Thinkpads Forum

What is the best way to make my T61p a 7K200 T61p as if Lenovo had supplied the 7K200 drive?

I've purchased an aftermarket Travelstar 7K200 drive to replace the Lenovo supplied drive. I purchased a T61p with Vista Ultimate 32bit and with MS Office Small Business 2007 preinstalled.

I'd like to end up with a 200 gb drive that has on it everything the Lenovo supplied drive has on it. I probably want the hidden rescue partition on the new drive.

I'm willing to spend some money for this such as buying recovery cds from IBM EasyServ or buying partitioning software.

I'm assuming there's some installing of an IBM MBR involved. I guess one way would be to immediately make recovery cds on the new T61p and use these or to back up the T61p onto an external USB drive.

My 7K200 shipped yesterday. My T61p is scheduled to ship July 31st.

I do have a Vista Express Upgrade DVD so I could do a fresh install of Vista Ultimate 32 on the new drive using the product key that will come with the T61p. I think this is within the license since I'll be using the new drive with Vista Ultimate on a T61p that came with Vista Ultimate.

Pointers to useful threads would be great. I've used search and I'm overwhelmed.

Barry

Acronis software has worked stellarly for me. I used to use Ghost, but Acronis is infinitley better.

I also bought this from Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6817106099

1. I moved my 100GB drive from the thinkpad to the AZIO external enclosure

2. Put the 7K200 into my thinkpad.

3. Booted from my Acronis CD.

4. Copied the whole drive, including boot record, from the external to the internal. (takes a about an hour)

Acronis will allow you to select new partition sizes when restoring to the new drive. I chose 50GB C partition and have the remaining 138GB in another partition.


If you don' t want to buy an external enclosure, you would have to first back up the thinkpad to any external drive and then swap the new drive in, then restore to the new drive in the thinkpad.

If you don't have an external drive, then you can also do the backup and restore via DVD, but that will take all day.

mikesugar wrote:Acronis software has worked stellarly for me. I used to use Ghost, but Acronis is infinitley better.

I also bought this from Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6817106099

1. I moved my 100GB drive from the thinkpad to the AZIO external enclosure

2. Put the 7K200 into my thinkpad.

3. Booted from my Acronis CD.

4. Copied the whole drive, including boot record, from the external to the internal. (takes a about an hour)

Acronis will allow you to select new partition sizes when restoring to the new drive. I chose 50GB C partition and have the remaining 138GB in another partition.


If you don' t want to buy an external enclosure, you would have to first back up the thinkpad to any external drive and then swap the new drive in, then restore to the new drive in the thinkpad.

If you don't have an external drive, then you can also do the backup and restore via DVD, but that will take all day.

Did you also mirror the service partition? Also which Acronis product did you use?

I bought this bundle of True Image and Disk Director for $79:

http://shop.acronis.com/dr/v2/ec_Main.E ... 12&CUR=840


I did not copy the rescue partition, opting to get the rescue disks instead. But I would expect that Acronis would copy it just like any other partition.

In my first execution, I booted from Acronis and used Disk Director to repartition the 100GB drive to a 40GB C:\ and a 50GB Z:\ . I used rescue and reocvery to restore and remove all the google junk that comes on the default install. R+R was able to restore to the non-standard C:\ partition I created.

I used this configuration for several months. Then my drive crashed with a bad sector that prevented boot. See my post on this here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=305781


Lenovo shipped me a replacement overnight. But in that turmoil I discovered that the 7K200 was shipping, so I picked one up along with the external enclosure. Booting from Acronis again allowed me to go straight from the 100GB to the 200GB and make new partition sizes on the new drive in one step.

Why partition with VISTA and NTFS? I was going to just put all into a huge C: partition.

I guess I could use a C: partition for programs and a different partition for data files. I used to do that with earlier operating systems and earlier iterations of hiberation back when IBM hibernation needed a FAT32 partition.

barrywohl wrote:What is the best way to make my T61p a 7K200 T61p as if Lenovo had supplied the 7K200 drive?

Use Acronis TrueImage 10 prior versions do not work with Vista. You need to clone the drive, this requires having two drives attached to your T61p at the same time. I strongly suggest obtaining a usb drive enclosure for a strata drive. You can download and install the trial on your existing drive, for free. It will work for fifteen days. When you clone you can adjust the partitions at that time. Be sure to leave the rnr partition at the very end of the drive. You can play with the space between the two existing partitions. Note that simply copying the drive to a tib file does not work. That service partition is special and with TrueImage 9 only works correctly when cloned. And 9 will not work with Vista.

I've purchased an aftermarket Travelstar 7K200 drive to replace the Lenovo supplied drive. I purchased a T61p with Vista Ultimate 32bit and with MS Office Small Business 2007 preinstalled.

I'd like to end up with a 200 gb drive that has on it everything the Lenovo supplied drive has on it. I probably want the hidden rescue partition on the new drive.

I believe the only way to do that is to clone the existing drive! If you get the rescue and recovery DVDs you do not get the same full partition back that you have now.

I'm willing to spend some money for this such as buying recovery cds from IBM EasyServ or buying partitioning software.

I'm assuming there's some installing of an IBM MBR involved. I guess one way would be to immediately make recovery cds on the new T61p and use these or to back up the T61p onto an external USB drive.

My experience is these do not give an actual full reinstall, and you'll need DVDs or cds in the future to reinstall.

My 7K200 shipped yesterday. My T61p is scheduled to ship July 31st.

I do have a Vista Express Upgrade DVD so I could do a fresh install of Vista Ultimate 32 on the new drive using the product key that will come with the T61p. I think this is within the license since I'll be using the new drive with Vista Ultimate on a T61p that came with Vista Ultimate.

Please be aware that there is a difference in an OEM and copy purchased at a store or downloaded over the Internet. They require different install 'keys' that are NOT interchangeable! You'll need the disk and keys from the same version to reinstall.

Pointers to useful threads would be great. I've used search and I'm overwhelmed.

Barry

DAH

Do a google search for something called "magical jelly bean keyfinder." It'll give you your computer's real Vista key. The one located on the bottom of your computer wont work.

I don't know about the 2nd hard drive adapter for the T61, but the 2nd hard drive adapter for the Ultrabay Slim of the T4x series came with Apricorn EZGig cloning software. The only drawback is that it comes on a floppy disk, so you need an external USB floppy drive to boot from. However, the external USB floppy drive is very handy for BIOS updates as well, so it is not a bad thing to have on hand. Whether EZGig would work with Vista or not, I cannot say for certain, but I do not see why there would be any problem. They both use the same file system don't they? You are booting from a floppy instead of from Vista, so...

EDIT: I just pulled up the accessories page from Lenovo. It appears the the ThinkPad Serial ATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter does not come with cloning software such as the ThinkPad 2nd HDD Adapter for Ultrabay Slim did.

2nd Hard Drive Adapters

I have the hard drive adapter for the T60 series. It doesn't come with any software, just the adapter and a user's manual.

DAH wrote:
Use Acronis TrueImage 10 prior versions do not work with Vista. You need to clone the drive, this requires having two drives attached to your T61p at the same time. I strongly suggest obtaining a usb drive enclosure for a strata drive. You can download and install the trial on your existing drive, for free. It will work for fifteen days. When you clone you can adjust the partitions at that time. Be sure to leave the rnr partition at the very end of the drive. You can play with the space between the two existing partitions. Note that simply copying the drive to a tib file does not work. That service partition is special and with TrueImage 9 only works correctly when cloned. And 9 will not work with Vista.

Gold in this thread. Thanks, "DAH". This looks like the most straight forward answer.

I have a SATA second hard drive Ultrabay Slim adapter. I should be able to put the aftermarket drive in this temporarily and use the Acronis Imagemaker 10. Otherwise I've got some 80 gb and 250 gb USB drives to make an intermediate target.

Thanks again to everyone for the kind and patient advice.

Barry,
Check out Paul Pavlik's step-by-step over at
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... t=apricorn

I had trouble the first clone I did on a new Thinkpad. After I followed Paul's tip about swapping the original drive into the external exclosure and the new drive into the Thinkpad before cloning that did the trick. No trouble since then.

I have used the Apricorn external HD kits for several years and found them very reliable and easy to use. They have a SATA version for $49 at http://www.apricorn.com/product_detail. ... eg&id=1075 It comes with the EZ-Gig software which is, from what I've seen, kind of a basic version of Acronis.

Also, check out Bill's Hard Drive Cloning How To at http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=27721. There are several other threads on the forum on this.
Good luck,
DenTP4rm

I am waiting for my t61p and looking to do the same thing as you are. Why aren't you considering a clean install? I am thinking this would be the best bet once I receive my new laptop? Any concerns with doing this?

Jim

jimlenz wrote:I am waiting for my t61p and looking to do the same thing as you are. Why aren't you considering a clean install? I am thinking this would be the best bet once I receive my new laptop? Any concerns with doing this?

Jim

I would consider a clean install. Can I do it without purchasing ANOTHER Vista Ultimate license? I bought the OEM Vista Ultimate with my T61p. I thought I could do a clean install with the Vista Upgrade Express DVD I got in March plus with the license key that comes on my T61p. But elsewhere in this thread, it says that doesn't work.

barrywohl wrote:Thanks very much for your help in my migration thread. I plan to do exactly what you did. It was a really nice summary. I'm ordering Acronis Trueimage 10 Home and Acronis Disk Director today as well as the eSATA enclosure.

What bloatware did you remove? Could you remove it from the installed new drive?

How did you decide how to partition your 200 GB drive? Like I said in the thread, I was just going to make one huge partition but I don't need that.

I've got about 40 gb of music and 25 gb of video and pictures I want to keep with me. It's nice to have them but I don't need to back them up that often as they don't change as often.

I know NTFS makes a huge file for disk management and that this file increases with disk size. Does it matter how many partitions?

Do I really need the hidden partitition since I'll still have it on the original 2K100 drive?

Thanks for your guidance.

Barry

I assume the prev messge did not need to be private.


Barry,

The thinkpad will come with all kinds of junk intsalled. You should boot normally into this setup and play around with the apps for a few days to see what you want to keep.

Then reboot with the thinkvantage button and go into rescue and recovery. It will give you the option to omit apps in the recovery.

I got rid of all google stuff including picasa. I also dumped symantec (I use ESET NOD32) and couple of other things that arent coming to mind.

I like to keep a C:\ partition for OS, Programs, and working files becasue I back it up more frequently. On the 200GB drive I set this partition to 50GB. I keep the rest in one big Z:\ partition with non-volatiel files like MP3s, downloaded files, etc.

If you have the R+R disks you definiltely don't need the axtra partition. If you call Lenovo, they will tell you how to create R+R disks from your original drive.

Great advice. Thank you.
Barry

mikesugar wrote:Then reboot with the thinkvantage button and go into rescue and recovery. It will give you the option to omit apps in the recovery.

I didn't know you could do that, do you think this is as "clean" as using a normal windows install disk ?

Does anyone have word on Lenovo offering the 7K200 as a configuration option? Without that option, we are going to end up going through a lot of headaches (and considerable expense) to upgrade a couple dozen T61's we plan to purchase soon to 7K200's.

here is how I did it:

created recovery CD & DVD.

swapped hard drives

booted with recovery CD in order to create recovery partition on new hdd.

then do a custom recovery in order to avoid some of Lenovo's craplets.