T41 NDIS DOS drivers and Ghost --cannot get it working

[LoneWolf]

Hi all,

I'm at my wit's end at this point. I have a fleet of donated ThinkPad T41 laptops I am trying to get running (I work in education). We normally use Symantec Ghost to create a network image, which boots from a CD, USB, or floppy in an DOS environment. I managed to get this to work at some point in the past with methods I am currently using, and have no idea why I cannot now.

My problem is that no matter what network driver I use (I have used Intel Pro100 and Pro1000 drivers, the two options available for the T41), the network adapter is never detected. I have tried multiple Intel driver revisions --no dice. I have created the early Bart's Network Boot Disk, and tried to run the WHATNIC program available with it, which just terminates with no information. I have even swapped my image hard drive from one ThinkPad T41 to another, with the thought that maybe the first one was having network problems. Still no fix. I've even tried using Ghost Solution Suite 2.5, which used a Windows 7 PE environment from boot CD. STILL no dice, and I've never had a problem like this with other machines.

I have a fair amount of experience, but I just can't see why the NIC isn't being detected. I don't see a BIOS option that would cause this problem, though I'm open to any suggestions. I'm hoping someone else has seen this problem, and can help.

P.S. Unfortunately, Lenovo's T41 NDIS drivers are in an executable that creates a floppy image. That executable won't run on XP command prompts or newer (perhaps even Win2k) as it uses a direct write-to-disk that the OS no longer allows. I'd have tried those if I could, but can't get to them. I'm one step from loading a machine with DOS to try and get those extracted, but I'm worried that won't work either.

[RealBlackStuff]

What is/are the 7-character Type/Model no. of that/those laptop(s)?
See label on the bottom, looks like: TYPE: 2373-46U S/N 99-12345.
Only need the BOLD part.
Failing that, if you open the RAM door on the bottom and remove the RAM, what is the motherboard P/N or FRU?

[LoneWolf]

Type 2373, No sub-model listed

Mainboard FRU 39T5430

I have also tried another system, same Machine Type, Mainboard FRU 93P3751.

[RealBlackStuff]

Both of those are refurbished motherboards.
It's not unthinkable that someone botched the refurbishing, which would be a reflow or reball of the graphics and /or Southbridge chip(s).
And whoever owned them then offloaded those laptops to you?

OTOH, try a Linux Life-CD (e.g. Mint from http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php ).
You just run that from the CD-drive without installing it.
If there is still no Ethernet, then the Southbridge chip of that/those motherboard(s) is defective.

[ajkula66]

There is a BIOS setting that enables or disables networking, both for wired and wireless...

BIOS>Configuration>Networking

[MnR]

Hi,

Is the NIC showing in device manager? Try running SPECCY (from the same people that make Ccleaner) To find out everything about the laptop.

Did you try to install from the device manager? Or are you trying to just run the EXE. Another thought is take the keyboard of and see if there was a spill. I just worked on a Dell that the touchpad would work, But not the buttons. Found a small Water spill. Cleand it up and now the touchpad works.

MnR

[LoneWolf]

These are systems whose NICs work when Windows is installed, through the Device Manager. We are attempting to reload them with Ghost; the NICs are turned on in BIOS. The NICs are not recognized by any driver I have tried yet, and just fail to load.

MnR, I'm trying to get the NIC to work with a DOS NDIS driver so that I can actually load an image onto them from our network, so I'm not trying to install from Device Manager or run a .EXE.

[Harryc]

P.S. Unfortunately, Lenovo's T41 NDIS drivers are in an executable that creates a floppy image. That executable won't run on XP command prompts or newer (perhaps even Win2k) as it uses a direct write-to-disk that the OS no longer allows.

I don't understand that statement since Lenovo says it will work on XP. See this link.
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/researc ... EPF6#winXP
Here's the driver. You need to figure out if these T41's have the Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection (10/100 Ethernet) or the Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Mobile Connection (Gigabit Ethernet)
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... D=DS013696

[jdrou]

I had no problem running the floppy-creating exe under Windows XP (wouldn't run in Win 7 x64 though).

[LoneWolf]

I had no problem running the floppy-creating exe under Windows XP (wouldn't run in Win 7 x64 though).

It definitely doesn't work in Win7 x64, I tried that too.

I don't understand, but after multiple tries, it is now working, at least for the floppy extraction. Previously, I had gotten an error about the OS being unable to perform this type of drive.

I unfortunately had to use a VMWare image of XP and a USB floppy drive, which appears to be some of the problem. I got a number of errors during the process, but managed to get the files I needed. And unlike Intel's network drivers downloaded from their website, the Intel drivers provided by Lenovo work, so I can now use Ghost.

Thanks, everybody.