Windows 98se - when I turn the power on to the laptop (IBM Thinkpad i series type 2611), goes straight into dos with the following mess: CODE PAGE OPERATION NOT SUPPORTED ON THIS DEVICE.
and DEVICE ERROR DURING SELECT.
Press F8 on start-up to get into start menu and select safe mode, windows logo page is shown for about a second and then back to start menu with c prompt C:\>
Also says: WINDOWS IS BYPASSING YOUR STARTUP FILES, prior to the C prompt.

Any help appreciated as i'm presently offshore India , and need to get this laptop working.

hi baggyjim welcome to dal the online computer help forum

this is a quick tutorial on booting in to safe mode please try it and let me know if you are still having problems although i am not trying to teach you to suck eggs if you know already about booting in to safe mode but we at dal start at the easiest end of a probelm if you know what i mean

Restart your computer. While waiting for the machine to come up wait until you see "Starting Windows...". Now, press the F8 key this will bring up a menu similar to this:

Microsoft Windows 98 Startup Menu
=============================

1. Normal
2. Logged (\BOOTLOG.TXT)
3. Safe mode
4. Step-by-step confirmation
5. Command prompt only
6. Safe mode command prompt only
7. Previous version of MS-DOS

Enter a choice: 1 Time remaining: 21







F5=Safe mode Shift+F5=Command prompt Shift+F8=Step-by-step confirmation
[N]
Select option 3 using the arrows keys and press Enter. This will display this screen :

Microsoft Windows 98 Startup Menu
=============================

1. Normal
2. Logged (\BOOTLOG.TXT)
3. Safe mode
4. Step-by-step confirmation
5. Command prompt only
6. Safe mode command prompt only
7. Previous version of MS-DOS

Enter a choice: 3

Windows is bypassing your startup files.


HIMEM is testing extended memory...done.
You are now entering Safe Mode. The computer will continue to load until you get to this screen.


Note: If you have never seen Safe Mode before do not worry. It does not look like your normal desktop.

Press OK with your mouse to continue.


You have now successfully booted into Safe Mode and can make changes to your settings to fix various problems you may be have with your computer.



hope this helps

Firstly,many thanks for your reply, sorry I didn't reply to you , but the time difference here is + 4.5 hrs, and it was my bedtime !
Anyway when I select safe mode (3), it does not return "HIMEM is testing extended memory...done.", it simply just gives me a c prompt - C:\>

Thats it, nothing more.

What do I need to type here ?

Looking for the manual:

Is this the comp?

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...&validate=true

Or this?

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...&validate=true

This is all I see for 2611

Try this:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...id=MIGR-4YLR6R



_______________________________________

the computer is a i-series 1400 2611.
When repowering it, without forcing it into start up menu (f8), it displays:

CODE PAGE OPERATION NOT SUPPORTED ON THIS DEVICE
DEVICE ERROR DURING SELECT
C:\>

is there a device error code at all as this would give us a better understanding of whats going wrong

Pardon me for jumping in here. (My system blew up when I loaded XP-Home as a dual boot. Spent the last six days rebuilding everything as my backups partition "went away".) Sigh.......

I suggest determining if the problem is being initiated by the DOS front end before windows loads. When you boot and end up at the command line prompt (C:\>), put a blank formatted floppy in your A drive and type the following;

(hit Enter after each line)

attrib -h c:\msdos.sys

copy/v c:\msdos.sys a:\

copy/v c:\config.sys a:\

copy/v c:\autoexec.bat a:\

copy/v c:\winboot.ini a:\
The above file may or may not exist. Type dir/a/o/p to see if it's listed. If it's there, copy it over to the floppy. You may have to set the attrib flag to -h (as in msdos.sys above).

attrib +h c:\msdos.sys

Post the contents of each of these files here.