[ltp] Bootable live CD on 600/600X?

[/dev/rob0]

Has anyone had success with a Linux bootable live CD on a Thinkpad 600 
or 600X? I tried Ubuntu's live CD, every boot option I could see, all 
to no avail. Burned 2 copies of it, checked md5sums, same result with 
both copies: isolinux boots, but kernel crashes early in trying to 
load. Ubuntu's install CD, OTOH, works fine. (This is Warty, BTW.)

Slackware 10: similar. Install CD works, live CD crashes, but at a 
different point. It said something like "attempt to read beyond end of 
device," which I thought sounded like a media error. So I put it in 
another laptop (NEC) and booted up fine.

I've not tried Knoppix nor any of the many other possible choices. If 
I'm unaware of a hardware issue, maybe I can get one of the above 
working after I find out. Thanks.

[ OT ramblings, you may wish to stop reading at this point :) ]

This has been great fun. I bought this 600X off ebay, which had been 
falsely represented as a P-III 500 with a 2GB HDD. First day (maybe a 
month back) I found out that the CPU was a 650! The seller seems to 
have misread the type label, thinking it was 9EU (it's 9FU.) The hard 
drive had DOS (W98SE) on it, and booted up there, indeed it showed 2GB 
(it was formatted FAT16, for crying out loud!! Ugh!) But it was odd: 
the 9FU specs page says it should have a 12GB drive.

When I pulled it out, sure enough, my aging eyes saw 2GB as capacity. 
That drive was exchanged for the 4GB one from a 600 (85U.) I loaded 
Slackware 10 and had some fun.

The 600 gets 192 errors at boot, and seems to have problems with boot 
devices ("I9990305") other than floppy. I got it to boot the 600X's 
drive maybe twice, and the drive from the aforementioned NEC once. 
Using a Smart Boot Loader floppy I could get it to boot from CD (but 
not hard drive.) If the CD was FreeDOS, from there I could get it to 
boot the hard drive! How's that for a convoluted way to boot?

Still, although bad, it's doable, so this past weekend I got the 600X 
hard drive off the shelf and put it in an old desktop with a laptop-to- 
regular-IDE converter. BIOS there (this is OLD) saw 7500MB! Wow! cfdisk 
saw all 12000! Woo-hoo!!

I got out a magnifying glass, and sure enough, there was a "1" hiding  
in front of the "2GB". Apparently it had been partitioned using 
incorrect geometry. I allowed Ubuntu to blow it away and use the whole 
drive.

Just think ... with a bootable live CD I would have seen the 12GB 
capacity right away. Oh well, wasn't a waste, because I have Slackware 
nicely set up on the 4GB drive for the 600, and it sure was a pleasant 
after-Christmas surprise gift. :)

So now I need to boot something that can run parted, and I don't want  
to mess with floppies (I likely can't find 2 that work anyway!) I need 
a live CD. :)

That ebay seller definitely breached the contract of sale! Do you 
suppose I should complain? ;) :)

Oh, one more question slightly OT: the 192 error suggests either dead 
CMOS battery or fan. The battery's only about US$7 from IBM. Is that a 
big deal to try to replace? I figure it's worth that much to try.
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