Rescue and Recovery Question

[ppk800]

Hi all Thinkpads.com members:

Please help me answer the following two questions:

(1) I just bought an external hard drive (USB) to back up my T43. I used the Think Advantage Rescue and Recovery software to back up my entire computer. As I recalled, there was a pop up window informing that my USB hard drive was not a bootable drive and gave me an option to format the drive and make it a bootable drive. I chose YES and went on with the back up process. My question is whether I can still use this USB hard drive for other purposes such as an external storage of other data that I have in my desk top. In other words, can I just create some folders in the USB hard drive and copy my data from my desktop to this USB hard drive? Alternatively, can I now create an additional partition? If so, how? Would the additional data copied into this USB hard drive cause any problems to my recovery process in the future or scheduled back up process?

(2) How would I go about using the USB hard drive to completely restore my T43 back to the previous state, including data, settings, software, etc., in case of a total system failure or a replacement of a hard drive? The reason why I am asking this question is because I reason that in case of a complete system failure I would not be able to start Windows; as a result, the computer would not be able to recognize the USB hard drive and I would not be able to use the Think Advantage software to restore my system from the USB hard drive.

Your help and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

M

[GomJabbar]

1) I am pretty sure you can copy files to the same partition (or other partition) on the USB hard drive that you have your Rescue and Recovery backups on. After all, you can store your Rescue and Recovery backups on your main hard drive C: partition without any problem.

2) You do not need to be able to boot Windows to restore with Rescue and Recovery. You have the following options:

I. With the USB hard drive plugged in, boot-up into the Rescue and Recovery workspace by pressing the blue Access IBM button at the beginning of the boot sequence. Restore your backup from that screen.

II. With the USB hard drive plugged in, boot-up off of a Rescue Media CD that you have burned, and restore your backup from that screen.

III. Use the Product Recovery Discs to restore factory contents, then use option I. above. Note that if you use the Product Recovery Discs, all data and partitions on your main hard drive will be erased (your ThinkPad will be as it came from the factory).