Old laptop - out on a limb
 

Hi all,
First of all I want to state I know the "it's not practical" and all that, so think of this thread as a challenge or entertainment.
Here is the problem:
I have an old IBM ThinkPad iSeries laptop that I want to install Win7 on for testing purposes. The problem is that this machine only has cd-rom where as Win7 install is on a DVD (2 Gb+) and I don't think it can boot from USB.

Anyone got creative idea on how to accomplish this ?

Thanks for your time.
Zweiblumen

I've not used it but was interested in updating my netbook so I looked into small format CDROM.

I found this tool, says it works for Win7, even though it's marked for Vista. It should let you build a CDROM of just the components you want.

About - vLite - Windows Vista configuration tool

Ask around and see if anybody you knows has a external DVD drive? You should be able to boot from that.

Are the specs on the laptop good enough to run Win 7? Or are you just doing it for fun? I used to run Win 2000 on an unsupported computer and had to edit a few files and get past a few hardware checks before it would allow me to install it is why I ask. It took 10 minutes to boot, but I was able to use it for school and network it easier.

Good ideas and thanks for taking the time to think about this.
ASU2003, availability of external DVD isn't a limiting factor but missing the option of booting from USB device is, as I said I don't think the machine can boot from USB. I have tried every setting that I have thought of and none of them has worked.

I'm just doing this for fun.
Again thank you all .
ZB

bios firmware update?

I just remembered this. I have done network installs of OS's before. It was a long time ago, but a lot of pro IT guys do this regularly at schools to bring all of their computers to an original state.

I don't remember how, or what you would need to do for Win 7, but it might be something to look into.

Derp, I totally forgot about this. Back in high school we used a really (really really (really)) old version of Symantec's Ghost. Basically the process consists of installing the OS on one box, configuring all the drivers and whatnot (which, may be difficult in your case. Win 7 is notorious for bad legacy compatibility) and then turning it into a ghost image. Once you have this image, it's broadcast from a central server to as few as one, or as many as hundreds of computers. It's a bit of a backwards way of doing it however, I'd definitely check out cynthetiq's method first.

Best of luck! keep us updated :D

Alot of older systems didn't allow for a network boot if they didn't allow for USB. The network adapter has to be able to boot with drivers or you have to supply drivers for it to work.

You could try attaching the drive to another system, installing the OS there, and before it boots for the first time, put it back in the laptop. You will have some driver conflicks, but it might work.

Thank you all for your time.
The conclusion is Win7 will not install on this machine, should have checked earlier the min HD requirements.
Might try some Linux flavor that is smaller than Ubuntu.
Yours
ZB
PS: I learned something new from this so it wasn't a complete waist of time.

It might not be smaller, but see if Linux Mint works.

Well I installed something called SliTaz. So far is looks good. LiveCD iso image is only 30 MB. One can either run it from the CD (hence LiveCD) or install on HD.
The documentation claims that this will run even on a 486sx with 128MB ram.

Yours
ZB