X31: recovery CDs, drivers etc.

[Snowii]

Hi all,

I m thinking of buying an X31 from local importer of laptops from Japan, the price is great for new IBM (around $950 w/o taxes).

1) My question is about recovery CDs and drivers and utilities, cause I want to have an andvantage of IBM's Access Connections, Battery MaxiMiser and other utilities as well as I want to use Czech XP SP2 version.

Is there anyway of installing plain XPs and downloading all the IBM drivers from internet? Or do I need to use Czech recovery CDs to be able to have czech XP and drivers?

2) Is it possible to boot on X31 from external drive connected via FireWire or USB 2.0?

thanks a lot for explaining!
Filip

[hkhalil]

Hi Snowii,

The only thing I can tell you is my own experience with recovery CDs.

I didn't get any with my X31; I had to phone up IBM and give them my machine's serial number etc.. They confirmed that it was the EN version of the discs I needed, so I guess there must be others available for Czech. The part number for the English discs is: 24R8128. This is for X31 type: 2672, 2673, 2884, 2885, 2890 & 2891.

They sent out, for free, a set of 5 Discs that had XP slipstreamed with SP2. If I was going to use them again, I would do the install, get the current version of "Software Installer" and let that pull all the updates off the net.

As far as booting from USB, I've never tried it. If you're interest in this is for backup, then I know that IBM "Rescue & Recovery" supports access to external media. If you install Rescue & Recovery then you should have access to devices and network via the pre-boot area.

You can find out more here:

http://www.pc.ibm.com/europe/think/en/r ... re.html?uk

If your interest is in Booting from USB e.g. a key; check out here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=9756

hope this helps, hkhalil

[verktyg]

I bought a new 2885-RGU X31 last October and called IBM to get the Recovery CDs.

It took a number of calls to get to someone located in the US who knew what I was talking about! The overseas tech support?? people didn't have a clue: "You have to make the Recovery CDs from the HDD.", "Just run IBM Rescue and Recovery to restore your system.", "You need to send it in for service, do you want to send it in?" and so on!!!

When I finally got the set of 5 CDs (24R7352) they were marked for use with models 2672 & 2673. It took several more calls to IBM before someone could verify that these CDs would work with my 2885-RGU.

Having survived the hell of HDD crashes, I wanted to make sure that these CDs worked plus I wanted to try some dual booting on the X31. I put in a new 40G Toshiba HDD and booted from the CD Recovery program with my X3 base.

The program took about 3 hours to run. It created an HPA hidden partition and installed a slipsteam WinXP SP2 version that worked much faster that the original factory load.

After repartitioning the drive with Partition Magic, I installed Win98SE in it's own hidden partition using System Commander boot manager. After some time I gave up because I had too many problems getting the X31 drivers for Win98 to work properly and put the original XP HDD back in.

I haven't used the X31 very much because it was a real slug with the factory load and it wouldn't go into suspend. After spending hours trying to fix the problems, I went back to using my old 240x which works fine and is almost as fast as the X31 with original load!

I spend over 30 hours configuring and installing software on the original X31 system and I haven't had the time to work on it further until last weekend. I decided to do a complete reinstall on the X31 with the IBM Recovery CDs. I pulled the original HHD and put in the Toshiba HDD back in. After running Win98 Fdisk from a floppy I ran the Recovery CDs to start all over again.

The IBM Recovery CDs wouldn't do a complete system install. They just kept installing XP and would stop at the Key entry point saying that I needed to call IBM and register or use the COA number (which wouldn't work)!

Any ideas why the Recovery CDs wouldn't work like they did the first time?

It could be that when I ran Fdisk, it didn't clean out the hidden partition. The Recovery CDs may have seen the hidden partition and....

I tried running Linux Cfdisk which blew away the partition but ended up using IBM/Hitachi's Drive Feature Tool to recover the whole HDD.

In the end, I installed a Ghost image of my original HDD on a Hitachi 60G 7200 RPM HDD. It really flies, 30 seconds to boot versus 90-120 seconds before. I didn't Ghost the HPA so it's not on the new HDD. I don't know whether that has anything to do with the boot speed.

[Zeitgeist]

The IBM Recovery CDs wouldn't do a complete system install. They just kept installing XP and would stop at the Key entry point saying that I needed to call IBM and register or use the COA number (which wouldn't work)!

Any ideas why the Recovery CDs wouldn't work like they did the first time?

You did NOT change the boot order (CD first) in the bios permanently. Therefore, the second time the pc boots from the hdd and not from the cd.
Again, to use the recovery cd properly and to create the service partition you need to perform the following steps:

1. Delete ALL partitions with e.g. fdisk
2. Change boot order, cd first permanently
3. Insert the first recovery CD, follow the instructions. Be patient, first the service partition will be created and then the system partition from the service partition.

[verktyg]

Thanks, I hit F12 and set the CD as first boot drive. I didn't think to try changing the setting in the BIOS.

Fdisk wont remove an IBM HPA hidden partition. You need to run a utilitly like IBM/Hitachi Drive Feature program to recover the whole HDD.

I'm going to dig out an old HDD and try it again next time I have and extra 3 free hours.

[bubbah]

I have the 5cd set for my x31 2672 and I put in a new HDD 120gb ntfs ...I had deleted the recovery partition on the old 40gb drive to get some room (took almost 1/2 the drive) ...can I MAKE a recovery partition? tia...bubbah

[mpcook]

The IBM Recovery CDs wouldn't do a complete system install. They just kept installing XP and would stop at the Key entry point saying that I needed to call IBM and register or use the COA number (which wouldn't work)!

Any ideas why the Recovery CDs wouldn't work like they did the first time?

I have done a number of installs from the Recovery disks. This happened to me one time. I called Microsoft, they have a phone number for just this purpose. They gave me a key that worked. I never figured out why this happened. Because I had an IBM that came with XP installed, it had a COA on it, they gave me a working key. The key on the machine itself never works.

Mike

[bubbah]

so what's the phone number for that?

[mpcook]

so what's the phone number for that?

Sorry I didn't keep the phone number. Either it came up in the error message, or I googled and found it, can't remember. I am sure an extensive search of their website would also turn up that specific number.

Mike

[whartmann]

I ordered a used X31 that comes with a blank hdd. I called and cannot get the recovery cds, and cant find them online. It is the 2885-PWU. Does anyone have a copy of the discs?

[mpcook]

I ordered a used X31 that comes with a blank hdd. I called and cannot get the recovery cds, and cant find them online. It is the 2885-PWU. Does anyone have a copy of the discs?

Try and post a WTB in the Marketplace. I sent my last set to a forum member couple of years ago.

Mike

[jronald]

The T30 set is close, PM RealBlackStuff for a set. You will still need to add a couple of drivers, for mine it was the Cisco wireless card and the IntelPro 100 driver best I recall, anyway its close enough to get you up and running quickly. Just built one for my LD son to use at school. Just a side note, since you dont have a CD-Rom built in, you need to get creative.

Ron