How can I boot old T42p version of XP on new T60p SATA drive

[WPWoodJr]

Help! I'm trying to move my old XP installation from a T42p to my new T60p. I copied the partition over to my new SATA drive with Partition Magic but it won't boot because the old XP installation is missing the SATA drivers. Can anyone help? Can I somehow load the SATA drivers while booted on the T42p, then recopy the partition to the SATA drive and boot? Where would I get the SATA drivers?

[brentpresley]

You are asking for some SERIOUS PROBLEMS trying to do this.

The HD drivers are just one of about 10-20 that are different. Chipset and all southbridge drivers are also different.

A FRESH installation of XP is always better. Just transfer you data files over and re-install your applications one at a time.

I'm not kidding when I say that it will result in less time spent in the long run and a MUCH more stable system.

[WPWoodJr]

Thanks.

Where did you get a core 2 duo with UXGA? Did you upgrade the cpu from a Core Duo?

[WPWoodJr]

You are asking for some SERIOUS PROBLEMS trying to do this.

The HD drivers are just one of about 10-20 that are different. Chipset and all southbridge drivers are also different.

A FRESH installation of XP is always better. Just transfer you data files over and re-install your applications one at a time.

I'm not kidding when I say that it will result in less time spent in the long run and a MUCH more stable system.

Its relatively easy to update the video drivers. I've moved this disk one other time from a T41p to the T42p. You sure this move would be worse?

[brentpresley]

Thanks.

Where did you get a core 2 duo with UXGA? Did you upgrade the cpu from a Core Duo?

System built from scratch from spare parts. Has no warranty (but costs less than any other T60p).

One-time thing. Would never be able to get a second one of these.

[brentpresley]

You are asking for some SERIOUS PROBLEMS trying to do this.

The HD drivers are just one of about 10-20 that are different. Chipset and all southbridge drivers are also different.

A FRESH installation of XP is always better. Just transfer you data files over and re-install your applications one at a time.

I'm not kidding when I say that it will result in less time spent in the long run and a MUCH more stable system.

Its relatively easy to update the video drivers. I've moved this disk one other time from a T41p to the T42p. You sure this move would be worse?

100% positive. This is PAIN you do not want. Can you EVENTUALLY get it all working? Sure. But you could have installed XP TWICE in the time it will take you.

[WPWoodJr]

Its not installing XP that's the issue, that came installed already. Its all my 3 years of apps and configurations. I do want to do a clean move, but to Vista not XP - but Vista's not ready - no support for Palm, other apps yet.

[Ken Fox]

Its not installing XP that's the issue, that came installed already. Its all my 3 years of apps and configurations. I do want to do a clean move, but to Vista not XP - but Vista's not ready - no support for Palm, other apps yet.

I second the motion that you are seriously wasting your time.

I HAVE transferred disk contents between machines, but in my experience you can only pull this off if the machines share largely the same major components; otherwise you will waste gobs of time getting it to the point where you have 2 or 3 or 4 devices you cannot match up with drivers. At that point, after you have wasted a day and a half (I'm not joking) you will find it is continually 2 steps forward and 3 steps back. The reason, I think, is that there is an order that certain drivers must be installed and if that order is not obeyed you can't fix it unless you are willing to invest many days or weeks to the project. And if you persist you will find that randomly removing drivers and hoping that Windows will reinstall them properly will result in unrecoverable bluescreens or failures to boot, even in safe mode.

I successfully transferred disk contents in between a T42 and an X32 in both directions. I have done it very recently between an X60 and a Z61T. But when I tried to do it between the old T42 (or the old X32; I tried both) and my new T43, it was un-doable.

IF the systems share essentially the same hardware components save two or three, maybe four devices, you have a chance. What I have done with success is to do the transfer and to have the original drive that shipped with the system attached to an IDE->USB adapter (or SATA->IDE adapter depending on circumstance) and available for hunting for necessary drivers. This is meticulous work that literally takes lots of time and involves searching every directory in the original drive that might harbor the needed driver.

I'd only attempt this for a very good reason, and would never attempt it, at least not in the future, if the systems did not share the great majority of components.

I don't think the SATA drivers are 10% of your problem. You can fix that. Once you do fix that, you will find that the hardware components of the two machines are so dissimilar that this dog won't hunt.

[GomJabbar]

Speaking hypothetically here; I think what would work fairly well would be to use a program such as StompSoft EZ PC Transfer to transfer files and settings between computers.

http://www.stompsoft.com/easypctransfer.html

There is also System Migration Assistant from IBM/Lenovo. I am not sure how these two compare, as I have not personally used either one. They do seem similar however - at least at first glance.

http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/think/thinkvan ... index.html

[EOMtp]

WPWoodJr:
If you want to avoid a fresh build and total re-install of each of your applications -- and who wouldn't? -- then follow the following sequence:

1) On the T42p, connect to the Internet and download to a known location on the local drive the drivers for the T60p.

2) Transfer/clone/copy the source PATA T42p drive to the destination SATA T60p drive. (I shall assume that you know how to do this ..OR.. that you have an UltraBay PATA 2nd Hard Drive adapter which will accommodate the T42p's hard drive in the T60p's UltraBay.)

3) Boot the T42p operating system on the T60p, see what drivers Windows XP installs on its own, look at the Device Manager to see what additional components need drivers, and install those drivers from the downloaded area in Step 1 above. Expect multiple reboots. Start with the chipset .inf files and then install the wired network drivers.

I have moved, with full success, T42p-specific Windows XP systems/drives to T60p machines many times and the differences between those machines are not such that Windows XP "chokes". The difficulties others describe are real enough in general, but they do not manifest themselves as insoluble issues when migrating Windows XP from a T42p to a T60p.

Final point: You may have to deal with reconciling fingerprints/passwords issues between the two machines if the T42p had those features enabled and the T60p does not, or vice versa. However, these considerations exist when transferring between any two machines; these considerations are not in any way specific to a T42p-T60p transfer.

Good luck!

[Ken Fox]

WPWoodJr:
If you want to avoid a fresh build and total re-install of each of your applications -- and who wouldn't? -- then follow the following sequence:

1) On the T42p, connect to the Internet and download to a known location on the local drive the drivers for the T60p.

2) Transfer/clone/copy the source PATA T42p drive to the destination SATA T60p drive. (I shall assume that you know how to do this ..OR.. that you have an UltraBay PATA 2nd Hard Drive adapter which will accommodate the T42p's hard drive in the T60p's UltraBay.)

3) Boot the T42p operating system on the T60p, see what drivers Windows XP installs on its own, look at the Device Manager to see what additional components need drivers, and install those drivers from the downloaded area in Step 1 above. Expect multiple reboots. Start with the chipset .inf files and then install the wired network drivers.

I have moved, with full success, T42p-specific Windows XP systems/drives to T60p machines many times and the differences between those machines are not such that Windows XP "chokes". The difficulties others describe are real enough in general, but they do not manifest themselves as insoluble issues when migrating Windows XP from a T42p to a T60p.

Final point: You may have to deal with reconciling fingerprints/passwords issues between the two machines if the T42p had those features enabled and the T60p does not, or vice versa. However, these considerations exist when transferring between any two machines; these considerations are not in any way specific to a T42p-T60p transfer.

Good luck!

you are describing almost exactly what I did and it did not work. The only difference was that I had the drivers for the T43 on a DVD and on accessory USB2 hard drives (I tried this multiple times and re ghosted the old drives contents on the new drive about 5 or 6 times in the process). I even did it TWICE, with the new OEM drive that I'd pulled from the new machine, on a USB 2 adapter, with all the drivers from the new machine's hard drive readily available.

I'm glad it worked for you, and once again I have migrated a number of systems, both notebooks and desktops from machine to machine. Going from a T42 to a T43 was something I found NOT doable in any sort of reasonable time frame. Glad you had a better experience but I would not assume that someone else will have the same.

[EOMtp]

... Going from a T42 to a T43 was something I found NOT doable in any sort of reasonable time frame. ...

Ken,
It is the case sometimes that Windows XP has installed drivers for old hardware which are incompatible with the new hardware. When that happens, it may be impossible to boot to a Windows screen, and that's when the migration effort has to stop. I don't know if your T42-->T43 was such a case, but I know that such is NOT the case for T42-->T60.

If one can boot into Windows, then there is no magic involved in installing the drivers for the new hardware. One has to install, let's say, 10 to 15 drivers -- at 2 minutes each, it's 1/2 hour ... allow one hour. That still beats rebuilding a system and reinstalling all the applications that one has collected since the last such adventure.

The problem for most people ends up being that either (a) they don't have the new drivers which are required, or (b) their new drivers reside in places which are not accessible until the drivers are installed -- a deadly embrace. Example: drivers on CD-ROM, but CD-ROM cannot be accessed until the disk controller is initialized, which cannot be done until the chipset .inf files are installed, but the chipset .inf files are on the CD-ROM. Similarly for drivers on a USB device or on a network device ... you get the idea. Avoid those situations by placing the drivers on the local disk drive, and one should have no difficulties. (I know that you know these things; my comments are directed to others who may not have as much experience as you have with these migration "games".)

[WPWoodJr]

Well now I'm in a weird position. XP boots on the T60p, but it bypasses my password and logs me in. However, there is no Windows explorer or other normal startup programs, there are only 28 processes running.

I have installed the SATA drivers, and reset my BIOS back to AHCI mode.

I don't know how to proceed at this point - what could create this strange "in limbo" situation? I remember way back when I moved from a 770 to an A21p (I think it was) on Windows 2000 and had a weird problem where the A21p would boot but you couldn't log in. I had to edit the registry on the disk before I did the hardware transfer (770 to A21p) and remove the entries for the existing disk drives. I don't remember the keys I had to delete though - can anyone help?

[RonS]

In the BIOS, I would leave the SATA drive in "Compatibility" mode for the time being.

If you can do a Ctrl-Alt-Del and bring up the Task Manager, look for the process "Explorer" and kill it. Then, (still in the Task Manager) go to File->New Task, type in "Explorer" and run it.

If Explorer hangs, you can start killing other processes until you find the culprit. There is probably a battle for some resource going on between Explorer and another process.

Of course, there's also Safe Mode...

[Ken Fox]

I don't know if your T42-->T43 was such a case, but I know that such is NOT the case for T42-->T60.

(snippage)

these migration "games".)

I've successfully migrated most every time I've tried, but I've tended to do fresh installs when going between radically different pieces of hardware. I migrated my T40 to my X31, then to my X32, with no problems. Later, I migrated my T42 to the X32, and most recently the Z61T from the X60. And, I've done desktops too. And, I have no experience with the T60 so I can't speak to that. I think the problem with the T42->T43 IS as you state, incompatible hardware drivers. It may be that there is just enough difference that it can't work, whereas with the T60 from T42, the incompatible drivers are so different that they are "ignored."

I agree that putting the drivers on the disk you are migrating to sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately, having downloaded every driver for the T43 that Lenovo has up on their pages, this is not always going to work.

Generally an external drive connecting through an IDE or SATA to USB2 adapter WILL be recognized. Since presumably the drive that shipped with the system has all the drivers it needs, one can either copy that drive to another or if one is going to upgrade the system's original drive, one can use that drive itself and hence have all the shipped drivers available.

Still, there are no guarantees in this very unorthodox approach. I wouldn't try to dissuade anyone from trying to port one system over to another, but I would suggest that you set a time limit for the project, and if you can't get it completed within a few hours, abandon the project and start with a fresh install. The successful ports that I have done have taken maybe a couple of hours, maximum, from the first time I booted the re-imaged drive in the new system, to get all the drivers recognized and no yellow exclamation points in device manager, and no ominous popup warnings from the OS.

[WPWoodJr]

OK, success! I got it to boot properly. This page was very helpful:

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

There are two golden rules to cloning an NT-based hard drive:

1) do not let old-XP see the new partition before cloning.
Doing so would give XP a chance to assign a drive letter, it will be remembered by the registry when it is cloned, and the clone will adopt the wrong drive letter for itself.

2) do not let new-XP see the old-XP partition the first time it boots.
If new-XP sees old-XP, it won't reuse the original drive letter when it assigns a drive letter to itself. (Once XP-2 has booted and reallocated new drive letters, the old-XP partition can be reintroduced into the system, if desired.)

Although these examples use XP, they apply just as well to NT and 2000.

Number 2 above was my sin. It really threw XP for a loop.

Now I need to install 3 kazillion drivers and hopefully I will be on my way!

[WPWoodJr]

Here's the step-by-step to get XP booted when moving from P-ATA to S-ATA:

1) Get the Intel matrix SATA driver from Lenovo and put it on a USB drive
2) Clone your old hard drive to the SATA drive
3) DO NOT let the "new" cloned XP see the "old" XP until after you've booted the "new" XP
4) Turn the computer on, IMPORTANT: go into the BIOS and set the SATA mode to compatibility
5) Boot the new XP (SATA version)
6) Cancel any new hardware found wizards
7) Run the pre-install for SATA from the USB drive (see Lenovo readme for details)
Reboot, setting the SATA setting in the BIOS back to AHCI
9) Cancel all new hardware wizards except the one for the hard drive, install that from the USB drive (again see the readme).
10) Now reboot and install other drivers. You can get these off the build of XP that came with your new machine (c:\drivers and c:\swtools\drivers), or from the Lenovo web site.

- Bill

[RonS]

Thanks for blazing the trail for the rest of us!

Keep in mind that there's no important reason to use the SATA drive in SATA mode (BIOS setting). I've benchmarked SATA drives in both SATA and Compatibility mode and have never seen a difference in performance. And, leaving it in compatibility mode allows some diagnostic software to "see" the drive where SATA mode won't work.

[WPWoodJr]

Thanks for blazing the trail for the rest of us!

Keep in mind that there's no important reason to use the SATA drive in SATA mode (BIOS setting). I've benchmarked SATA drives in both SATA and Compatibility mode and have never seen a difference in performance. And, leaving it in compatibility mode allows some diagnostic software to "see" the drive where SATA mode won't work.

What diagnostic software?

So far I'm doing ok in SATA mode.

[EOMtp]

What diagnostic software?

Example: Windows XP Recovery Console.

BTW: I agree with RonS that there is no measurable difference in performance, under Windows XP, between the two disk modes. Other operating systems may put the SATA advanced features to better use.

[WPWoodJr]

What does compatibility mode actually do? Somehow emulate a PATA drive?

I thought command queuing would speed things up - have you benchmarked with multiple programs reading/writing at once?

[WPWoodJr]

Today I discovered a problem. The system hangs when on battery power - all disk activity, the mouse, everything stops except the screen is still visible. I'm going to try deinstalling all the old T42p software and then reinstall the new stuff.

[WPWoodJr]

Today I discovered a problem. The system hangs when on battery power - all disk activity, the mouse, everything stops except the screen is still visible. I'm going to try deinstalling all the old T42p software and then reinstall the new stuff.

I am such a geek! More later, but I think I have this figured out.

))))

[skanky]

i've got to agree with the other guys that even the pain of reconfiguring apps on a clean image is miles more preferable to migrating the image from a t4x to a t6x platform!

i have no problems moving between t4x machines, but to my t60? i didnt even attempt it as the drivers (sata/chipset etc etc) are just so much different to what was on my t42, its just wasnt worth the hassle.

but good luck to ya anyway!

[WPWoodJr]

i've got to agree with the other guys ... good luck to ya anyway!

Its working well now... more later.

[WPWoodJr]

Its working well now... more later.

I posted an update and detailed instructions here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=36774

[Zeus]

Reboot, setting the SATA setting in the BIOS back to AHCI

lol... it turned the 8 ) into the smilie