How do I Boot T23 from a USB 2.0/3.0 hard disk

[ajc001]

My old laptop died, so I bought a hard disk enclosure and put the hard disk (XP Home Edition SP2) from the dead laptop in it.
When I plug the hard disk into the USB port of my IBM Thinkpad T23 (also running XP Home Edition SP2), I can see everything which is great but what I really want to be able to do is boot from this drive. The reason being that I have a ton of software installed on it that I need to be able to continue to develop against.

When I check the IBM BIOS Setup Utility the USB BIOS Support is Enabled.

When I go into the F12 temporary boot options, the only hard disk drive visible is the internal hard disk of the T23.

I was hoping that the USB hard drive would be visible and could be set as the primary boot device over the internal disk but obviously because it does not appear I cant do that.

What am I doing wrong?

I have seen that others have successfully got USB hard drives to be bootable and cant determine what it is about my setup that prevents me.

Please help - I am no expert so please go easy on me with the techy jargon.

Regards Anthony

[ajc001]

I have since been able to set the USB hard drive as the primary boot disk - it suddenly appeared as a hard drive in the temporary boot setup.
However when I attempt to boot using the USB hard drive, the screen goes blank except for a blinking cursor in the top left. I leave the computer for over 10 minutes to see if it bursts into life but nothing happens.

Any ideas?

[Magreve]

Anthony, darlin, is some o' the reason the _first_ computer died was that its hard drive was going south?

The very fact that you were able to see it _at_all_ on the other PC ... means it is not yet toast. But it may have (a) very little boot-ability left, (b) a bad spot where the boot sector is (and no fix for that except base reformat, or specialized bits-and-bytes software, that I know exists, but is usually pricey and others will chime in here, I expect), or (c) just general wear-tear at crucial spots, such that it can't be read for boot at all (hence that blinking cursor).

If I were in your shoes I would be ... (a) booting the 2nd PC as itself and (b) inserting that USB drive enclosure so's I could see it ... then (c) frantically copying off all data / programs whatever, preferably to some other external drive on another USB port (e.g., I have a half-terabyte for just this purpose).

You may have very few boot accesses left on that original drive ... a friend of mine had an old desktop she had never properly monitored / done housekeeping on ... and it crashed ... I took the HD, put it in an enclosure, got one good boot out of it ... but that was sufficient to copy off her data (family photos, tax stuff, etc.). She now has new PC and better backup scenario going. Old drive = burnt toast.

So, proceed cautiously, good luck!!

You most likely will need new HD and new installs of your programs ...
(I copy all my install disks onto the external half-tera ... I can always re-install from there, makes life easy).

[Neil]

My old laptop died...

What model was this old laptop? If it's much (or at all) different from the T23 it's not likely to boot, even if you swapped it into the T23 drive bay. OTOH, I've seen that blinking cursor appear when the MBR is missing or corrupt too, so it might just be a matter of repairing the MBR, and see if it will boot then. Might have to put it in the drive bay to do that though.

[ajc001]

The dead laptop was an Amilo Pro V2085, Model MS2176 from Fujitsu.

wrt fixing the MBR(master boot record) - I am currently running the Tools/Error checking utility in the propeties tab of the USB drive within Windows Explorer, with the 'Automatically fix system errors' and 'Scan for and attempt to recover bad sectors' options checked. The utility runs in 2 phases and the first phase has completed without errors and the second phase appears to be running (USB light flashing continuously) despite the utility gauge not progressing for the past 10 minutes.

Ultimately, if this doesnt work - how do you fix the MBR of a hard disk that does not boot?
If I tried to put the dead Amilo Pro disk in the thinkpad internal disk bay - is there any danger that the thinkpad will experience even worse problems due to incompatabilty. I dont want to blow up the thinkpad too!

Any feedback on the above or other ideas would be appreciated.

[Neil]

It's almost certain that the drive will not boot in the T23. The Fujitsu is just too much different from the ThinkPad. The HAL, among other things, is just too different.

I would use a bootable CD to test any hard drives and try repairing a MBR, but that's probably not going to help you here. Although you could test the integrity of the hard drive with such tools.

If the hard drive is healthy, damage to the ThinkPad is remote. If it goes beyond the flashing cursor, it will almost certainly throw up a Windows Protection blue screen, and fail to boot.

If the T23 is your "new" laptop, and you are going to continue using it, the best option is to copy your files over from the Fujitsu drive, and re-install the apps you need to use the files. Forget about trying to boot the old drive...it's just not going to work, unless you get another Amilo Pro V2085 to put it in.

[Magreve]

This may be a dumb question, but ...

Did you go to the Lenovo support site and see if there's an MBR recovery pgm there?
I just found one for the X41 ... don't know if it does anything ... but ...
if there's one for _your_ laptop ... maybe that could help?

Otherwise, you need disk recovery software ... stuff that bypasses bios / etc. ... not for the nervous ...

http://www.hard-drive-recovery-software.com/
http://www.diskdoctors.net/

... or look up PC Magazine or other sources that you trust ... for recommendations.

[Neil]

Just thought of something else you may want to try just for giggles. Boot the CD version of Acronis True Image, and make a back-up image (not clone) of the Fujitsu drive. Acronis has an option to make a back-up image that is bootable on a different PC than it was created on.

Might not work... but it's something else to try.

[ajc001]

Well Neal, that prognosis sounds pretty terminal. The error checking is still chugging away, it is now in 'phase 4' - god knows how many phases it has.

Anyway in the meantime I also have a Dell Inspiron 1525, albeit pretty busted too, in that it has a busted Windows Vista install. My intention was to try and get the Amilo Pro USB disk to boot up in that. I dont suppose you know whether that is a no go option too.

I appreciate that I am going beyond the bounds of the Thinkpad T2x series forum here but just thought I would get your thoughts on it. Alternatively, how does one determine what new laptop to buy that I can use to boot the Amilo Pro USB disk?

[Neil]

The old disk in not likely to boot in anything other than an identical machine to the one it was installed in. You have as much chance of getting it to work in the ThinkPad as anything else. Makes no difference whether you boot from USB or internal IDE.

In my opinion (certainly not the last word), the only hope of booting the old drive is the back-up image option. The Dell might be a good candidate for installing the recovery image, since you are going to blow out the busted Vista install anyway, right?

PS - Is this drive from the Fujitsu SATA? I know nothing about this machine... What about the dell? We know the T23 is PATA IDE, are the others?

[ajc001]

The Fujitsu hard disk is SATA.
The dell inspiron 1525 is probably SATA too (as it is newer) but I cant confirm by looking at the Dell support spec for the laptop.

I suspect you are going to say that my SATA fujitsu disk cant be booted in laptops that use PATA(ie.T23's).
Leaving me with the option of trying to boot the SATA fujitsu disk in the Dell or the backup image option.

If this is the case what do you mean by the back-up image option?

Thanks Anthony

If I ever get the Dell to actually boot then yes I intend to wipe Vista and put something like Linux or Windows XP SP2 on it.

[ajc001]

Neil, just trying to download the Acronis True Image now. I presume this is the image option you were referring to in later posts.

[Neil]

Stick that Fujitsu hard disk in the Dell and just see what happens. It might just boot, but probably won't. That is probably going to be the best way to make the back up image anyway if it won't boot. You will boot Acronis from the CD, you won't have to boot the hard drive at all. Acronis will make a backup image of the drive, whether it will boot or not.

On a different note, I still don't understand why you are trying so hard to boot this Fujitsu drive...why not just copy the files you want to save to a working computer, and just be done with it?