Question about cloning a HDD for X31

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MadeInJapan · #1 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 6:09 pm

Although I do this about once a week to back things up on my T30, I've never done it for an X31. My friend has an X31 that I promised to help upgrade. We are going from a 12GB HDD to a 40GG HDD. Both are Travelstars. The ultrabay2000 drive slot is in her Ultrabase....so I have a couple of questions.
1. Can I use my Ultrabay2000 2nd HDD drive in her unit and Ghost to do the clone of the HDD? Or, should I take out her HDD and put it in my T30 and clone the drive, which I know will work.
2. What about the recovery console? Is there one in the X31...and if so, what is your recommendation as to how to copy it too? On my T30, I have deleted the console so that's not an issue when I'm backing up my HDD.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions. I wish I knew more specific information about the X31.

OnlyThinkpad · #2 Post by **OnlyThinkpad** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 7:32 pm

Hi
1) Since you can't fit the 2rd HD Drive unless you have the ultrabase X3, you have to use your T30. I would use which ever TP with the faster cpu to reduce the time it takes to clone the HD. And yes you can use Ghost.

2) It depends if your friend waits the option to be able to recover the OS. I personally prefer to delete the recovery image just to save some HD space but on my wife's TP, I left it there in case she needs to recover it while I am away from home. While you can save the recovery image on DVD or CD or on another HD, it's just awhole lot easier if it is on the other partitiion because you don't have to connect the X31 to other devices during recovery unless your friend has the ultrabase X3.

Hope this helps.

MadeInJapan · #3 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 9:16 pm

Thanks for your response...do you just clone drive to drive then and leave the partition to partition copy mode alone (in Ghost)?

OnlyThinkpad · #4 Post by **OnlyThinkpad** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 11:17 pm

clone drive and copy every partition if there's more than one but others may do it differently.

mpcook · #5 Post by **mpcook** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 10:06 am

In my experience, if you want the hidden recovery partition on the new drive, you will need to boot the X31 from the recovery CD with the new drive installed. It will prompt you to create the recovery partition. You then need to remove the drive, reinstall the old drive, clone the new drive in another enclosure, then reinstall. I have more details in another post on this website so if you search, you may find it (I don't remember where it went).

MadeInJapan · #6 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 7:50 pm

mpcook....thanks for the information. I plan on doing just what you're telling me to do tomorrow. Do you tihnk that once I get the partion made with the recovery disc in the X31, I can do everything else in my T30? It sure would make things easier.

mpcook · #7 Post by **mpcook** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 9:49 pm

Unfortunately I can't speak to the use of the T30 to clone. Maybe others have that experience. You can buy a USB hard drive enclosure on Ebay for $10 (I bought one recently) which you could use with the X31.

MadeInJapan · #8 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 4:01 pm

The X31 has the Ultrabay2000 in its ultrabase. Since this is the same thing in my T30, I was hoping to use my T30...however, if it doesn't work, I'll try it over in the X31. Do you know if I have to "uncover" the hidden partition in BIOS first in order to see the partition with Ghost? By the way, I have Ghost 7 both on bootable USB key and floppy drive as well as the attachment to make the Ultrabase2000 floppy drive connect to the parallel port. Seems I have many tools...just looking for the best way to do this. A quick response would be appreciated. About to begin work on this in a few minutes.

mpcook · #9 Post by **mpcook** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 5:23 pm

If you follow my procedure, you should not have to unprotect or unhide the hidden partition because it will already be on the target drive. I am not familiar with Ghost but based on other posts I have seen, it will NOT copy the hidden partition which is why you should follow my procedure of creating it from the CD's first.

MadeInJapan · #10 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 8:14 pm

mpcook...I'll try to make this as short as possible, but for detail reasons that may be difficult. I have done the deed and ended up with the hidden partition not copied (at least I think), but still a success. Here's the story:

The original (source) disk is 20GB. The one I copied to (target) is 40. I had bought this latter drive from someone who owned a X31, so it was partitioned when I bought it. However, in my ignorance, I Fdisked it and deleted the partition, making the whole drive as large as possible (so I thought)...so, maybe it was 38GB (after formatting?), but I used a Win98 fdisk to do this. I might add that my friend does not have the recovery discs, so anyway, in my attempt to clone the drive today, I tried the ultrabase slot with the HDD adapter first, using a USB bootable key with Ghost 7 on it. It would not boot, no matter what boot order I selected in the BIOS. So, next I tried the floppy drive with the parallel cable attachement (like you can do with my T-30), but this would also not boot. So, then I put both HDD's in my T30 (source inside the TP...target in the Ultrasbay2000 HDD adapter) and it worked! But I must say honestly that no where in either the X30 or T30 BIOS did I see any reference to the "Servic" or otherwise "hidden" partion. Once I was in Ghost things went smoothly, but I noticed something very parculiar. Here was a 20GB HDD with hidden partition that was registering only 16GB (that was not unusual) but the 40GB target drive was only registering 34GB. So, I'm thinking that the 4 or so GB of the hidden partition on that drive was unsuccessfully deleted with Fdisk. I don't know.

Long story short: The new HD with 34GB (formally 40GB) showing boots up fine and works just like the source drive without any problem in the X31. However, I don't know if the hidden partition has recovery data in it or not, and I don't want to try to find out for fear that it may screw up what we accomplished. My friend was COMPLETELY out of room on her former drive so is extatic that her storage has more than doubled! That's the good news. But now I'm thinking that both of the drives have hidden partitions and if somehow I can make them visible, I would be able to copy the contents of one partition (still) to the other.

So, I also think, maybe if I had reversed the drives...put the source in the HDD adapter and the target inside the T30...what would have happened? Anyone have any ideas...solutions to this issue?

mpcook · #11 Post by **mpcook** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 10:28 am

Sorry I don't have any answers for you. I think the only way to get the proper hidden partition is to create it from the recovery CD while the drive is in the target machine as drive 0. Since that is not what was done, I suspect you don't have a proper hidden partition.

You can unhide the hidden partition in the bios - that will tell you if there is one or not.

MadeInJapan · #12 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 11:12 am

How do you unhide the partition in BIOS....I looked all over and couldn't find anything related to the hidden partition or service partition, as I understand it may be called.

mpcook · #13 Post by **mpcook** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 12:26 pm

On the BIOS menu select SECURITY,
then select IBM PREDESKTOP AREA.
You will have 3 options:
SECURE (this is where it should be set for normal operation)
NORMAL (not sure what this is for)
DISABLED (this will make it visible and read/write I believe).

If you boot with the ACCESS IBM blue button pressed, if your hidden partition is set up correctly, you will be brought into a series of recovery menus. If not, then it's not been installed properly.

MadeInJapan · #14 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 6:58 pm

Okay...gotcha. Since we couldn't get past a booting device with both HDD's installed on the X31, I don't think I snooped around in that computer's BIOS very much. I just checked out what you said and the T30 I own doesn't have the "Security" visible in BIOS (maybe because I deliberately lost the hidden partition when I installed XP on it), so that's the explanation for me not understanding where it was. The T30 also doesn't have a blue access button. I do recall however that the X31 does. Next time I get a chance I'll try pressing it as I boot it up and see what happens with the now, larger HDD in it. If it boots into a utilities screen, I'll know that the Pre-Desktop (Hidden partition) and it's information was Ghosted correctly as well as the visible partition. Thanks a bunch for your help....it's been invaluable.

Question about cloning a HDD for X31

Question about cloning a HDD for X31

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