well be on there,
buried in the drivespace compressed volume, but you won't see it
unless your boot system loads the drivespace driver.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

PaulA@co.uk (Paul A) wrote:
> The laptop (an old 365x) was advertised as having Windows 95 installed
> and 'in perfect working order'. I managed to couple-up the harddrive
> to my desktop and found....the last time it appears to have been used
> was 6 weeks before it was sent! And it does not have an operating
> system installed. It has a large drvspace.oo (?!) file (dated 6 weeks
> ago) which takes up 95pc of the 800mb drive (advertised as 1.8gb).
> It does have a Windows folder but it is largely empty.
>
> Am about to remonstrate with seller. Any ideas about that large file?

Memory is hazy here, but it sounds like that would be a compressed
drivespace 'drive'. If you don't recall that, the idea was that you
could (appx) double the amount of data you could put on your drive by
compressing the files. Think of winzip or pkzip, where the individual
files are compressed and all rolled into one zipfile, which takes up
less space that the sum of the originals. What drivespace used to do
was create a large sort of "zipfile" to hold the contents, then use a
driver (drvspace.bin, ISTR -- look in the root directory) at boot time
that allowed you to access the contents directly as a separate drive
letter. Your actual hard disk partition would become something like
'H:' and the virtual volume inside the zipfile would take over as
'C:'.

If I'm right about this, you got taken. That's not a 1.8GB drive,
it's 800MB that's been drivespaced. Win95 may well be on there,
buried in the drivespace compressed volume, but you won't see it
unless your boot system loads the drivespace driver.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Thanks again for responses and suggestions. After I confronted the seller with
a copy of the screenshot of the laptop drive showing last time used and other
contents, and threatened to report him to ebay, sue him and so on, he
immediately capitulated and apologised for sending a faulty machine, offering
return of purchase price and carriage both ways. Have already received those
monies now via paypal.

Paul A