Dual-Boot ThinkPad: Windows 10 & XP on One Machine

Overview

I picked up this Lenovo ThinkPad SL510 from a local recycler for about $30, and after replacing the broken speakers, I’ve turned it into the ultimate dual-boot machine. It runs both Windows 10 and Windows XP flawlessly with all drivers properly working on both operating systems. With a Core 2 Duo T6570, 3GB of RAM, and a 160GB Intel enterprise SSD, this laptop boots lightning-fast into either OS. It’s perfect for retro gaming on XP (Quake 2, Doom 2, Warcraft 3) while still being capable of running modern Windows 10. The SL510 is a great choice for anyone looking for a 15-inch laptop with excellent I/O options including VGA, HDMI, eSATA, and a DVD burner.

Key Moments

• ThinkPad SL510 overview: bought for $30 from recycler, now fully functional
• Extensive I/O ports: VGA, HDMI, eSATA, USB, SD card reader, DVD burner
• Core 2 Duo T6570 @ 2.1GHz, 3GB RAM, Intel GMA 4500 graphics
• 160GB Intel enterprise SSD for blazing-fast boot times
• Dual boot configuration with Windows 10 and Windows XP (32-bit)
• All drivers working perfectly on both operating systems
• Gaming demos: Unreal, Quake 2, Doom 2, Warcraft 3 running smoothly on XP
• How to switch between operating systems using boot manager

Full Transcript (Edited)

Hey YouTube, in this video I’m going to be showing you a ThinkPad that I covered in the previous couple of videos. In the previous videos, I showed you how I replaced a broken speaker assembly on this unit. Originally I had bought this from a local recycler for probably like 30 bucks, and I’ve got it fully working now. So I wanted to show you what I did.

Hardware Overview

So this is a ThinkPad SL510 and it’s a pretty nice looking machine. It’s a Lenovo-based product, so it’s not the same build quality as the original ThinkPads, but it’s pretty close to what you should usually get like on the T40. But it comes with all the things that you’d expect to have in a machine of this vintage, and some more actually.

You have VGA, you have HDMI, an ethernet port, and eSATA port. I think this is a card reader here, or sorry, PCI Express card. Yeah, then this is a pretty good set of I/O, so I’m kind of impressed that you have VGA and you have HDMI and eSATA.

On the other side we have two USB ports, and you have an SD card reader and a DVD player/CD burner. I think it also burns DVDs. In the back there’s just another USB port, the lock port for one of those key lock mechanisms, and the battery. Also the exhaust port is in the back for the fan.

The bottom looks pretty standard. There are nice covers for everything that you need to change, including the CPU fan. You don’t even have to tear apart the entire thing. You can see in the previous video that I made, which I’ll link in the description, what I did and I basically took everything apart.

The Speaker Repair Story

The speakers on this unit are built into the LCD assembly right down here. There’s two speakers and the wire runs all the way over here, which is why it broke off right there.

In the front all we have is a couple of LED indicators, one for the battery that is being charged and the other one is the laptop is in sleep mode. On the top here we have the ThinkVantage button, some activity lights, and the power button.

On the other side we have some multimedia buttons for muting, putting up and lowering the volume, and disabling the microphone. Interesting, it must be a privacy feature. I like that they still kept the little track point, I think that’s what they call it. The track point, and you have the track point with three mouse buttons right here. And then you also have the trackpad with two more buttons right here. This is a nice ThinkPad feature which I love using sometimes.

What’s Installed

All right, so what have I installed in this computer? So let me show you.

All right, so I’m going to power it up and immediately you can see the Windows 10 logo pop up, and then we can choose. I have Windows 10 or Windows XP. So this is a laptop that I found that you could actually have all the drivers properly working in Windows 10 or in Windows XP. So I went ahead and made it a dual boot system. It’s got a 160 gig SSD in it, which I wish I partitioned and installed both XP and Windows 10.

Windows 10 Boot

All right, so Windows 10, let’s see how fast that boots up. And we’re in, and that was it. That was in real time, by the way. It’s a pretty fast computer for the age.

Let me show you a little bit of what hardware is in here. Let me get the system information.

All right, so we got a Core 2 Duo T6570. It’s a dual core CPU running up to 2.1 gigahertz. It’s a 45 nanometer CPU. It’s got an Intel GMA 4500 video card with 1.3 gigs, so kind of shared with the main CPU. And I installed three gigs of RAM. I didn’t go any higher because I also have the 32-bit version of Windows XP installed, so 3 gigs of RAM is more than enough.

And what makes Windows 10 really snappy is that I have a 160 gig Intel SSD, and it’s an enterprise version of it, so it’s a pretty fast SSD. And even with three gigs of RAM, the computer is very fast. As you saw, it starts up fairly fast for something with just the Core 2 Duo.

And if I were to load up a browser, for example, it just pops right up. Yeah, go to google.com. Oh, I don’t, I’m not on the internet on this one. And yeah, everything seems to work fine.

Switching to Windows XP

Now let me show you how I go into Windows XP. All right, so to get into Windows XP, I just shut down. And then when it’s fully turned off, I press the button. And as soon as I get the operating system selector right here, I just go to Windows XP. And what when I press enter here, what it’s going to do, it’s going to configure the startup boot manager to start Windows XP the next time the computer reboots.

And so you can see we’re back in the BIOS, but now when the computer starts up, it’s going to choose to start up from this partition: Windows XP.

And we’re in! And here, as you can see, I have all the drivers installed. Even the PCMCIA memory devices, the network adapters, everything is installed. It’s got the video card drivers, so everything works.

Gaming on Windows XP

And I can even load up some software here. I can load Unreal. That obviously works really fast. Don’t know what happened there. New game, medium. Something isn’t right there.

All right, you never know what’s gonna happen with those old games. Let’s try Quake 2. Easy.

All right, this works much better. It’s very fast. And even DOS games like Doom 2 work really well and they load up so fast. This is all real time, by the way.

All right, and yeah, I also have Warcraft 3. Oh, that is so fast!

Anyway, that’s it. I’m not going to show you the gameplay because I’ve done this in the previous videos. But as you can see, what I’ve done is I just made it a dual boot machine.

Why the SL510 is Perfect for This

And I hope you find this useful because if you want something that runs Windows 10 and Windows XP with all the drivers resolved and everything and easily accessible, the SL510 is a great choice for a 15-inch retro gaming or retro PC with a lot of different I/O ports that are very useful. Like you have HDMI and you have VGA and you have a memory card reader and a DVD burner.

So it’s a lot of things you can do with this machine. It’s a great machine for a lot of people and it covers a lot of bases. Well, I hope you enjoyed this video.