New T42p owner - some questions

[Mr. Cloud]

Hi guys, I just got a T42p 2373-A62 and I'm typing this post on it! I have a few questions:

1. The HPA on the T42p has been wiped, how do I go about getting a copy of the contents of the HPA? If that is not possible/legal, how do I go about ordering a set of recovery CDs to recreate that partition?

2. What is the FRU of the original power brick that came with the T42p? I have a 02K6666 and 08k8207.

3. Since this isn't a T43/p and it doesn't use a SATA-to-PATA bridge, can I just buy any IDE HD, stick it into the T42p, and get no error on boot?

4. The 9-cell battery is almost 4 years old and it's down to 37.86Wh out of the original 71.28Wh, and Battery MaxiMiser is advising me to recondition it, will reconditioning it help a lot, a little or not at all?

Thanks for taking the time to read my post!

[sugo]

1. Performing system restore with the recovery CD will be easiest.
2. It depends. There are many different power adapter FRUs for T42.
3. Any 2.5" 9.5mm IDE should work.
4. Conditioning can actually hurt the battery since it performs deep discharge.

[Harryc]

There is nothing illegal about obtaining recovery CD's if you have a valid COA for the OS on the bottom of the machine. You can ask for a set on the Marketplace forum, or call Lenovo and get one there.

[Utwig]

1) I was in same situation, so I just "imported" a set of recovery CDs over FTP from USA since they don't offer them even as pay-for option in Europe, only possibility was paying to have them do a factory restore.

PM if you're interested.

2) My powerbrick has FRU 08K8202, you want 72W Thinkpad AC adapter or 90W Thinkpad Combo Slim adapter (compatible with T6x and T4x adn bellow series). The best is to have several power bricks in places where you use your computer such as work desk, home office, living room...

3) Yes. Lookup benchmarks of Seagate 7200.1, WE 2500BEVE, Hitachi 7k100 on storagerview to decide.

4) Reconditioning helps a bit for a while. Time to start thinking about new battery, though I don't see any original new 9-cell ones in stock. In one case it resulted in 25 minute to 35 minute battery run-time. Also once battery worsens, at some point it will fail abruptly.

[richk]

You cannot recreate the recovery partition (T42p doesn't use HPA) without wiping out the disk. If you want recovery CDs, send me a PM and see if you need XP home or XP pro.