Thinkpads Forum

Does anybody what can I do to restore the hidden Rescue and Recovery (R&R) partition if I have accidentally formatted it?
Please help!

Sure, pop in your backup R&R discs and reinstall it. Just be aware that you will erase your drive in the process so backup important files as well. Look into cloning software if you need to keep or reproduce a copy of your current build.

The problem is... I don't have any "backup R&R discs" made at the very beginning

If you do not have any recovery discs, your options are to purchase them from Lenovo, or to start a thread in our marketplace conference and ask for them. The going rate from members seems to be in the $25 to $30 range for burned copies. You can try EBay too.

milstein wrote:Does anybody what can I do to restore the hidden Rescue and Recovery (R&R) partition if I have accidentally formatted it?
Please help!

Let us know what model you have, preferably more than simply "T6x" but also the particular type, such as 2007-4EU (just made that one up). Perhaps someone has a set of recovery disks they'll copy for you at a nominal price, or,maybe someone has a ghost copy of just that partition. In the latter scenario, you'd have to image the windows partition and then reinstall it later, unless you want to get complicated and use partition resizing software, plus the IBM master boot record repair program (which you may need in any event).

milstein wrote:snip.....if I have accidentally formatted it?....snip

If you formatted it, you simply removed it's existence then.

It has been mentioned many times on this forum that before experimenting with anything on your machine, you should always make sure you've created a set of Product Recovery disk beforehand.

I have a T60 2613 HMU, now running OS X 10.5.1
Thanks a lot with these tips! I shall try to locate these R&R disks on eBay!

milstein wrote:I have a T60 2613 HMU, now running OS X 10.5.1
Thanks a lot with these tips! I shall try to locate these R&R disks on eBay!

You aren't even running a Microsoft Operating System! This is not to say that MS makes good operating systems (which they don't) but why are you even worrying about the recovery partition?

If you are concerned about some sort of virus or other problem infecting your hard disk, clone the disk onto another one and carry it with you when you are traveling or otherwise somewhere that you need to be sure that you can regain important functionality in the case of a hard disk "problem." You can buy another hard disk for well less than $100, put it into a <$10 2.5" SATA hard disk enclosure, and be fully protected, more protected in fact, than the recovery partition would provide.

This spare hard disk, combined with a small philips screwdriver, would give ME a much greater feeling of security than having the recovery partition installed on the hard disk in the machine.

In fact, I spend a couple of months a year outside the USA, and on those trips I always take a disk clone in a 2.5" box with me, to accompany my X60, in case of a catastrophic hard disk failure. This is much better insurance than the recovery partition, which I also have, but which I trust LESS.

That is a great idea ken , and just what i want to do..what cloning software do you recomend? Is it possible to boot from the usb caddy to test the cloned version of your hard drive?

hippy chick wrote:That is a great idea ken , and just what i want to do..what cloning software do you recomend? Is it possible to boot from the usb caddy to test the cloned version of your hard drive?

I have no experience with Macs, their operating systems, nor their file formats. This is to say that I don't know what would work, although I assume that if you stayed with the same size and type of hard disk, that you could use any of the popular programs (ghost 2003, true image, apricorn) on a bit by bit basis.

I don't know if current Thinkpads will boot from a USB device such as a drive in a 2.5" enclosure. It is easy enough to swap hard disks (takes me 5 minutes) that I've never tried.

My wife owns a macbook, leopard uses Mac OS Extended or Journaled partition system but in order to run Windows on the HDD you would require to format your drive back to NTFS or FAT. Mac OS is picky with NTFS so I'm not sure whether your thinkpad would let you boot from second HDD in the adapter or not.

But in general if Windows is installed on both bay drives then you can choose which one to boot from. In your case I suggest you test the cloned drive by installing it in the main drive bay.

For technical reasons I don't fully understand, I believe the only safe way to test a clone (if one feels this is necessary) is to boot it from the primary drive slot. It is, after all, an exact clone of the primary drive and it therefore "expects" to be booted and run from the same place as the parent, i.e., the primary drive slot. I would think that booting it from anyplace else (if it even works) might cause certain changes that would result in a drive which will not thereafter boot properly from the primary drive slot, which would defeat the whole purpose of having an exact clone of the primary drive.