Reformatting Laptop Hard Drive

[TygGer]

I have an old IMB 600 laptop that I need to reformat with win2k. I'd imagine that the battery power meter is a option in win2k. I dont have any of the disks that came with the laptop because I bought it used. Looking at the installed programs, there are programs called IBM ThinkPad Battery Maximiser, ThinkPad Configuration, ThinkPad On Screen Display, etc...

First question, would I just reformat and install win2k like I would on a regular PC?

Secondly, how can I get these preinstalled programs back?

Thank you.

 

[ugopk]

yup just like a regular pc

2. can't get orginal program.. try the website

 

[Mik3y]

yes

 

[Chopstick217]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
yes

What he said :thumbsup:

 

[TygGer]

Are there any potential problems with not having the IBM programs?

 

[JW310]

Originally posted by: TygGer
Are there any potential problems with not having the IBM programs?

You can probably get the IBM utilities right from IBM's website. I've done it before for my T22.... not sure about a Thinkpad 600, though.

JW

 

[Abhi]

Download the drivers before you format.

If your modem/network card dont work with windows drivers, you will be in a soup..

 

[dcdomain]

What Abhi said. Make sure you have as many of the drivers on hand as possible, especially ones for the CD-Rom drive if it needs drivers. Otherwise you'll have an empty system with no way of getting anything installed on it without taking the harddrive and installing it in another laptop with a CD-Rom installed, or into a desktop via an IDE adapter. It's happened to me before and it was a pain in the butt.

I usually like to partition it first, and then move all the drivers onto the secondary drive, including the i386 folder for windows, that way I can install from the harddrive itself.