The secrect behind the protected partition?

[pace]

Aloha Thinkpad mates.

After 10 years I'm a Thinkpad owner again. I bought a new T60, a real nice machine. With some small deficiencies but not really deranging.
Anyway, the reason for my first post isn't really a new question. But after reading endless posts regarding this issue, I'm not cleverer than before. The issue: the protected system partition.

The story: After I'd tested the XP System I decided to reinstall a new individual one. Not an last to realize the working of the whole "Thinkvantage programs" by installing them step by step. But one mistake i made was to erase the protected system partition.

Before I killed the original system I noticed that R&R works together with this partition in any way. So I reinstalled R&R again.
But I excepted that I have an Option to built a new partition during the installation. Hm,..nothing. R&R will built 2 hidden folders on the XP system partition and Predesktop works fine but without to handle or create any protected partition.

So I started to look for guides that explain how to rebuild this partition and the way to install R&R that it will really use this partition.
Most posts I found were nothing more than hints. Sometimes for different models and mostly incomplete.

Does there exist a real good guide that explain the whole system behind the protected partition?
(How it works togehter with the BIOS option; what happens when I push the Thinkvantage button at boot; how to build such a partition; why has R&R access to this partion from within XP, etc.)

I hope I don't incapacitate myself with my fisrt post.

pace

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to forums.thinkpad.com

You may find most, if not all, answers about this 'magical' partition here: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Hidden_Protected_Area and here:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Rescue_and_Recovery

Bookmark both this forum and the thinkwiki, between them there is a wealth of information.

[bill bolton]

So I started to look for guides that explain how to rebuild this partition

If you made set of system recovery disks before you erased the hidden partition, you can recreate it be doing a recovery rebuild from that recovery disk set.

If you didn't do that, you can purchase set of recovery disks from Lenovo and do the same thing. The recovery set rebuild installs the hidden partition on the HDD.

Cheers,

Bill

[pace]

But afaik the recovery CDs will also rebuild the whole system and not only the recovery partition, correct?

@realblackstuff
Thx, so far. I will study these informations.

[Nick Y]

...If you didn't do that, you can purchase set of recovery disks from Lenovo and do the same thing. The recovery set rebuild installs the hidden partition on the HDD....

Assuming your T60 is still under warranty, you may well get the replacement disks for free if you phone the support line and explain the problem.

[Ken Fox]

You can copy the Windows partition with either Norton ghost 2003 or Acronis True Image (and possibly some other programs some of much might be free). You can then use the recovery CDs to put your machine back to fresh-from-the-factory state, which will include the service partition. You can then write over the windows partition with the imaging program, using whichever imaging program you originally used, putting your current windows partition on top of it.

You need to be careful to ONLY image the Windows partition and to only "restore" that windows partition in this process because if you overwrite the whole disk, the recovery partition will again be lost.

Problem solved, but takes several steps. I have personally done this a few times and it works.

[pace]

I'd this idea, too. Nice to know that this procedure will work.
I will request the backup CDs tomorrow.

If I can't rebuild the partition by hand, I try your way.