No hidden recovery partition in T40?

[SteveS]

I bought a couple of used T40’s that I am trying to clean up. As they have had many programs installed and removed by the previous owners, I wanted to put a clean Windows install in them. This is proving difficult.

They were both manufactured in Oct 2003. I cloned the drives to larger ones using Norton Ghost. Neither of the original drives appear to have a hidden recovery partition. Was this something that was added after the early T40’s were produced?

I purchased a used set of T40 recovery CDs and tried them on a new drive. The set (FRU 01R8046) uses 4 disks, plus a “security update disk”. Running these loaded the disk, but also did not create a hidden recovery partition. Also, windows XP was not activated, and activating over the internet (via LAN) does not work. I called the Microsoft number provided on the screen, and the agent gave me a hard time about giving the activation code, despite the fact that the PC has a valid COA. (I suspect the COA vintage is not compatible with the disk version – probably a different SR level). She finally gave me a code that worked, but only for a couple of boots. Not I get the "This version of Windows needs to be activated before logging on" message.

I am about ready to give up and use the original drive images, hoping for no windows problems.

Three questions:

Did the early T40’s not have a hidden recovery partition?

Did early T40 recovery CD sets also not generate a hidden recovery partition?

Do T4x recovery CD sets usually require windows activation? (If so, why has e-bay added them to their banned items list, claiming that they allow the installation of software without proper license?)

[ryengineer]

snip.....Neither of the original drives appear to have a hidden recovery partition. Was this something that was added after the early T40’s were produced?.....snip.....Did the early T40’s not have a hidden recovery partition?.....snip

Nope. Neither of those drives have service partitions because the previous owner had probably wiped them out. Or the Security in the BIOS for Predesktop could had been set to Disabled.

snip....Did early T40 recovery CD sets also not generate a hidden recovery partition? ....snip......Do T4x recovery CD sets usually require windows activation?......snip

No on both, the problem you experienced is because either you didn't format the drives before installing the Windows from Product Recovery disks or you've a bad burn of the media.

[chan_man]

Very true.. when you want to reinstall using the recovery disks to create the hidden partitions, you need to remove all partitions on the drive before starting. Once this is done, boot with the first disk. The process will run a couple of hours. The new install will NOT ask for activation.

[SteveS]

Thanks chan_man. I removed the drive partitions and repeated the process, this time disk 1 prompted me if I wanted to create the hidden partition.

It is amazing that the “Instructions for using recovery disks” which can be downloaded from Lenovo’s web site fails to mention this. It is painfully detailed on how to set the CD-ROM to first boot device in the BIOS, and return it after the re-install, but says nothing about how to actually perform the recovery.

[chan_man]

You are right.. there is no mention of the need to remove the partitions. I know this from repairing many thinkpads in the past.

[SteveS]

Update that members may find interesting:

After successfully installing the hidden partition by first deleting all partitions on the target drive, it disappeared again!

The restore disks I have install Windows XP at SR-1 level in the visible working drive, and the hidden partition as in the factory shipped T40. I ran Windows Update which only installs patches for SR-1. Upgrading to SR-2 takes a dedicated click on the upgrade page, due to the large size of the download. So I ran that overnight. It successfully installed XP at SR-2 level, retaining the IBM dedicated drivers.

But surprise – upgrading to SR-2 wiped out the hidden partition! I found this out when I cloned the drive for a backup using Norton Ghost. Before the upgrade, 2 partitions showed up. After, there is only one, and the visible drive size is about 3.5 GB larger.

This is probably how the partitions were wiped to start with, as both PCs were running XP at Service Release-2 level