Urgent! Need one file from T41 Recovery CD #1 (CMAPBUS.IMD)

[pmhutch]

Hi

I've been trying to re-install Windows XP on my T41 (2373-7FM).

It failed on the first restore CD withe an error message. Subsequent investigation with "damaged CD data retrieval software" indicates that the file CMAPBUS.IMD cannot be read. The rest of CD #1 and the other 4 Cds alll look OK,

Lenovo phone support say they can't help as it's an IBM machine. IBM "parts" department have quoted a ridiculous price for the CD and also a ridiculous price for hsipping (plus a wait of up to 10 days).

It woudl be great if someone could transfer the required file (or maybe the whole CD) to me electronically (e.g. upload to http://www.dropsend.com, with the destination as your own address, and then forward to me - or alternatively, send to me at the address below).

Thanks so much!

Regards
Paul
Melbourne, Australia

PS The damaged file is quite large (over 500MB, I think) but it should go through via dropsend.com (allows files up to 2GB).

email: pmail7-main <at> yahoo <dot> com

[GACrabill]

It failed on the first restore CD with an error message. Subsequent investigation with "damaged CD data retrieval software" indicates that the file CMAPBUS.IMD cannot be read. The rest of CD #1 and the other 4 Cds all look OK.

Have you tried copying the "bad CD" using an "exact copy" function (ie. RecordNow) ?
The automatic error recovery which occurs during an "exact copy" operation is far better than the almost non-existent recovery which occurs during an actual "boot-and-load-operating-system" process.

More importantly, have you tried an "exact copy" process using a different CD drive than the one that currently has trouble reading CD#1 ?

Have you "polished" CD#1 with car polish ?
You might be surprised how easily a few polishing attempts can make a CD or DVD "readable" again.

[pmhutch]

Thanks, GACrabill, I'll give that a try.

In fact, following advice I saw in another post inanother thread, I'm also implementing another solution. I've taken the Win XP restore disk from my desktop and re-installed from that, using the Licence key from the Thinkpad. All seems to have gone well so far. Obvioulsy there are no Thinkpad-specific drivers, so teh screen resolution is incorrect, networking and various other things don't work. Next stge will be to downlaodand install all the latest drivers, and to keep a full set of them on a separate CD or DVD. This way, there may be some updating of Win XP to the latest Service Pack, but probably not as much updating as would be required form the pre-2004 versionof XP on the official restore disk.

WIll try the RecordNow and car polish ideas anyway to know for the future how well they work.

Thanks v. much for the tips.

Rgds
Paul

PS Incidentally, dealing with Lenovo and then IBM was an absolute nightmare: passed from 'team' to 'team' in the Indian call centre, with a lot of confusion as to the support (if any) and supply of parts for an IBM-branded Thinkpad. I've been loyoal to the TP brand for years (I've had 5 TPs, I think), but this experience (on the phone for at least 90 minutes being messed around) almost put me off. But I guess the experience could be the same in any large company.

[pmhutch]

PPS Thanks so much to Bill Morrow for running this very useful forum - much appreciated!