Thinkpads Forum

I just obtained a used T42. I went ahead and restored it to the factory state (the whole hard drive) by pressing the Access IBM button at startup. However, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to create a set of recovery CDs. According to the Help file in Access IBM (and a thread I found here) I should be able to just go to Start > Programs > Access IBM > Create Recovery Disks or something along those lines. However, I do not have a "Create Recovery Disks" or any similar sounding item under my Access IBM folder on the start menu.

Anyone have any ideas?

This is the program that launches it. If you don't have it on your hard drive, then you can't create the discs.

C:\IBMTOOLS\utils\spi\reccd.exe

I don't even have a utils folder. I have apps, drivers, OSFIXES, and REGISTER.

You will not be able to make the CD's then. Someone along the way must have deleted the folder to free up space on the hard drive. Your best bet is to try and get a copy from someone else, or else order them from Lenovo.

This is kind of off-topic but I want to use Rescue and Recovery to copy a backup to a network drive but it won't let me pick which network drive or what network path; it just says "Backup failed" even though I was just copying, not "backing up" per se.

I don't want to post a new thread until I try stuff like asking here first...

GomJabbar wrote:You will not be able to make the CD's then. Someone along the way must have deleted the folder to free up space on the hard drive. Your best bet is to try and get a copy from someone else, or else order them from Lenovo.

Someone went into the hidden partition and deleted just this? Seems kind of odd. I did a full hard drive restore.

Maybe the CD creation application wasn't part of the package when my T42 was manufactured?

Luftwaffle wrote:Someone went into the hidden partition and deleted just this? Seems kind of odd. I did a full hard drive restore.

It is not in the hidden partition. C:\IBMTOOLS\utils\spi\reccd.exe is in the Windows C: partition.

I have not tried a restore from the hard drive as you did, so I am not sure how extensive that restore is. I have used the Recovery CD's on a brand new hard drive. A restore from the Recovery CD's does replace everything that originally came with the ThinkPad, including the above directory and files.

EDIT:

Luftwaffle wrote:Maybe the CD creation application wasn't part of the package when my T42 was manufactured?

It is possible. I have not read of this being the case on the T42, but I have seen several users of the T60 report this.

On my T42 you can make a set of recovery cd's after restoring to factory state. Each time you restore you can make another set.

Someone went into the hidden partition and deleted just this? Seems kind of odd. I did a full hard drive restore.

The used T30 I have was previously owned by a corporation. Many of the features that come standard on a Thinkpad that allow the user to configure, repair and restore the system have been removed, probably so the employees would not mess around with it. Perhaps that is why your laptop is missing some features.