I Give Up on HPA

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stator · #1 Post by **stator** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 11:29 am

Greetings,

I have purchased a factory refurbished 2373-PU7, a T40, this week. I am trying to move my 100MB drive from the T23 into this one, but am trying to save the HPA so I can install XP on the 100MB drive.

I give up on reading IBM's site, searching here, etc. I tried to follow the process of creating one's own recovery CDs, but I cannot get FWBACKUP.EXE and FWRECOVR.EXE off the HPA partition (A:\RECOVERY). I do not have a floppy drive for this thinkpad and there are no other partitions available that are accessible after a normal boot.

So, I used a retail copy of XP Pro from my T23 (factory was Win2K) since the COLA sticker had the XP Pro license on the bottom of the Thinkpad T40. However, the activation would not work. Microsoft was of no help because the COLA license is not the same as the retail XP Pro install disk. They wanted me to use the COLA license that came with the retail XP Pro copy, or call IBM.

So I did call IBM and purchased a setup of recovery CDs for $45 plus shipping and tax.

HOwever, I would like to get this 100MB drive installed so I can use this new thinkpad for business on Monday. Anybody have any ideas on how to get those two files off? Can someone email these to me without breaking any licenses?

BTW, this is a great site here. I am sold on Thinkpad T series as this is the only notebook that survives in my saddle bags for the workday commute. HP, Compaq, and Dells have not survived. These usually last about 6 to 8 months before something breaks. My T23 has gone two years with no problems.

#2 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 3:43 pm

you are trying to create the recovery CD's from the recovery partition on your T40..?

so you can apply it to the 100gig drive in the T40..?

if so, then make the recovery CD's from the HDD supplied with the T40 and restore to the 100gig..

if this is NOT what you want, then please be a little more clear..

Guz · #3 Post by **Guz** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 6:17 pm

Quick question about the HPA / recovery partition.

If one makes the changes in the BIOS to make it visable/readable, can one revert it back to be hidden?

I don't want to delete it, I just want to see what's there.

#4 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 10:43 pm

last time i tried this you could..
they change these from time to time so your mileage may vary..

madmax · #5 Post by **madmax** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 11:19 am

It's sort of convoluted but here's a helpful link...

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... hlight=hpa

Matt_ · #6 Post by **Matt_** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 4:00 am

I have a quick question:

I was reading through this thread and also this one: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=18034

When I went into the bios settings, I noticed that the setting for the HPA was preset at "Normal"
"Normal: change allowed; contents hidden from OS"
"Secure: no user or sw-initiated changes"

If the setting were left at "Normal", would it be susceptible to (damage from) malware (viruses, trojans, et al.) ?

I Give Up on HPA

I Give Up on HPA

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