Thinkpads Forum

I created a set of recovery CD after I got my T60p, and then deleted the HPA partition. I tried to use it to recover the original setting today, but it fails to work. The startup disc works fine. It's the supplement disc didn't work: when I inserted the supplement disc, a "wrong disc" kind of message kept on showing up. I did use my desktop to check if there is any problem with the supplement disc, but found nothing. I don't know what's wrong with my copy of the recovery CD, but the truth is that I can't recover my system.

Questions: If I have a startup disc and a supplement disc (a DVD), can I try to set up a HPA partition manually? I googled this online, but looked like I can't do so. If I can't do that, could someone please send me his/her copy of recovery CD so that I can reinstall my Thinkpad. Thanks a lot.

Consider calling IBM support, explaining your issue, and request a set of recovery CD's from them. ... JD Hurst

If I remember the procedure correctly, you need to verify in the BIOS that the optical drive is before the hard drive in the boot order, and you need the Predesktop Area Security to be set to Normal. Next you boot up from the Startup Disk, then go to the menu choice to Restore Factory Contents. Next the contents of the Startup Disk are copied to the hard drive, then it asks you for the next disk. After inserting the next disk, the contents of it are copied to the hard drive. Next you are told to remove any disks and reboot. You end up back in the Rescue and Recovery workspace. You again tell it to Restore Factory Contents, then follow the prompts.

I am pretty sure you were following the same procedure until you received the error, but I posted the above in case you were doing it differently.

If I remember correctly, it should prompt asking if you have a supplemental cd.

Why not skip this and say NO if you suspect that only the supplemental cd is not working so you can proceed with disc 1 of the recovery cd set?

bontistic wrote:If I remember correctly, it should prompt asking if you have a supplemental cd.

Why not skip this and say NO if you suspect that only the supplemental cd is not working so you can proceed with disc 1 of the recovery cd set?

I think you are right. The procedure for my T42 does not ask for a supplemental disk, but I believe the procedure for the T60 does. AFAIK, the supplemental disk isn't normally used, so you skip that step and go to the next where it asks for disk 1.

I did skip the supplement disc, and the next step is asking for the Product Recovery Disc 1. However, after I insert the disc I created, it just says "this is not the correct disc" or something close to that. So... it stops copying all files into the HPA partition.

By the way, it seems that I find out a way to make it work. I think this is probably a bug in the recovery system. I have a set of T43p recovery CD as well, so yesterday I tried some combinations like T60p startup + T43p recovery disc or vice verser. This didn't work as it appears the same message yesterday. Today, I tried this several times again (actually I tried a lot of methods I can think of), and the last time I did it (T60p startup + T43p recovery disc), it did pass to the next step. Then I replace the T43p recovery disc by the "correct" one, and... it's copying files now. I don't know what's wrong with those discs, but it looks like it's not a good idea of backup the recovery system in blank media.

This time I will just leave the HPA partition inside the hard drive, till the day I won't install XP anymore.

cchsiao wrote:I did skip the supplement disc, and the next step is asking for the Product Recovery Disc 1. However, after I insert the disc I created, it just says "this is not the correct disc" or something close to that. So... it stops copying all files into the HPA partition.

I had the exact same problem with the recovery discs that I made from my X60s, which I got just last week. Fortunately, I have an OEM WinXP Pro disc from another machine, so I used that instead (in combination with the X60s's own COA key). I have 2.5 years of warranty left, so I will call Lenovo and try to get a set of recovery discs for free.

Although I can make it pass to the next step, I found that the HPA partition created by the startup disc seems not big enough. After copy ing lots of files from the recovery disc, it ends with saying "error: space not enough" or something close to that. I kind of have the same problem with my X41. I installed R&R 3.1 a while ago, but I can't installed anything like R&R critical patch (since the HPA partition is not big enough, as it says). If this is the case, even though I got the recovery disc from Lenovo, it's still a problem.

Question: Did anyone try to recover their system via recovery disc without the help of HPA?

cchsiao wrote:Question: Did anyone try to recover their system via recovery disc without the help of HPA?

Of course, I have done that on the T43 I currently own, and an X40 and T23 that I used to own. Recovery discs are supposed to work. You just got unlucky with your T60p (and me with my X60s).

Problem resolves!!!!

OK... After investigating a bit, I kind of know how R&R works now. The startup disc tried to create a temp partition with a temp directory to store all its files, and the real HPA partition will be created according to "recover.ini" in the product recovery disc. After creating the HPA partition, it starts to copy all the files inside the temporary directory into HPA and then copy all the files on the recovery disc into it. An typical content of this file is as follows:

[settings]
disk=1
totalsize=5470236672
islast=1

This totalsize indicates how large this HPA partition will be. When I checked my T43p recovery CDs, the totalsize is no more than 5GB, that's why I can't copy all my recovery stuff into HPA. So... what I did is: 1. burn an image of T43p recovery CD, and 2. edit the file recover.ini in the image so that the totalsize is the same as the one in T60p recovery CDs and burn this image to a new recovery CD, and 3. when asking for recovery disc 1, insert this CD to create the HPA with correct size, and 4. when it passes, replace this recovery CD by the T60p recovery CDs. Then R&R will copy all the T60p recovery stuff into HPA without missing a single file.

Right now I am trying to re-create a T60p recovery CD so that I don't need to "cheat" R&R. This is by replaceing all the files of the T43p image by the files of the T60p recovery disc. I believe this works as well, but the previous is proven to be fine.

Good job! Sounds like a lot of work though. You should still give Lenovo a call about the original discs being corrupted and I bet they will send you a new set free of charge.

Let me try to say in this way. The R&R works in the following procedure.

Step 1. When you insert the startup disc, R&R will create a temp partition, say "T:", to store all the files inside it. When this finishes, R&R will ask you to take out the startup disc and reboot.

Step 2. After rebooting, R&R will ask you to insert the supplementary disc which I don't have since I didn't create a 7 CD set of recovery CDs. Answer no to pass to the next step: insert the product recovery disc.

Step 3. R&R will create the HPA partition according to the file "recover.ini" in the product recovery disc. Once the HPA partition is created, R&R will start copy all the files in "T:", the previous temp partition, to the HPA partition. Before it really starts reading the product recovery disc, I can replace it with the "correct" one.

Step 4. When finishing copying the files in "T:", R&R starts to copy files in the product recovery disc into the HPA.

Step 5. After copying all the files, R&R asks you to reboot. Then the recovery system will take care of the rest installation process.

That's A LOT of copying.

So you mean recovery takes place while the HPA is hidden? I mean HPA is not visible during the recovery process?

Before I thought the HPA was hidden by R&R only after completing the recovery since I got some failed recovery before where the HPA was visible in OS becuase the recovery was not completed.

I am not sure if HPA is visible or not during the recovery process, since I didn't stop the recovery process. Probably next time I can try it.

If I am not mistaken, the HPA is hidden by a (special IBM) device driver in Windows.

Back when I had my T30 I ran into an issue with restoring the ThinkPad with the factory disk set. I recall that because I partitioned my H/D so I had a C & D. For some reason after making the extened partition I was not able to get the Restore to work.

Should I consider this to be a warning for my new T60 ? I made a Restore set of my T60 both before the partition and also after. Would anyone know If I will run into this issue............?

Thanks for your imput.

Truthfinder (Steve)