Backup by copying main partition

[Paul S]

I have copied the main partition from my T40 to another drive in the ultra slim bay and attempted to boot from the ultra slim bay drive. Now, if the main drive is not installed, the ultra slim bay drive will not log on. I get a "Windows Product Activation" message box that says

"A problem is preventing Windows from accurately checking the license for this computer. Error Code: 0x80090006."

It looks like partition backups will not work with IBM's version of Windows XP. Is there a way of getting around this?

[Conmee]

Just to be clear, are you trying to boot from the Ultrabay Slim drive that now contains a copy of your ThinkPad's internal drive, while the Ultrabay Slim drive is still in the Ultrabay Slim bay? Or did you copy the partition to a drive in the Ultrabay Slim adapter, then swap out your internal drive with that drive? lol Hope this makes sense, but I want to be clear about what you're trying to do. In other words, are you trying to boot from the primary partition on the primary IDE channel (internal) or the secondary IDE channel (Ultrabay)? I haven't tried booting from a partition copied from the internal drive on a drive in the Ultrabay. It might not like trying to boot off the secondary IDE channel.

However, I've used partition backups with both Ghost and Drive Image recently. And if I restore the partition from my internal ThinkPad drive onto a drive in the Ultrabay, then swap the internal drive out with the drive that was in the Ultrabay, it works fine.

Daniel.

P.S. I'm not sure I even understand what I just wrote there.... lol

[Paul S]

I copied the main partition on my main drive (i.e. the drive in the drive slot of the Thinkpad) to the drive in the Ultra Slim Bay.

If my main drive is still in the drive slot, I can boot from the UltraSlim Bay drive . If the location of the drives are reversed, I can still boot from the either drive. However, if the drive that contains the original partition is no longer installed, I cannot boot from the drive containing the copied partition from either the drive slot or the ultraslim bay.

Which model Thinkpad do you have? Maybe the Windows XP version on your model is different than mine?