Recovery CD saga - T40

[j-g]

Got Recovery CDs?

Background:
I've bought a few T30's and T40's in my time. I was able to convince 1-800-CALL-IBM to send me recovery CDs for one T40, because it was still under warranty at the time. (The leasing company re-imaged the T40's with a "vanilla" WinXP image. I bought "just off-lease," w/o recovery CDs.)
I finally had a hard drive crash on a T40 of mine. I put in a "temporary" 10GB drive, it re-imaged beautifully from the five CDs. But that drive lasted only DAYS.
So, I put a Hitachi Travelstar in there (60 GB, 4200 rpm).
I tried restore with the recovery CDs.
It never prompted to re-install the hidden recovery partition, altho it did boot to PC-Doctor.
So I got PC Doctor to perform a low-level format.
The next time I booted with CD1, it asked me to install the Recovery partition, about 3-4GB, and I did so.
But it didn't get far past that:
Error #1802. Image file is invalid or corrupted.
...at about the point with 15% entire progress - 21% Copying Data progress bar.

I've made TWO copies of that 1st recovery CD. BOTH had the error! (The first CD that worked fine on the 10GB drive only got to the 2% 3% progress. I sold two T40s to a place a fair distance away, and they "required" the original CDs to make the sale.)

For now I will try a "vanilla" XP install, and try to get the drivers the hard way via the web, or the TP install ActiveX control, etc.


Is it WORTH trying to make another copy of that CD #1?

Do any of you suggest trying to, er, "cut and paste" the files/parts of 2 CDs to make one good one? (Frankenstein's CD solution)

Should I bite the bullet and get the original/buy another set of recovery CDs?

Can anyone sell me a copy of a T40/T41 recovery CD?

Please advise...

[richk]

Run a drive fitness test on the hard drive. I'm guessing the problem is there.

[j-g]

The HDD seems to be fine:
It just took a "vanilla" install of XP ok, so it formatted and chkdsk'ed OK as part of the install also. I used PC Doctor to test the CD#1, and it had a bad sector read error, causing a FAILED test result.

TYVM for the quick reply

[Temetka]

Call Lenovo and tell them the set they sent you is not working. Offer to send the faulty set back in exchange for a new set. They might be willing to do so. If they do then you have a new set of discs. If not you only wasted about 5 - 10 minutes.

Worth a shot at least.

[The Spirit of X21]

If you can't get CDs from Lenovo, send me a PM.

Moderator edit: You know why!

[j-g]

Thanks for the quick replies again. Good ideas...I'll try the phone call... stay tuned.