Bootable X40 recovery DVD?

[taob]

Has anyone tried making their own bootable recovery DVD from the contents of the hidden partition of an X40? I managed to copy all the files using PartitionMagic 8 (at least, all the files I could see) and burned them to a DVD. I can't figure out how to make the thing bootable though.

Here's a listing of the root directory. There are a total of 6784 files taking up 3.77 GB. IBM sent me the 7-CD recovery set, but it sure would be more convenient just to be able to boot this one DVD.

Code: Select all

total 4134
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None          675 Mar 30  2001 AUTOEXE2.BAT
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None           42 May 26 21:08 AUTOEXEC.BAT
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None           42 May 26 21:08 AUTOEXEC.ICR
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None           42 May 26 21:08 AUTOEXEC.ROD
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None          165 May 26 21:08 BOOT.INI
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None          512 May 26 21:08 BOOTSECT.DOS
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        59471 Mar 30  2001 CHKDSK.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        53786 May 26 21:08 COMMAND.COM
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None         2855 May 30 02:05 COMMAND.PIF
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None          222 May 26 21:08 CONFIG.ICR
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None          222 May 26 21:08 CONFIG.ROD
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None          222 May 26 21:08 CONFIG.SYS
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None          544 Mar 30  2001 CONFIG9x.SYS
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None          530 Mar 30  2001 CONFIGME.SYS
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None         3877 Mar 30  2001 DISPLAY.SYS
drwxr-xr-x    2 taob     None            0 May 30 01:21 DOS
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None        24888 Mar 30  2001 EGA.CPI
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None       179583 Mar 30  2001 EMM386.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        22827 Mar 30  2001 FDISK.COM
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None          655 May 26 21:08 FINDDRV.BAT
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        32768 Mar 30  2001 FLOPPY.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        57344 Mar 30  2001 FLOPPY9x.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        57856 Mar 30  2001 FLOPPYME.EXE
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None        14320 May 26 21:08 HIMEM.SYS
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        44240 May 26 21:08 IBMBIO.COM
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        42550 May 26 21:08 IBMDOS.COM
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None           80 May 26 21:08 IBMRNR.TXT
drwxr-xr-x    2 taob     None            0 May 30 01:21 IBMSHARE
drwxr-xr-x    2 taob     None            0 May 30 01:21 IBMWORK
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        12187 Mar 30  2001 KEYB.COM
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None          967 Mar 30  2001 LABEL.PIF
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None         1866 May 26 21:08 LAUNCHIT.BAT
drwxr-xr-x    2 taob     None            0 May 30 01:21 MFG
drwxr-xr-x   11 taob     None            0 May 30 01:21 MININT
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        16025 Mar 30  2001 MODE.COM
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None            0 Mar 30  2001 MYDOS.SYS
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        47580 May 26 21:09 NTDETECT.COM
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None       222368 May 26 21:09 NTLDR
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        21756 Mar 30  2001 NWCDEX.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None         2513 May 26 21:09 PCYCLE.EXE
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None       222368 May 26 21:09 PDLDR
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None       245920 May 26 21:09 PELDR
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None          332 May 26 21:09 PLNRCHK.BAT
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None        80896 Aug 15  2002 PMHELP.DAT
drwxr-xr-x   15 taob     None            0 May 30 01:24 PREBOOT
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None            4 May 26 21:09 PSPHD.TAG
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None       503808 Sep 16  2002 PTEDIT32.EXE
drwxr-xr-x    4 taob     None            0 May 30 01:28 RECOVERY
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        82165 May 26 21:14 REXX.EXE
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None          171 May 26 21:14 RXDINFO.RX
drwxr-xr-x    2 taob     None            0 May 30 01:44 Recycled
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None          482 May 26 21:14 SCRREC.VER
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None       867112 May 26 21:14 TPDIAG.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None        20231 May 26 21:14 TPDIAG2.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None       119866 May 26 21:14 TPPLGA6.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None       163264 May 26 21:14 TPPLGD9.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None       117467 May 26 21:14 TPPLGT1.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None       323395 May 26 21:14 TPPLGW4.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None       222872 May 26 21:14 TPPLGW5.EXE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 taob     None       303878 May 26 21:14 TPPLGW7.EXE
drwxr-xr-x    2 taob     None            0 May 30 01:44 TPTOOLS
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None           10 May 26 21:14 VERSION.ID
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None           51 Mar 30  2001 WEBPAGE.URL
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None           10 May 26 21:14 WIN51
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None           10 May 26 21:14 WIN51IP
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None            2 May 26 21:14 WIN51IP.SP1
-rw-r--r--    1 taob     None          171 May 26 21:14 WINBOM.INI

[snife]

there is a bootable cd image for the windows pe part of rescue and recovery location in c:\ibmtools\rrcd - i have not tried putting it to dvd but this would be a good starting point.

Also if you use the Create Recovery Discs option from Access IBM in the start menu it will reboot and when it does the hidden partition will then be visible within windows.

Rapid restore also appears to be able to backup to DVD but im not sure whether you need a bootable CD first or not - i will try this out and let you know.

[snife]

i have checked and with rapid restore you need at least 2 disks - the first one (can be either CD/DVD) boots into the predesktop and then the second (or more depending on the size of your drive) DVD contains your actual backup. But if base backup is done from a fresh system it will give you essential the same results as a restore factory contents would

[taob]

Yeah, I did the same thing when I reinstalled everything from scratch the first time: take a backup snapshot before anything else was copied over. Then I tuned things up a bit, got rid of close to 2 GB of files (out of a total of about 4 GB on a virgin install, I think), and made another backup. Burned both to DVDs for safekeeping.

My reasoning behind creating a single bootable DVD was this: I figured the predesktop area was bootable, so it stands to reason that if I transfer everything on it to a DVD, that should be bootable as well. But it seems that I am having some difficulty creating a bootable DVD... looks like I'm missing a loader file of some sort that needs to be copied into the boot blocks or something?