Hi guys. I would love to install linux on my old ibm thinkpad (the a22e model). Anyways, i'm having a minor problem in that the cd drive doesn't work (I still have windows 98 going on it). Its kind of hard to install linux w/out a cd drive. So i was wondering if anyone could either enlighten me on how to fix the cd drive, or on how to install linux w/out a cd.

The cd drive is not even recognized. It doesn't open when I click the open button, and windows says no cd drive is in. It worked at one point, btw. How could a non-windows-user like me fix this problem?

thanks,
arh

It sounds like your CD drive is dead. You should probably bring it to some computer-repair place that will install a new one in for you.

It's possible to install Linux without a CD, however it varies from distro-to-distro, and is usually more complicated than it seems because you must first boot off a floppy, and then do some partitioning to install files necessary to install a kernel and whatnot to complete a netinstall. I'd say go get your CD drive fixed first.