Need ... X32 (2672) recovery disks, or ... can I use T43's?

[davidspalding]

The X32 (2672-KBU, very sweet machine) I just bought came with a plain XP Pro installation on it, and I'd like to establish the predesktop area and recovery partition, as well as the baseline of apps and drivers. Does anyone have some ISOs or discs we can swap?

I can compensate with high quality Japan-made CD-Rs and/or DVD-Rs. Or moolah, within reason.

Alternative: I've read of other members here restoring an X3x with T4x recovery discs (my T43 has the same Pentium M 755 chip as the X32), replacing drivers and such with downloads from Lenovo (most of which should be okay; I've found that updates after 2006 or early 2007 for the T43 went down in quality). Has anyone actually done this with an X31 or X32?

[sjthinkpader]

T43 should use P-M 740/750/760 CPUs and T43 Recovery disks should work for X41. T42 Recovery disk set should work for X32/X40.

[fasterbybike]

I've used T42 recovery disks for my X32

[virge]

A while back I acquired a T43 hard drive with the rescue partition on it. For kicks I tried running it in a T42. No go. I don't remember exactly what happened, but it didn't work.

[ajkula66]

You can't use disks from T43, but you can use the ones from T40/41/42

If you still need a set for X31/32, PM me.

[davidspalding]

EDITED

I'm not sure what my next step is actually. I determined that I CAN'T boot the X32 on a MiniDock Dock II with a CD-R drive in the Ultrabay slot.

So my alternatives are find a USB CD-R drive to boot from, or .... would the (X31/X32) Recovery Discs work just booting from them in a T43, with a blank 7200rpm drive in the primary HDD bay, laying down the image, then powering down and powering up the X32 with the 7200rpm drive in it? I seem to recall that the T60 disks boot to R&R, go through a rigmarole of simply writing to the HDD, then ask for a restart of the system.... Am I dreaming?

[Harryc]

I've had a couple of X32's, they all were able to boot from an Ultrabay 2000 optical drive in the X3 Ultrabase. I'd fix that problem first....but that's me.

[davidspalding]

I confused terms, sorry. It's a Dock II that I have the optical drives in. And the X32 BIOS specifically prohibits booting from it. I updated BIOS to 3.08, so I could try again.

For farts and giggles, I tried imaging a drive with recovery disks in the T43, then putting it into the X32. Works great, but Windows won't continue installing since I used T43 disks, and something called agpCPQ hangs up. But the Rescue and Recovery does the first-boot thing fine. So I only need recovery disks.... probably.

I know, I know. I was told. I wanted to try it with T43 disks anyway (to see if I could get it done without buying a USB CD/DVD drive)....

Installing utilities off Lenovo's site to the seller's plain vanilla XP install mostly got things working, though the IntelPROSet wireless software is buggy as all heck. And Access Connections 3.82 or 4.12 won't coexist with it, causing a BSOD. Apparently installing the Intel 2915 a/b/g drivers without the connection software isn't an option either; AC couldn't find the card. (This is why I'm favoring doing a restore to 2005 drive image, coexistence of the various versions of IBM utilities is not so great.)

Appreciate all the tips and feedback. I feel like a TP newbie again.

[beaker]

Not sure where you have heard this but I have booted and installed Windows/Linux/*BSD from both a ThinkDock I and II UltraBay2000 for years.

[davidspalding]

Not sure where you have heard this but I have booted and installed Windows/Linux/*BSD from both a ThinkDock I and II UltraBay2000 for years.

I didn't hear it, saw it. This X32 (2672)'s BIOS specifically refuses to move the Dock II optical drive into setup's bootable devices list. It stays in the "excluded" section at the bottom. Is there a trick to overriding this?

[sjthinkpader]

Highlight the item and press"X". It will be moved to allowed list.

[davidspalding]

Yes, believe me I RTFM'ed, but pressing "X" didn't work, it just beeped at me.

Solution: I had to move included boot devices (e.g. "Legacy floppies," "PXE," "IDE HDD1") to the "excluded" list before I could move the ATAPI Dock II optical drive into "included." This didn't work when I first got the X32, I moved all but 4 devices to "excluded," but the ATAPI device refused to move to "included."

I've since updated BIOS, so when I tried again this morning, it worked. (shrug) I'm guessing BIOS wasn't updated by the first owner.

Thanks for posting, without knowing that someone boots from a DOCK II CD-R, I wouldn't have tried this again.

Addendum: In other news, I found an Australian eBay seller who had some X32 disks (39K8911).