Cannot boot from a CD in the advanced dock

[cadillacmike68]

System: T61 6343-xxx with Middleton BIOS
OS Win 7 64 bit
Intended program Acronis True Image 11 or Disk Director 10
Internal bay: 500GB HDD
Thinkpad's ultrabay: 160GB or 500GB HDD
Adv dock ultrabay: CDRW / DVD or DVD Multi

When I press F12 at boot, I only get to choose from the two HDDs (and network boot which is irrelevant).

If I put the 160 or 500GB in the adv dock and the CD/DVD in the Thinkpad's bay, then I can only choose from the main HDD or the CD. I do not see any option to use the dock's Ultrabay as a boot device.

What's going on here?

I have read on the forums and can see on my screens that anything in the advance dock's Ultrabay is referred to as a USB device ?????

Yeah, that one has me stumped. The old dock II didn't do that, but that won't work with a T61.

I'm trying to get 4 win 7 systems set up, all T61s with Intl graphics. The Idea is to get one set up the way I want and then to clone the HDD to the other three 9 for me, 2 for the boss lady), but I can't get the T61 to boot from ANYTHING in the Ultrabay.

So I put the CD in the ThinkPad's bay and the target disk in the Ultrabay. I booted from an Acronis bootable CD and it loads. It sees the two HDDs. I configure the partitions - three total, the first in that crazy win7 SYSTEM-RESERVED at 1.172GB. The 2nd is the main partition. the 3rd is the Lenovo Recovery partition. I match the 1st and 3rd and let the 2nd take the available space.

It starts, then a couple minutes later it says clone operation failed. Only thing I can do is power off and restart.

I looked at the partitions and it looks like it made the first one (the Sys reserved) but choked on making the 2nd one.

I'm thinking it might be the placement of the target disk. in that case I'd have to install True Image (and Disk Director) onto the win 7 HDD, put the target in the ThinkPad's Ultrabay, leave the dock's bay empty, and run it from windows. I can do that, a real pain, and I'm not sure if that will help.

Is there any BIOS setting or TP configuration that I can use to make the system boot to whatever is in the dock's ultra-bay??

Is the Middleton BIOS intefering with the operation of the advanced dock?

Thanks in advance, Mike.

[hhhd1]

if you can not boot from a HDD or a DVD because of BIOS limitation, you can try either 'Plop Boot' or 'Hiren boot USB/DVD' to boot from any connected device.

There are some Lenovo essential (non Thinkpad) that would only boot from secondary bay's DVD, but it doesn't boot from a HDD connected in the same bay.

[cadillacmike68]

I figured it out.

I went to my wife's setup (T61 8897 XPP Adv Dock, etc, two 16:10 monitors, etc.). Hdd in the main bay, HDD in the T61s Ultrabay and CD/DVD in the Dock's Ultrabay.

Powered it up and pressed F11. I pressed it too soon, and the system hung. Power off and retry this time with the T61's lid up. Got to ThinkPad logo screen and pressed F11. Got the temporary boot menu and lo & behold the ATAPI CD1 was showing along with the two HDDs!?!?!?!?!

I went into Setup, then Startup, then Boot. Saw a list of about 10 allowable choices and figured out how to manipulate the list. I removed LAN boot and USB HDD from the allowed list to make room for all the regular HDD and CD options.

Then I went back to my system and again had to make room for the ATAPI CD1 by removing LAN boot and USB HDD boot. I do not have any USB HDD enclosures and don't really need one with the T61s and the Advanced Dock. After that, I could boot the system, press F11 and the two HDDs inside the T61 AND the CD/DVD in the Dock's Ultrabay are all listed, and it works.

It's still finicky. The blue thinkvantage button is useless. First it times out after a few seconds - can't even read the screen before it boots the main HDD. Second, if I get to F11 quick enough, it can't find the Dock's device (whatever it has in it) and I only get the T61's devices as options. So forget the blue thinkDISadvantage button!!!!!, just use F1, F12 (or F11 for recovery or F8 for winblows startup options as needed).

Still can't get Acronis True Image 11 to clone a Win 7 HDD. It still makes the first SYS-RESERVED partition (actually Windoze Boot Manager!!!) but craps out on making the 2nd (main OS) partition. Says something about the operation needing 49,710 days ????? and then dies with Clone Disk Operation Failed.

Interestingly, that SYS reserved partition is a good copy, because I took that disk and put it in an empty T61 and it booted to the winblows boot manager, but couldn't go any further because it "cannot find the needed device" (that being the win 7 OS volume!).

So now I'm going to hound the Acronis forums. I used these T61s to clone many a XPPP HDD before with the SAME hardware, so I don't know what's going on.

If anyone here has figured out how to clone win 7 HDDs with Acronis, please let me know. I see a lot of failed posts on their forums, but no real solutions.

Still weird that the Dock's Ultrabay shows as a USB connected device, but it does not seem to affect booting from it.

[RealBlackStuff]

I used Acronis 2014 to do exactly that.
Acronis is installed on my desktop and I used this setup:
- the source (1.8" SATA-SSD) is attached via Sabrent USB-STP3 to a desktop USB-port
- the target (2.5" SATA-SSD) is attached via Apricorn DriveWire to another desktop USB-port
(For both drives you could also use an USB-enclosure instead, if you have them).
Then just run Acronis's Clone-function and off you go.

If you have more targets (like in your case) or you have only one USB-enclosure, take an image of the source-drive and store that on your PC/laptop.
Then restore that image on one or more of your target-drives.
Much faster than trying to make (a few) clones.

[cadillacmike68]

Interesting observation RBS,

I no longer have desktops, only Thinkpads. Four T61s besides the numerous T30s and T2xs that are not pertinent to this. But with the advanced dock, I have three bays to work with.

I need to make a total of at least 6 clones, 3 for the other 3 T61s and the others for spares / backups. I have 4 500GBs and at least 6 160GBs that can be used for spares.

Can I take an Image and restore it to a smaller drive? The 500GB will only have 30-40GB used so it should fit on a 160GB.

Or should I do the hand build on the 160GB and then image / restore to the 500GBs

Additionally, will taking an Image (backup) of the drive take ALL the partitions? I need to get that SYS_RESERVED partition. the Lenovo Recovery one is far less important, since I'll have complete spare drives.

And yes it would be quicker since the reading / taking of the source HDD only occurs once not 7 or 8 times. As long as it takes the whole drive, all partitions, it might be the way to go.

I would have to use a different drive for the image, right? That would still work, I can put that drive in the dock's ultrabay and leave it there. I'll just use one of my numerous 160GBs or the 750GB that I plan to use for the boss lady's data / media files backups.

[RealBlackStuff]

Yup, taking an image includes ALL partitions.
And the nice part of Acronis is, that it restores images to ANY size HD/SSD (assuming it has enough space of course),
while resizing the target partitions if the target is smaller/larger than the source!

Since you have T61 machines, make sure all get Middleton's BIOS and that you use Lenovo Recovery disks to make the original source disk.
That way W7 will automatically activate on all your 'targets'.

[cadillacmike68]

Hi and Thanks!.
Yes they are all Middleton'd and I'm using the Lenovo recovery DVDs.

I actually did three of the 500 GBs but the recovery process took forever. Then doing what 8 years of windoze updates and then installing all the programs and Four times and then updates on those programs... No no no no. This should be a better way.

[RealBlackStuff]

Go one step further and get e.g. the 64-bit W7-Pro/SP1 recovery disks from a T410 or T420.
That saves you a lot of updating...

[cadillacmike68]

I think those are the discs I have.

While at a client site with the T61 that has the most progress towards a final build, I did a background check for updates. 228 "important" updates and a dozen "optional" ones Over 1GB of updates. It took over 7 hours to DL and install all of them. Good thing I was there all day. Of course a few "failed" o it's now "searching" again.

[RealBlackStuff]

Make sure to first UNinstall the RED KBxxxxx updates mentioned here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=118819
Then reboot, change Windows Update to "search but do NOT install them yet", search for updates, then check the available important AND recommended ones, and UNtick and HIDE those RED W10 junkies!
Finally install one (or more) of the good files (like Silverlight) to consolidate the 'hiding'.

[cadillacmike68]

There's more than one of those?!?!? Dammit, one slipped through, I went and uninstalled it, but now I'll have to search for all of these.

Thanks, RBS, I didn't know there were that many w10 "updates" that ms is trying to stuff into our ThinkPads.

I have always had it set for do not DL or install updates, but I let one slip by last nite or this morning. It was particularly aggravating because windoze 7 got into one of its "lets take 3 hours to search for updates" modes and I had to let it search overnight. Well, I guess I got what was coming to me.

Worse yet is that ms changed some of these to "recommended / important" so now many more folks can get screwed...

[cadillacmike68]

Got them all removed. Of course windoze failed on several legitimate updates in the process, a few multiple times...