Thinkpads Forum

Posted: **Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:55 am**

i followed various posts on cloning but so far it doesnt seem to copy the hidden partition, i have a x31 with a standard 40gb hd am cloning to a hitachi travelstar 60gb 7200rpm hd, using acronis true home 10 and a usb adaptor. i 1st used the cloning method on automatic mode with the bios setting on predesktop on normal, it cloned my xp pro ok but with no access ibm otions. then 2nd try, i disable predesktop in bios, do a clone by using the manual mode on acronis now the hidden partition is shown but after cloning its exactly as cloning the 1st time with no hidden partition copied, i dont have the ibm recovery cds as i just got this x31 from ebay 2 months ago with ibm warrenty till end oct 2007. Am i doing something wrong as the posts suggests straight forward using acronis, or is the harddrive that i am using needing to be flashed to ibm setting. thanks for help.

Posted: **Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:16 pm**

kendo2222 wrote:snip.........then 2nd try, i disable predesktop in bios, do a clone by using the manual mode on acronis now the hidden partition is shown but after cloning its exactly as cloning the 1st time with no hidden partition copied........snip

Disabling means you have made it visible and have allowed the OS to reclaim the space. In simple words, you've deleted the hidden service partition.

Posted: **Tue Oct 09, 2007 12:45 am**

ryengineer wrote:Disabling means you have made it visible and have allowed the OS to reclaim the space. In simple words, you've deleted the hidden service partition.

Hmm, I don't think that is the case. AFAIK, disabling the hidden partition does not in and of itself delete anything on the partition, however care must be exercised while the hidden partition is disabled so that you do not accidently delete a critical file in it.

To the OP, I believe you are on the right track. The new hard drive you have may not be compatible with the HPA hidden partition. The hard drive needs necessary firmware to work with the HPA. Also it could be the way you are using Acronis that is causing your problem. I have never used Acronis, so I can't help there.

Here is some more info on the HPA: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/HPA

Posted: **Tue Oct 09, 2007 2:19 am**

I stand corrected, GomJabbar is right as always. What I actually meant to say was HPA will be removed (from it's hidden location ofcourse) but would be viewable in Windows and present on the HDD. Once successfully performing your required procedure you should set the security back to "Normal". I read this in Predesktop Area white paper a while ago so totally forgot what exactly was worded. Going back to it revealed a guide too, if you've proper equipment like a floppy drive you can try the following:

Creating an image of the hard drive

The procedure for creating and delivering an image of the hard drive with an HPA based system is different than the procedure for creating and delivering an image of the hard disk with a hidden partition. To create an image of a hard disk using an HPA-based system, you must complete the following procedure using IBM-supplied tools and a third party disk-imaging tool, such as Phoenix ImageCast, PowerQuest DriveImage, or Symantec Ghost.

1. Ensure that the Access IBM Predesktop Area security level is set to Normal. This is the IBM default setting.
2. Copy the FWBACKUP and FWRESTOR tools from the factory recovery area in the HPA using the following procedure:
a. Start the system and press the Enter key or the Access IBM button during startup.
b. Double-click the Recover to Factory Contents icon. The Recovery Menu is displayed.
c. Press the F3 key. A command prompt is displayed.
d. Change to the A: drive. (This is a virtual diskette drive in the hidden protected area.)
e. Change to the recovery directory. The command prompt displays
A:\RECOVERY>
f. Insert a diskette into the diskette drive, which is mapped as the B: drive.
g. Type copy fwbackup.exe b:
h. Type copy fwrestor.exe b:
i. Eject the disk and turn the system off.
j. Follow the directions below for using FWBACKUP and FWRESTOR.
3. Create an image of the hidden protected area using a command prompt to run the FWBACKUP tool.
FWBACKUP has the following format:
FWBACKUP size=<span file size must be between 25MB and
640MB> file=<Path and name of file set>
If you are creating an image of the HPA to a network drive, it must have a drive letter assigned. For example, if you want to store an image of the HPA space to drive D: that is of span size 640MB, the command is FWBACKUP size=640 file=d:\IMGSET
The image set consists of files IMGSET.001…IMGSET.nnn.
4. Create an image of the main partition using a third party imaging tool to capture first the C: partition, and then the main partition.
5. Restore the hard drive image using the following procedure:
a. Make sure the destination hard drive is blank.
b. Make sure that the master boot record is deleted and that no partitions exist on the hard disk.
c. Run FWRESTOR from a command prompt. FWRESTOR has the following format:
FWRESTOR file=<name of span file set>
If you are restoring an image of the HPA from a network drive, it must have a drive letter assigned. For example, if you want to restore an image from the D: drive that was created using the above example. The command would be:
FWRESTOR file=D:\IMGSET
This loads all the files in the image set (IMGSET.001 ...
IMGSET.nnn). All of the files in the image set must be in the same subdirectory.
d. When this is complete, perform a power cycle.
6. Restore the main partition using the normal procedure of your imaging tool.
7. Restore the security setting to High Security, if this setting was changed in Step 1.

Posted: **Tue Oct 09, 2007 4:58 am**

luckly whislt the bios was on disable it didnt seem to delete anything after the initial 2 clones, i had set bios back to normal, and decided to pop the original Hd back in as i felt more comfortable having the HPA. i will give the floppy method a try hopefully the later method of using the 2 tools mentioned dont get too tricky when i start to use them am still not so clear to the commands part. but i have a copy of norton ghost which came with my fujitsu laptop so i will try using their imaging or cloning software before trying out the floppy method, also if using norton ghost will i need to disable bios predesktop again first. I am experimenting with the 7200rpm hd which is from another laptop, but if all goes well i am wanting to upgrade to the hitachi 7200rpm mentioned on this forum, as whislt the 7200rpm hd was in my x31 i did notice the speed differences to the current 4200 rpm hd. many thanks for help.

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