Best way to restore T42p to factory state?

[texasdiver]

I've got a 4 year old T42p that has so much accumulated kludge that it runs like molasses and has various accumulated software glitches and conflicts.

I've back up everything of value and I just want to wipe it back to a pristine state.

I've got the original IPB Rescue and Recovery Disk with Rapid Restore and the IBM Product Recovery Disks 1-6 that I made when I bought the laptop.

Are there any detailed instructions for how to go about this?

Since the laptop is now almost 4 years old I assume once I do this I'll be updating a lot of drivers and that sort of thing, not to mention XP. Will Windows do most of this for me or will I be spending a long time getting the latest drivers for everything?

[killer]

Texasdiver,

Do you have Rescue & Recovery software installed on your T43p?
If you do then use it to restore your machine to the factory settings. (It's a good idea before restoring to make back ups on CD or DVD of anything you want to keep.)

I had to do a factory restore recently and spent quite a while getting all the lastest updates to Windows and Thinkpad software.
It is not too much of an imposition if you have high-speed ADSL.

[texasdiver]

I can't find anything called "rescue and recovery" on my T42p. In the Program files/Access IBM folder I have something called "IBM Rapid Restore Ultra 4.0" and "Create Recovery Disks" and "Create Rescue Media" but nothing called "rescue and recovery"

I do have a CD I made 4 years ago from the new computer called IBM Rescue and Recovery with Rapid Restore"

Do I just change my setting to boot from CD and run this disk?

[zdriver]

Why not just press the blue Access Ibm button before the os boots and do the restore from there.
Faster than using the cd's, and if your r&r cd was made years ago, it won't be any more recent anyway.
Then download the latest system update software and do the updates that are neccessary. If you install xp sp3, it is a complete rollup of all the os updates.

[killer]

IIRC, IBM Rapid Restore Ultra 4.0 was the same as Rescue and Recovery under a different name. So zdriver has indicated a quick way of restoring your system to factory settings.

Alternatively you could use "Create recovery media" and write to CD/DVD and that will provide you with the disks to do a factory restore.

I hope that makes sense.

[texasdiver]

Thanks guys, I just pressed my blue access IBM button during startup and from there everything was very easy and self-explanatory. Although it took close to an hour for everything to re-install. Didn't need the CDs at all. I guess they are for something like a total HD failure or replacement.

Once I engaged Windows Update it went out and got SP-3 and so I'm good to go. Everything is working perfectly again so I'm not going to mess around with any other driver updates that don't automatically install themselves through windows update.

MUCH easier process than I was expecting. I would have done this a long time ago had I known. Yet another great reason to buy IBM. I don't think any of my Dell laptops ever had this feature.

[crashnburn]

I guess I need to do the same. Can someone check and tell me the size of that partition. How much should it be?

[killer]

Crashnburn,
If you do a factory restore the partition space is allocated automatically.

[rbena]

I guess I need to do the same. Can someone check and tell me the size of that partition. How much should it be?

On my T42 and 30GB hdd, the Recovery partition was 4.59GB.

[crashnburn]

I tried the Blue Button with F11 option for Recovery.. and It went to ... NTLDR not found. ...

[Benoone]

Can someone check and tell me the size of that partition. How much should it be?

From thinkwiki,

"FAT file system (sometimes labeled "IBM_SERVICE", "SERVICEV001", etc.), and has partition type 0x12 ("Compaq diagnostics" in fdisk).

As opposed to a Hidden Protected Area Recovery partitions are ordinary partitions, accessible through the partition table. As they are ordinary partitions they are accessible by ordinary partitioning tools. They should be dealt with carefully.

Rescue and Recovery is a Windows-specific feature. If you intend to recover into Windows when you have an issue, it is important to follow the warnings here carefully. If you intend to run another operating system exclusively and never return to Windows, removing this partition is safe. If you remove it, you can still reinstall windows at a later time, provided you have created a Recovery set of discs. Booting from the Recovery CD will restore the system to the factory state including the recovery partition."

The partition on a T42 is 4.722gb in fixed size with about 4.3 used, it is a primary partition and normally partition 0-2** in the primary chain. The file type of 0x12 (decimal eighteen) makes it invisible to Windows and also invisible to most partition software including Partition Magic [PowerQuest] and Paragon. Linux normally does not have any problems.

** It usually does not care where it is physically located but it usually is always 0-2. If it is not there or if the actual MBR (differs from the partition table) shows it to be elsewhere then R&R will not work and... If you are trying to dual boot and put the second OS next to the primary OS then one would assume the Service Partition would then become 0-3... not so and you will also probably get the dreaded "missing hal.dll" error or no OS found.

Acronis Disk Director and it's big sister, Acronis TrueImage ECHO server 8.1> 8.5 manage it perfectly and are a joy to work with. True Image will image it and the main partition perfectly (except as above) and then restore either to the original disk or to another disk with no problems.

BTW, using Hirens on a USB Pen drive along with a 2nd drive in the UltraBay makes any laptop hard disk work a piece of cake.

Regards

Benoone

[goofyGAguy]

I tried the Blue Button with F11 option for Recovery.. and It went to ... NTLDR not found. ...

crashnburn, your Master Boot Record is likely corrupted. See if the following link can help you out...

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-62978