R+R factory reinstall nightmare

[schleptop]

For various reasons too tragic to list here, I decided to restore my X40 to its factory state and then update all the drivers and software. So I hauled out my two month old R+R 3 disks and got to work.

My first problem was some error telling me that R+R couldn't read my Recovery Disk 1. This was an Imation CD burned using the same external IBM CD-RW drive which was now claiming it couldn't read it. Fortunately I'm old school and never believe what the software says. After a few magic words on seeing that message, I took the disk out and put it back in again with perhaps more force than required, and, lo and behold, it worked fine. Same problem with Disk 2, same solution. Then Disk 3 churned away unpacking files and then told me it couldn't read a particular file. More magic words - but when I took the disk out it asked for Disk 4. OK, things must be all right, so I put in Disk 4, followed by Disk 5, and all seemed well.

The machine rebooted, I got into another R+R screen, where it told me it was busy unpacking more files. But after a few minutes it told me there was an error - something about not being able to unpack the software - unfortunately I can't remember the message. At this point my last concern was preserving a record of this for posterity. More magic words - now what do I do?

Lacking any imagination, I thought I might as well repeat the whole process, because it had been so much fun the first time. And of course you know the rest - it ran perfectly the second time round, possibly helped by the fact that I was holding my breath most of the time.

[GomJabbar]

If you updated the Rescue and Recovery software before you made your backups, you need to update the Rescue and Recovery software on your X40 before your restore your backups. In other words if the backups were made with Rescue and Recovery 3, and your original 'Factory State' had Rescue and Recovery 1, you need to update to Rescue and Recovery 3 before you restore your backups.

[beeblebrox]

Dump that R&R trash and get Acronis True Image. Much better and faster.

After a few lost weekends with R&R I finally made the shift and never looked back.

[Nolonemo]

Second the suggestion for True Image

[schleptop]

If you updated the Rescue and Recovery software before you made your backups, you need to update the Rescue and Recovery software on your X40 before your restore your backups. In other words if the backups were made with Rescue and Recovery 3, and your original 'Factory State' had Rescue and Recovery 1, you need to update to Rescue and Recovery 3 before you restore your backups.

But surely I could only have made the RR3 backups if I had updated the software on the X40 to RR3 first? Or perhaps I didn't make it clear that I wasn't restoring any backed up files - I was doing a restore to the original factory condition (only). Any in any case, shouldn't the software tell me what I need to do? I can screw up things very well by myself, I don't need IBM/Lenovo to help me.

As to the other comments - LOL, yes, the first thing I did was install TrueImage and back up the whole drive. Not totally true - I did that after trying to update the drivers - then got hit by some wireless driver uninstall/install problem mentioned elsewhere, where the process just got stuck at that point. Another reboot fixed that (I hope).

[bluejamul]

I too am pulling my hair out with R&R. I want to install Trueimage but I want to get rid of ALL vestiges of R&R (like hitting the blue Access IBM button and not having the interminable wait, I just want it to launch the Bios setup). Any suggestions for completely removing ALL traces of R&R?

[GomJabbar]

I was doing a restore to the original factory condition (only).

There are 2 ways to restore to the original factory condition. If you haven't hosed the Rescue and Recovery workspace located on the hidden partition, then do the following (copied from Access IBM help).

2. Turn off your computer for at least 5 seconds. Turn on the computer. When the following message is displayed, press the blue Access IBM button: "To interrupt normal startup, press the blue Access IBM button." The IBM Rescue and Recovery workspace opens.
3. Click Restore factory contents and follow the instructions on the screen. Additional help is available from the Rescue and Recovery workspace.

The second way is to use the Recovery Disc set. You have to burn these (6-7) CD's using 'Create Recovery Discs' found in Start > All Programs > Access IBM, or (I believe it's called) 'Create Recovery Media' found in Start > ThinkVantage. The two varying names and locations all depend on how new your sytem is, but the result is the same. After you create these discs, you need to be sure your BIOS boot order has the CD/DVD drive listed before the hard drive. Then boot up from the Recovery Disc set CD's and follow the prompts. As I understand it, it goes through at least two boot processes as it installs the Hidden Rescue and Recovery area first, reboots and then installs Windows and the Factory Installed software.

(like hitting the blue Access IBM button and not having the interminable wait, I just want it to launch the Bios setup)

Just press F1 instead of the blue Access IBM button on boot up (from a powered off state), to go directly into the BIOS setup menu.

[schleptop]

It's the second way that I was trying. I'm sure it works fine for others, but I'm certainly not going to rely on it again.

[GomJabbar]

Sometimes CD's and other media goes bad. It's happened to me before with other software on CD's. It helps if you have a backup copy or two of everything.

[epic]

I have found that Thinkpad's are faily picky about CD/R/RW's. I ran across a issue similar to yours, with an older Thinkpad reinstalling FC2, the cd's worked fine the first time installing. I attempted to do a clean install, but the laptop just would not recognize the CD's. I tried 4 other computers and the CD's work just fine, I always burn my images at 2-4x to guarantee any rom will read them, but in this case it was a matter of the CD format. I was about to pull my hair out... when colleagues started to tell me I formatted the CD's wrong.

To say the least I have not had any troubles with TDK's reading on my ThinkPad's or any PC. I believe the cd's I used before were Memorex and Sony RW's, but since I experienced that I stay away from them.