T42p: Rescue and Recovery backward compatibility w/ v.1.*

[gamesetmatchjje]

In case this topic has been posted someplace else on this forum, I apologize and I'll just say right now that I am a newbie here...even though I have seeked guidance from these forums from time to time.

I purchased my T42p about a year ago and it truly has been the greatest computer that I have ever owned. However, just a week ago the hard drive decided to break (the read write head is broken...but the hard drive still spins). I had a full backup of my computer made with Rescue and Recovery version 1.*. This backup is on an external USB 2.0 hard drive.

The true irony of this situation is what caused (or seems to have caused) my hard drive to break. This happened after I ran the software installer and downloaded and installed a new version of rescue and recovery (version 3.*). When the software installer prompted to restart Windows, I went ahead and did so. After restarting, the computer was never able to get passed the IBM splash screen when you first turn on the computer, and I could not load the R&R partition on my computer because, alas, that was on the hard drive that had broken. So it seems that installing the new R&R software was just enough to put my hard drive over the edge...quite ironic.

In any case, a friend of mine has a T43 and I tried using her R&R recovery software to rescue my files to her computer. She has R&R version 2.*. This version of rescue and recovery does not seem to be able to locate my backup. There were never any problems locating a backup on my old computer.

So my questions are these: is R&R versions 2 or 3 backward compatible to read a backup made with version 1? If not, is there some other program that might be able to read this backup or is there a way to get the newer versions of R&R to manually read the backup from version 1? Finally, does anybody locally (West Palm Beach, FL area) have a recovery disk set that has rescue and recovery version 1 on it for a T42 series? I have no problem purchasing them from IBM, however they say that the recovery disk will have R&R version 3 and I am worried that this will not be able to recover my backup.

Any assistance on this would be very much appreciated.

Thank you,
John

[w0qj]

In general, you download the latest Rescue & Restore version, use it for disk imaging, and stick with it. For reasons, see "**" below.

Your R&R v1.0 should have formatted it and made it bootable, then added your disk image.

***Therefore, just set your T42p to boot from external USB HDD (may need to go into BIOS to fiddle with the boot order), then the USB HDD will have the files needed to fromat your C:\ hard drive, and add in your stored disk image.

It does not matter what version of R&R on your C:\ if you can boot into your external USB HDD.


I use R&R v3.00.0025.00 extensively to image my hard drive (only Windows & applications. Backing up my data is just a simple copying to yet another external USB HDD).


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Note: "**": BTW, Are you sure you have R&R v1.0 with your T42P?
I have not seen such a v1.0 designation.

My T42 (2373-K5H) came with Rescue & Restore Ultra v4.0 if I remember correctly. Think in early'2005, the next version was called Rescue & Restore v2.0

The newer Rescue & Restore v3.0 I've read somewhere was incompatable with R&R v2.0 images.

Actually, the R&R v3.10 just released was incompatable with R&R v3.0 apparently, as many users were in serious headaches with this unexpected problem.

[gamesetmatchjje]

You may very well be correct. Since I can't access my computer at all, I was just taking a guess that I had version 1.0, since my friend's 2.0 version had different screens etc. and was far more streamlined (looking) than what I recalled of my R&R software. Therefore, I may have had R&R ultra 4.0, as you stated.

The problem is that the files that are supposed to boot the computer are corrupt. They somehow became deleted when I tried to rescue files off of the defective hard drive with my friend's boot disk. The only folders that are left are preboot and one other one which I believe is called drivers. If somebody could send me the files that would make my backup bootable again (from R&R ultra 4.0), that may be the key to this puzzle for me.

Thanks for everyone's help,
John

[gamesetmatchjje]

On another note, it is very surprising that IBM/Lenovo wouldn't make sure that their backup software was always backward compatible. If that is the case, then I'm sure that I am not the only person that has had this problem.

[pae77]

It's because of the potential for problems like this that I prefer for my primary and critical backup to simply clone my entire hard drive to another identical hard drive in the ultrabay using the 2nd hard drive adapter and the EZ Gig software that Lenovo kindly includes with it. Then a restore from a complete failure simply involves physically swapping out the primary hard drive and installing the cloned replacement. No messing with finicky restore environment/operations required.

I also back up to an external USB drive using Acronis True Image, for an additional level of protection, but would not be comfortable depending entirely on that.

[GomJabbar]

Your R&R v1.0 should have formatted it and made it bootable, then added your disk image.

- - - - - -
Note: "**": BTW, Are you sure you have R&R v1.0 with your T42P?
I have not seen such a v1.0 designation.

My T42 (2373-K5H) came with Rescue & Restore Ultra v4.0 if I remember correctly.

I have a T42. It has IBM Rescue and Recovery with Rapid Restore Ultra, version 1.00.0033.004 (as seen is Add or Remove Programs, or in the IBMTOOLS directory. This is also what is shown in the IBMRNR_README_101.TXT file located in following directory: C:\Program Files\IBM\IBM Rapid Restore Ultra\.

IBM(R) Rescue and Recovery with Rapid Restore(TM)
for Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 2000 and Windows XP
patch version 1.00.0033.004

If you go to Start > All Programs > Access IBM, you will see IBM Rapid Restore Ultra 4.0. So apparently it is IBM Rescue and Recovery version 1 with Rapid Restore Ultra version 4.

Now to the question at hand. I was not aware that the above makes the external drive bootable when it creates the backup. I have my doubts about this. If you have made a Rescue Media CD with the same version of Rescue and Recovery, you can boot from that, then restore your backup. Even better, if you made the Product Recovery Disc set, you can bring the new drive to factory state with a bootable Rescue and Recovery partition installed. After using the Product Recovery Discs, you can then restore your backup.