Thinkpads Forum

I am really sorry, but my first post here will be the tritest FAQ, probably .

When our company buys new notebooks, I usually repartition the hard drive before giving them to the users. I use GParted to shrink the original Windows partition and to create a new primary partition. Under normal conditions, R&R keeps working after this procedure. One smart user, however, has re-installed WinXP. The R&R hidden partition is still there. Intact, hopefully, but unavailable. I deduce from the above that the problem is with the "wrong" MBR, overwritten during the Windows installation.

After searching through this forum (thanks to you all) I tried to use the Recovery Repair CD to restore the damaged MBR. It creates a RAMdrive named D:, spits some messages ("File creation error", "Invalid directory" and "Cannot make directory entry") and finally reports of "Sector not found writing drive C".

Anyway, the menu shown after "Access IBM" is pressed contains the R&R prompt now. It just doesn't work . When I select F11, the message "Missing operating system" is shown. I don't think that the hidden partition was damaged. At least, I can see its content from a Linux LiveCD. Even more interesting is that when there's a CD in the drive when I press F11, the notebook attempts to boot from this CD. I suspect that the reason for this is that the partition numbering has changed. The Linux fdisk shows the title of the hidden partition /dev/sda3, while it should be /dev/sda2, I believe. I deleted the second partition and tried again, but to no avail.

What else do you think I should try?

Thanks.

That might be a tricky one. First I would check to make sure the security for the Predesktop Area in the BIOS is set to Normal or Secure. AFAIK, you cannot boot into Rescue and Recovery when it is set to Disabled. If that is not the solution, then I would try to reinstall Rescue and Recovery. If you still have the C:\IBMTOOLS\APPS\IBMRNR\ directory, you should be able to reinstall from there.

GomJabbar wrote:First I would check to make sure the security for the Predesktop Area in the BIOS is set to Normal or Secure.

It's Normal.

If you still have the C:\IBMTOOLS\APPS\IBMRNR\ directory, you should be able to reinstall from there.

No . The partition was formatted during the installation.

Is there an online document describing how the RnR works? I can't understand how it selects the partition to boot from and suspect that the problem must be with this selection process.

Long time ago when people were debating whether if they can install linux before installing win98(and win95 OSR2 maybe) since win9x tends to overwrite MBR to cause lilo(default linux boot manager) to fail.

I guess RnR is like lilo. When you activate RnR (trying to restore the system on the main user partition) it set the boot pointer to your selection(in this case it's the hiddent partition, /dev/sda2), make it visible by assign the valid partition id, make it active(to be able to boot) before it hand over the control to the system on that partition.

I also remember everytime when I install win9x after I install linux, I always have to 1. fdisk /mbr under dos, 2. use linux boot disk to boot the computer and then 3. reinstall lilo, edit lilo.conf. to get both win9x and linux working.

Since the early version of lilo has this >1024 sector recognition issue, it was actually a little bit more complicate than above method, I usually give /boot an partition of say like 16MB and put all the kernels I want in it, then the second partition will be linux, third will be linux or windows, etc...

In your case, maybe reinstall RnR is the right way to go. You might want to find a program(under dos maybe?) to check to see if all the partition id are correct first to save some effort. I used to use programs like spfdisk or OSW(really long time ago) for multi-booting and modifying partition id to hidden(so that windows won't be able to mess my other partition up when I install it).

Just my .02.

teetee

Is this the fix you tried Master Boot Record Repair Kit?

teetee wrote:In your case, maybe reinstall RnR is the right way to go.

To re-install I will need the Recovery CD set, IMHO. Our local service center is very reluctant about ordering the set from Lenovo that I'd like to try all other possible ways .

You might want to find a program(under dos maybe?) to check to see if all the partition id are correct first to save some effort.

Agree. I only need to know what IDs are correct .

Kyocera wrote:Is this the fix you tried Master Boot Record Repair Kit?

No, it was Recovery repair diskette. Do you think I should try this MBR repair thing? Is it possible to use it from a USB drive or from a bootable CD?

Thank you all.

minaev wrote:Do you think I should try this MBR repair thing? Is it possible to use it from a USB drive or from a bootable CD?

I tried to run Master Boot Record Repair Kit from a USB drive. Alas...

Well Minaev, I had about the same error, some months ago.

I had the service partition unaccessable.

The only difference is that although i my country, Romania, the reluctancy is towards selling the recovery sets, not towards ordering and using them...they ordered a set for my laptop. And later made me a copy, since I was still warranted in some countries. Still I had to pay for that, too (Grey-zone service).

So gladly I rewrote the service partition with the recovery cd's...everything went smooth and l o o n g until the recovery procedure...it went about until 35% and then said, the system cannot be recovered, although it installed someting of the OS.

After that it neither booted, but entered into the recovery console.
So I realized that it should instead boot into the partition that had windows installed, and tried the recovery repair diskette, an ISO actually on a bootable CD, and after several attempts, with the various options (the 3.1 or 3.3 version of the diskette, NOT the 4.0-which is of little help under previous WinXP installations), the system booted into Windows and a DOS-like installer took over the machine and continued a OS installation, and finally booted a clean, fresh copy of its legitimate GUI Operated environment. Except the fact that IR did not work all the time, and there were some USB flash disks that it did not recognize.
(after that I went and made recovery disks very obedient and hoped never to have to use them)

Otherwise it went smooth. That time.

A second time I tried to do that, namely last friday on 30th of march, I went through the installer and stopped, upon reboot it entered the recovery console. I suspected that the recovery partition was still there and active...
I had ready an utility to view (Acronis Partition Expert Boot CD) which was active. Set the Windows partition to active, it tried again to reinstall the OS as last time, as above, it tried to boot, then said the gracious message
<Systemroot>Windows/system32/hal.dll - the file is missing or corrupt.

Hoping that the system was honest, I copied it from a desktop on a USB Stick, booted from a live CD, checked and stupor, hal.dll, was nicely fellowshipping with the others in the system. I compared with the filed i took from the desktop, and the seemed identical, but anyways, let us listen to the OS, and I copied the file, a "working" one. Same error upon boot.

After great attempts to lose my temper I still kept it .

Then I turned my attention to the recovery disks that I made. It took me about 12 hours to try to recover and to discover that they did not work, and the second recovery attempt with my cd's more than 8 hours (overnight).In the end stated 100% of the recovery process but didn't do anything for about 3 or 4 hours. When I rebooted the operating system was missing, or again the precious hal.dll or the partition with the OS was inactive.

Possible solutions:

1.

So I bequeath this attempt to the great IBM service...sometime later. Just to see if they can make it, since I have copies of their cd's. I think that you can send your notebook to the local IBM service and ask them to restore it to factory settings. In Romania it costs about 50Euros to do that, and a great warranty that you're not pirating any OS is to have that service partition still on the HDD.
That was my case. I am seriously considering coughing up the money so they restore it...until then I use another license on my computer since the one it has is transcendent

2.

Untill now I was reluctant to cash out for something I should normally be able to do...I had a friend from the US purchase original recovery CD's from Lenovo, I want to see if it fares any better, when he arrives, in april.

Hope You can manage it. Cheers.