T61 Recovery partition hosed, could use some help!

[InlawBiker]

I'm hoping somebody with a T61 can help me out. Mine is a T61 14.1" widescreen model, originally with Vista Business.

Here's my present situation -

I upgraded the hard drive on my T61 to a larger drive. When I did that I created a hidden partition on the new drive, just like the old drive. Or so I thought. I manually copied the files from the old recovery partition to the new disk. Of course, I didn't create the restore DVD's. This has turned out to be a tactical error....

Now, on the new disk, when I try to boot the recovery partition it doesn't work. I have tried following the advice on ThinkWiki.

- Convert partition to Fat32 - I get an error message "not a system disk" or similar.
- Convert partition to NTFS - I get error message "NTLDR missing"

What I'm hoping is for somebody with a T61 to take a look at their recovery partition and let me know the details, so I can reproduce it exactly. If somebody would be so kind to tell me -

- Size of the recovery partition
- Where it is located on the disk (1st partition, 2nd? 3rd?)
- Filesystem type (NTFS? Fat32?)
- Filesystem type flag (0x12? 0x0b?)
- Directory listing / screenshot of the root of the filesystem?

I know I'm asking a lot but, once done I'll be back in business and I'll write a thorough how-to on the subject.

Thank you!
Greg.

[Harryc]

Wouldn't it be easier just to get a set of recovery discs?
http://<promotion of site not allowed>.com/t61.html

[InlawBiker]

Yes it would be easier. That will be my last resort... I don't want to admit defeat.

[GomJabbar]

This might work...

Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette

[velani]

I have a similar need on a T60. I have a new drive installed without a R&R partition. But I do have the R&R disks I created. Could I use that to simply reload the OS and it will also create a R&R partition for me?

These disks were created from my other T60 machine so I am not sure what would happen the the WinXP COA serial number on the bottom?

Any thoughts or solutions?

[GomJabbar]

I have a similar need on a T60. I have a new drive installed without a R&R partition. But I do have the R&R disks I created. Could I use that to simply reload the OS and it will also create a R&R partition for me?

These disks were created from my other T60 machine so I am not sure what would happen the the WinXP COA serial number on the bottom?

Any thoughts or solutions?

Shouldn't be any problem. Be aware that you need to choose to "Restore Factory Contents" twice for the system to be fully restored. The first time after booting into Rescue and Recovery from the first CD (or DVD), and the second time after the system has booted into Rescue and Recovery from the hard drive.

[velani]

Thanks Bill.

Now, could you use the recovery media from one T60 to restore a different T60 with a new drive?