Can't restore HPA on X31 even with recovery CD set

[topper]

I'm trying to get my X31 back to factory condition, pre-sale. It's had the HPA disabled all of its life, and it's been running Linux.

I booted from the "Rescue and Recovery" CD, which is the only one that boots -
the other CDs labelled "Product Recovery 1-7" don't boot. I then click on Restore factory contents.

It tells me to proceed I need to reboot, so I say Yes. It says remove all
media and power off and reboot, so I click OK and do so. I get an
Authentication of system services failed message and press ESC to resume. I
then sit there staring at a blank screen.

I think it's expecting to be able to restore from the predesktop area, but
this is jumping the gun - I need to install the image back to the predesktop
area first.

According to http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...GR-4k2pz7.html,
"Authentication of system services failed" means "The Predesktop Area in the
hard drive is corrupted. To use the Predesktop Area, restore it from a
recovery CD." This is what I'm trying to do!

I know sometimes if the partition table isn't empty, it doesn't offer the option to restore, but I've zeroed it.

For reference, my R&R CD is P/N 19R9174, and Recovery CD set P/N 24R5216. I bought them from <promotion of site not allowed>.com - are they the correct part numbers? Any help would be much appreciated on this - I should just be able to sit back and watch the machine reinstall, no?

[sjthinkpader]

Does the F11 recovery still work?

The R&R boot disk probably detected a valid partition. If you don't need content on the drive, remove the partitions first.

[topper]

Hi and thanks for responding. F11 doesn't work, and nor would I expect it to as the pre-desktop area isn't there - that's what I'm trying to reinstall!

As for detecting a partition, I already pointed out that I've zeroed the partition table. Do I need to do any more than that?

I had another thought - of setting the BIOS Predesktop Area setting to Disabled, then (again) zeroing the partition table, then setting Predesktop Area back to Normal, then trying to restore the HPA from the CDs again. No joy, same situation.

[Terrahawk]

If you're familiar with the use of FWRESTOR.EXE and FWBACKUP.EXE tools provided in the original X31 HPA image, I actually have the image available, as well as one for the T41/T42 and R40. I used those tools to put the X31 HPA back on to my X31 after realising that it didn't have the HPA installed after I bought it.

Getting it to you however, would be interesting - it's over 4GB in size.

[topper]

I'm not familiar with those tools, but how hard can it be? What would I do, dd the image to the disc or something?

Also, it doesn't explain why my recovery CDs aren't working for me. Someone must have a clue.

[Terrahawk]

It's dead easy. I made a bootable DVD that booted into the Windows 98 command prompt (i.e. DOS that can read FAT32) since the FWRESTOR.EXE and FWBACKUP.EXE tools are DOS only. If you run the tools without any options, they provide enough help to get you on your way. I think it's something like FWRESTOR.EXE /file=<base filename of image set> (you can add /verify=on for safety and to double the amount of time taken) - my image is divided into 5 files since FAT32 doesn't like files bigger than 2GB.

No idea about your R&R CD since I've never really used it.

[topper]

Interesting. I wonder if your image would work on my 2672-C2G. Could you make an .iso of the DVD? If you're familiar with scp, I could give you a login on a server to upload it to, if you have the bandwidth.

[Terrahawk]

Can't see why not. Mine is a 2672-N7M which according to Lenovo is a faster version of yours but without Firewire. Strangely enough, I have a working Firewire port despite it not being included with the official specs.

[topper]

I didn't see that coming. I let DBAN run and finish, and lo and behold, the R&R CD asked me for the Product Recovery CDs. Nice. So for anyone in a similar situation, trashing the partition table isn't good enough - if you want to reinstall your HPA image from the CDs, you need to wipe the whole disk with DBAN (or similar).

[Terrahawk]

Good to know