T42 - HD killing me - Best course of action?

[ac|dre|gn]

Hi all,

My T42 recently began having problems and I'm hoping to get opinions on what would be the best course of action.

The situation is that after I boot into Windows, the hard drive indicator comes on within 1-2 minutes and remains on, and as a result things basically grind to a halt. When I open task manager, my CPU usage is pretty minimal so I'm not sure what that means for resources. I've run msconfig to disable all start programs and I still encounter the same error. I've also tried restoring my system to previous configurations with no success.

However, when I hit the IBM Access button during startup, I'm able to use the built-in browser (via ethernet) and my system's fine in this case with no slowdowns. This leads me to believe it's more a software issue instead of hardware.

So, my situation is now this. I have around 20 gigs of personal files that I need saved, and I also just bought a WD 320 gig HD to upgrade from the existing 60 gig one.

Should I try to restore my system before saving my files for the new HD, or somehow just salvage my files before installing the new HD from scratch?

I'm thinking about borrowing a friend's portable usb hard drive to backup my files. That said, I'm concerned due to the incredible sluggishness of the system within Windows, if it'd be even possible to back up all that information. Does my Thinkpad have any utilities where I can backup my files without having to boot into Windows?

Thanks in advance!

Jeff

[sjthinkpader]

Welcome to the forum.

Clone your old HDD to new HDD. Do a F11 system recovery with the new HDD. Then attach the old HDD and get the data off.

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to our forums.

If possible, do a thorough scan with an Antivirus program, or even better, with this: http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
Even as trial-ware, it will still do a full scan for any baddies.

But to use the old HD as little as possible, I would advise to remove it, put in the new HD, and install that from scratch.
Then buy/borrow a 2.5" PATA USB enclosure, insert your old HD in there, and copy the old files that you need, over onto your new HD.

[sktn77a]

Have you tried Windows safe mode to get your data files off the HD? I would backup your data files to another hard drive and do a clean OS install onto your new drive. If you clone your drive you might just transfer old problems to your new drive.

[ac|dre|gn]

Hello all,

Thanks for the help so far!

So, based on suggestions, I've installed the new hd and have put the old hd aside for now. So, now I have to figure out how to use the product recovery cd's or whatever to install windows onto the new hd. I've tried searching on the forums but I can't seem to find exactly what I need. Is there a step by step guide on how to do this? F11 recovery was mentioned, but I have no idea what that means.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Jeff

[91011]

It's not clear if you have a set of Factory Recovery Discs. If you do, Disc 1 is bootable and will start the restore process & all you will have to do is change discs.

If you need discs, PM me & I might be able to help you find a set.

John

[RealBlackStuff]

2 ways are possible to install from scratch:
- you have your own Windows CD or DVD and can install from that. Then you will need to install M$ DotNetFramework V2 incl. SP1, followed by Lenovo's latest SystemUpdate, to get all the IBM/Lenovo drivers onto your laptop.

- you have a set of Recovery CDs (came with laptop or bought elsewhere, e.g. in our Marketforum).
Insert Recovery Disk 1 which is bootable and follow instructions.

If you use Recovery Disks, the most important thing is to start with a 'virgin' drive.
That means not formatted, no partition(s), no operating system at all!
If you have something on that disk already, go to http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm and get the Bootable ISO Image of Active@KillDisk to burn a CD.
This will fully wipe your HD so that Recovery will work correctly.

[ac|dre|gn]

Hello all again,

Just an update,

I tried copying my files to an external usb HD. At several times though, I received a "cannot copy ....: Data error (cyclic redundancy check). Based on this, I used a hitachi disk utility to check the hd, and I found out that there were bad sectors! Not unheard of, I suppose, for a 5 year old drive under constant use (?). I'm assuming that the part of the o/s was within one of these bad sectors which was causing the HD to run endlessly. So, I backed up as much as I could from my existing hd, isolated the bad sectors and restored the system (I have both the 1 disc Rescue and Recovery cd, and the 7 disc Product Recovery CD set). I'm worried though that my existing HD will continue to incur more bad sectors, so I really want to transfer to my new WD 320 HD.

I then installed my brand new HD and tried to use the Rescue and Recovery CD on it to restore factory contents, but I received a "There was an error during initialization" message. I then tried to use the first disc from the Product Recovery CD set, and the Intel boot agent loaded up and I received "PXE-E61 : Mech test failure, check cable, PXE-M0E - Exiting Intel boot agent, Operating system not found" message.

I downloaded a couple of Western Digital disc utilities to check out the hard drive, but for some odd reason nothing seems to recognize the drive. The new HD is installed correctly with the pins facing up. Is there something that I'm not doing properly, or is this new HD defective?

Please help, and thanks for being so patient!

Thanks,
Jeff

[Harryc]

The new drive is not seated correctly in the drive bay.

[ac|dre|gn]

Hi Harry,

Thanks for the quick answer. I'm pretty sure though that the drive was installed properly into the drive bay. I swapped the hd drive cover onto the new hd, and slipped it into the bay until it was firmly in place.

Unless...there's something else I'm not doing right?

Thanks,
Jeff

[schmaud]

I would consider the following option:
- boot from the old disk
- install the accronis true image / private/ test or what ever the name of the free version was
- clone your old disk on the new one
- install new disk
- boot
- run check disk utility of your choice

worked for the hp of a collegue with a bad disk, he lost in total 3 files out of 80 GB

another lessonfrom this storry: Backup. esp. laptops. I recommend an external 2.5 inch disk, cheap and fast.

[poshgeordie]

Make sure you mount the HDD so it's upside down in the drive bay.