Lenovo closing out Bootable USB flash drives

[SteveS]

Lenovo is closing out their private labeled USB flash thumb drives. They currently have a 1 GB model for US$8.99 + tax, which includes shipping.
These are special drives in the fact that they are the only ones that T4x series can boot from. Other flash drives, including some of Lenovo’s, are not recognized by the BIOS to allow booting from. My 1 GB just arrived and I verified that you can boot from it, after formatting it with the supplied software.

I use one of these thumb drives to run a couple of scripts for cloaning drives using Ghost 2003.

If any member would like a bootable USB drive for their T4x, you might want to act fast before they are sold out.
Lenovo link below:
http://stores.channeladvisor.com/Lenovo ... k=13031763

[underclocker]

This is a pretty good price on a 1GB memory stick (although buy.com has a 2GB for $10 - http://www.buy.com/prod/kingston-2gb-hi ... 37104.html )

FYI, I've been able to boot T4x's and other ThinkPads from pretty much any USB memory stick. I use the HP memory stick format utility.

[SteveS]

underclocker wrote:

FYI, I've been able to boot T4x's and other ThinkPads from pretty much any USB memory stick. I use the HP memory stick format utility.

Could you give more information on the HP utility?
Back in the days of floppy disks, the only difference between the regular formatting process and the option to make the floppy bootable was the latter finished by copying the two system files (IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM) to the newly formatted disk. You could convert any floppy to bootable after the fact by copying these files onto it.

Not the case with USB flash drives. Yes, they have too system files copied on them, but just copying those onto a empty drive is not enough – the T40 gives an error message when you try to boot to such a drive.

I was told the BIOS only recognized certain IBM/Lenovo drives, but this may not be the case. The utility software that is on the CD that ships with the IBM/Lenovo drive will only perform the bootable format function on certain USB drives however. It sounds like this HP utility works on any flash drive. Is it available for download?

[superboss]

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

[rush242]

Not the case with USB flash drives. Yes, they have too system files copied on them, but just copying those onto a empty drive is not enough – the T40 gives an error message when you try to boot to such a drive.

I was told the BIOS only recognized certain IBM/Lenovo drives, but this may not be the case. The utility software that is on the CD that ships with the IBM/Lenovo drive will only perform the bootable format function on certain USB drives however. It sounds like this HP utility works on any flash drive. Is it available for download?

I used this last time:

HP Drive Key Boot Utility

But it was a while ago...

[Aroc]

I used that same HP boot utility on a Lexar branded USB flash drive (jumpdrive label) back when I got my T43. In fact, I used it the Lexar to boot the T43 to reflash the firmware on my Hitachi 7k100.

[Brad]

I used the same utility on a Sandisk 128mb USB flash drive and all I get is the blinking cursor in the upper left corner.

Any ideas?

Brad

[SteveS]

Flashing cursor in upper left corner indicates the drive does not have a boot sector, or it is truncated. Same thing happens when you use drive cloning software such as Ghost and don’t set the switch to copy the entire boot sector, not just the default size. ThinkPads use a larger boot sector.

I tried the HP USB Drive Key Boot Utility on a Lenovo Essential 256 MB USB drive. (The Lenovo boot utility will NOT work on this drive). The results are failure. I used the selection to make it a bootable hard drive, and the utility indicated success. When I use it, I get a long loading process, followed by a message reading “Initializing all devices DO NOT REBOOT. It stays stuck here for several minutes! Then a screen full of error messages appear.

The Lenovo utility yields a drive that boots almost instantly into PC DOS environment. Someone could probably hack the code where the utility checks for a recognized Lenovo drive before formatting it to make it work with any drive. But since the prices on these closeout drives are so cheap, I ordered a couple of spares. It is not worth my time to try to get the HP utility or those mentioned on bootdisk.com to work.

[Johan]

I would be interested in getting one of these USB memory-keys. If there are any (kind and helpful!) forum members in the USA who is about to order one - and who would not mind also ordering one for/one behalf of me - it would be highly appreciated (as Lenovo/USA will probably not ship directly to Denmark). I will of course pay shipping costs from USA and onwards to Denmark... e.g. via PayPal.

Thanks in advance, if...

Best regards,

Johan

UPDATE - Friday, Feb. 15: Thank you, you forum friends who instantly have replied via PM offering to help me with this "international affair"; James came first and I gladly accepted his very friendly and helpful offer - but thank you all: James, Scott and Brad. Wow - how much I just continue to LIKE this forum - owing to such people like you. I owe you, friends!

[jamiphar]

The other sizes are on sale, too: http://stores.channeladvisor.com/Lenovo ... k=13031763

[rkawakami]

Just received my order of the USB keys. Using the included CD and running the "MemKeyBoot" program I was able to install the FreeDOS OS on the key and then get a T23 to boot from it. With the key already formatted with the boot program and connected to the T23's USB port, I accessed the BIOS Startup menu, expanded the Hard Drive entry and moved the Lenovo Memory Key 1GB-(USB) device up before my Hitachi hard drive. Exited BIOS, saving settings and I was greeted with FreeDOS version 1.1.35. I also received this message:

- InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 0e: with calculated values 7710-7-32 instead of 670-7-32

I would suppose that it's simply a message indicating that it's using a larger disk size than "normal".