HDD restore sector

[toubib]

I purchased a new HDD for my x31 (160gb to replace the 40gb original still good). That leaves me the 40 in the apricorn external enclosure. I have the original CD set for restoration (having deleted the restore sector on the old drive long ago to recover space). If I wanted the restore sector back, could I just pop in the old drive, perform the restore (which wipes everything), pop the old one back in, create an appropriately sized sector on it, copy the recovery sector to the new sector, and then have a restore sector, or is it more complicated than that? Can I skip all that and just create an appropriately sized sector on the new drive and run the restore directing it to that disk letter without screwing up my existing c: drive?

[ZaZ]

I believe it's more complicated than that, because you'd the appropriate settings in the MBR to have it work properly.

[Terrahawk]

It is a lot more complicated than that. I have managed to replicate my X31's restore partition to another drive but it took the intervention of my old R40 to help me do that. You can't explicitly copy the recovery partition from drive to drive in a straightforward manner.

I had to extract it to a FAT32 formatted hard drive, then burn it onto a bootable DVD making sure all the right utilities were on the DVD, then I could put it onto the new drive.

[toubib]

I have the CD recovery set from when I bought the x31 from IBM (was free for the first 30 days) ...can I just do it if I partition off a new partition or will it screw up my c: drive ??

[Terrahawk]

I would use the recovery CDs to make the recovery partition first, while the new hard drive is blank and then use the recovery partition to set up Windows (turn on and press the Acces IBM button while booting)

[toubib]

here's another one ...I have the old (40gb) drive from my x31 in the docking station. Can I get the recovery sector put on that (D: drive) ? ...will it be safe for the C: drive in the laptop while I am doing it ? I have the x31 wifi networked to my desktop. Can I put the CDs in the CD drive of the desktop and acomplish the recovery over the network which "sees" the D: drive on my x31 docking station just fine.

[Terrahawk]

I don't think you can restore the recovery partition over the network, unless you have made a special DOS boot disk or something similar.

[toubib]

ok ...I have an external cd/dvd drive for the x31 ...can I put the recovery partition on the d: drive in the dock without hurting the c: drive in the x31 ?

[mpcook]

I may be misunderstanding what you are trying to do, but the best way to get the drive set up with original restore partition is to first wipe off all partitions and then install it in your X31 and run the restore CD's to it. You can also use Acronis to copy from one drive to another and this will copy the restore partition. You will want to make sure the original is in a USB enclosure, and the new one is in the laptop when you do this. First make the Acronis boot CD, and boot from the CD with the blank new drive in the X31. There is a rather old post on here from me describing my details on installing a new disk in an X31 with a USB enclosure http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1219

Mike

[toubib]

sorry I explained poorly. I wish to have a restore partition somewhere in case while I travel. As I see it here, I will need to take out my 120gb c drive and put back the 40gb disk from the dock and then proceed with the usb cd/dvd drive. What I wanted to do was to leave everything installed the way it is and do the restoration of the restore partition to the 40gb drive which is currently installed in the docking station without removing the c: drive from the laptop. when I begin the restore cd set, am I able to direct it to the d: drive?