Imaging the T60
Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 4:10 pm
I have read through posts, and thank God I found what I was looking for! I tried working with the ThinkVantage tools to deploy a standardized image for our company, but don't have the time that it takes to learn to get it up and running in full swing. I'd love to work with it, it's laid out pretty well, but still it takes time to install with this method compared to straight up imaging. I'm an avid Ghost user, but have been working with Acronis for imaging these days and prefer it nowadays compared. I was finally able to get the T60 imaged by following steps outlined here in the forums, particularly this post in one of the threads:
Craziness. We have several model laptops in our Thinkpad fleet. We have the T42, T43 and T60's throughout. I was able to get the T60 imaged with an external USB drive finally, as noted above, but when I tried imaging a T42 using the same enclosure (Vantec NexStar 3), the laptop will not recognize the drive through Acronis or Bart PE. I tested the external IDE (as opposed to SATA), on an XP machine, and it detected it right away, so I knew the enclosure was good. I then connected my known good working external SATA drive (also Vantec NexStar 3), and Acronis picked it up right away on the very same T42. So I took a T43 I have laying around, connected my IDE enclosure and put the 100 GB drive I'm upgrading to internal, and viola, I'm imaging. Hopefully the T42 will boot from it (still imaging as we speak). Any ideas as to why the inconsistency? One thing to note about this particular enclosure, is that it does have a place for 5V power, however it draws its power from USB. In reading the manual, it indicates that if the drive needs additional power to plug both USB-A connectors into the host computer. It has a Y splitter at the end, so essentially it has two USB connectors for this purpose. Again, no matter which configuration, the T42 would not recognize the drive.
This most definitely worked, but there was a bit more to the story as indicated here:In my opinion, it did NOT work out. He had to reinstall everything.
I'm posting how I [finally] managed to clone my drive in the same situation.
SCENARIO:
WinXPSP2 on Thinkpad T42, using the factory load for the install.
This means a hidden partition for the 'rapid recovery' stuff is on the drive.
See the appendix note about IBM partition table.
OBJECTIVE:
Somehow clone the current install of XP onto a larger (Seagate Momentus) hard drive.
WHAT WORKED:
Hitachi 2.0 USB enclosure for 2.5" notebook was used as 'destination' drive
Trial version of Acronis True Image [trueimage9.0_d_en.exe] was d/l'd and installed in windows
In Acronis, I chose 'disk clone'
Use the manual / advanced mode
I chose to 'leave the partitions as-is'
Let the clone run...be glad that I'm using a usb 2.0 enclosure now.
Shut down and swap the drive from usb enclosure into laptop
Restart laptop
vici!
The drive boots.
In drive storage applet, I can see that I still have the 4gb hidden partition.
I install partition magic 8.0 for windows
I use PM to move the 4gb ibm_service partition to the end of the drive, and to resize the C partition to fill the drive.
Changes don't require a reboot.
At this point...success.
The clone boots. The system partition is intact. I'm leaving the system partition because I don't want to press my luck. If I had more time I would delete it (using Pmagic from windows).
WHAT DIDN'T WORK:
Several image attempts, several drive clone attempts. I'll list most of them, because it REALLY SUCKED to go through this. Thanks IBM, for the nonstandard partitioning.
Note that it's better w/NT based systems to use ghost to make an image and restore the image. Disc to disc has high failure rate.
I tried to use Ghost 8.0, 9.0, and 2003 boot disk to make an image of 'the partition' and then restore the image to another drive. Yes, I tried all three.
I tried to use Ghost 8.0, 9.0, and 2003 boot disk to make an image of 'the drive' and then restore the image to another drive. That's right, SIX image attempts. At least. With a usb 1.1 enclosure.
All imaged clones failed to boot. I had the 'NTLDR.DLL is missing' error message in all scenarios.
I tried sys'ing C and then running fixmbr and fixboot from the XP recovery CD, per this post
http://archive.midrange.com/pctech/200409/msg00046.html
That didn't work
I booted with an XP full install (not upgrade install) CD and chose ENTER for setup (not R for recovery console) and then chose the REPAIR install option (you can often get this from an xp full install disk). The repair didn't fix anything.
Using the three magic files to boot from floppy doesn't work with XP, so I couldn't try this guy's "use disk investigator to make lots of copies of files that are in too high of a sector" trick.
http://www.mcse.ms/message1263055.html
I did try using a 2k boot disk...after which the drive could show me 'starting win2k' bootloader before a glorious BSOD
Using Ghost 10.0 from windows (note that it doesn't have a bootable disk anymore) to "copy the drive to another" didn't work. I still got the NTLDLR is missing error.
Interesting... G10.0 set the IBM_Service partition drive 'active' and cSurprisedn the destination. Maybe the other attempts did the same; i never noticed.
I THINK that editing boot.ini to use the second partition would have let me boot this way...but then I'm stuck with booting to drive D and all my proggies fail. Sure there are ways around this...I didn't explore them. I booted from the source disk and removed th the IBM service partition from the destination disk. The destination disk now gives 'blinking cursor in top left' when I tried to boot. Editing boot.ini probably would have been smarter.
At this point I have acquired a USB 2.0 enclosure which came with a drive and "hitachi travelstar hard drive upgrade CD"
THis is a bootable cd. I try to CLONE DISK.
I use 'automatic' setting. That fails.
I try again and use 'manual' setting and let it 'expand partitions' even though this means an 11gb Ibm_service partition.
Again, the ntldr.dll is missing message.
At this point I decided to try the 15day trial of acronis. The hitachi drive software is obviously an OEM product based on acronis. THe hitachi drive didn't have the option to 'leave as is' or maybe I didn't see it. That apparently was the important part.
APPENDIX I: IBM Partition Table wackiness
Note that PartitionMagic Boot disk thinks that an IBM with factory load is "bad partition table' and can't perform operations. Apparently IBM uses 255 heads when everyone else uses 240? Whatever the reason...you can't use PMagic8 boot on an IBM T series w/factory load. This is observed on a T21, T30, T42, T43, and T43p.
And a moderator stepped in and affirmed this:Paul Pavlik wrote:In another Post, I made some asumptions that proved to be wrong regarding the Apricorn Cloning Kit as used with the T60.
I use the Apricorn USB SATA Cloning Kit to produce a clone of my 60gb HD, as my form of Weekly Back-Up.
The first Clone that I produced was Non-Bootable (Just a Blinking Cursor following the BIOS Splash Screen).
I called Apricorn and they said to Disable Security for the Pre-Desktop-Area (in BIOS). This did not help.
I called them again and they said that I would have to:
1. Remove the HD from the T60 and mount it in the USB Cloning Enclosure.
2. Mount the HD to receive the clone in the T60.
3. Boot with the Apricorn CD and Clone, being sure to select the External (USB) drive as the Source Disk and the Internal HD as the Destination Disk.
I did this and The resulting Clone was Bootable. I would go through this "Backward Cloning" proceedure weekly.
Subsequently, I deleted The "Client Security" and "Rescue and Recovery" Programs from the C: Drive.
Then, I tried making a Clone Without switching Drives and was surprised to find that the resulting Clone was Bootable.
I thought that the Program Deletions enabled the "Standard" Cloning proceedure (Drives not Switched) to produce a Bootable Clone.
Additional experimentation with a 3rd Drive revealed the following:
The Program Deletions actually had no effect on the Cloning.
I found that the FIRST Cloning must be done (as Apricorn said) from USB to Internal Drive.
SUBSEQUENT Clonings can be made from the Internal Drive to the USB Drive to produce a Bootable Clone. (See edit below).
Note: In ALL cases the Clone (Bootable or Non-Bootable) included the IBM _Service Partition which is accessable with the ThinkVantage Button during the BIOS Splash Screen.
EDIT 5-4-07, Subsequent cloning experience has revealed that the "Easy" Cloning (From internal to USB) does not reliably produce a bootable clone. I haven't isolated the factors that cause this. However a "Reverse" (USB to Internal) cloning ALWAYS produces a Bootable Clone.
So I'm successful in imaging the T60 with a SATA external USB enclosure but I'm having trouble with the T42 using the same procedure, as I posted here:GomJabbar wrote:Your post tends to support a position I have taken on this forum previously. That the the destination drive being cloned needs to be in the ThinkPad due to hard disk geometry errors which can occur if done otherwise. I based what I said previously primarily on the following thread - one which makes sense to me.
Hard disk geometry thread
Craziness. We have several model laptops in our Thinkpad fleet. We have the T42, T43 and T60's throughout. I was able to get the T60 imaged with an external USB drive finally, as noted above, but when I tried imaging a T42 using the same enclosure (Vantec NexStar 3), the laptop will not recognize the drive through Acronis or Bart PE. I tested the external IDE (as opposed to SATA), on an XP machine, and it detected it right away, so I knew the enclosure was good. I then connected my known good working external SATA drive (also Vantec NexStar 3), and Acronis picked it up right away on the very same T42. So I took a T43 I have laying around, connected my IDE enclosure and put the 100 GB drive I'm upgrading to internal, and viola, I'm imaging. Hopefully the T42 will boot from it (still imaging as we speak). Any ideas as to why the inconsistency? One thing to note about this particular enclosure, is that it does have a place for 5V power, however it draws its power from USB. In reading the manual, it indicates that if the drive needs additional power to plug both USB-A connectors into the host computer. It has a Y splitter at the end, so essentially it has two USB connectors for this purpose. Again, no matter which configuration, the T42 would not recognize the drive.