X31 2672-5KU HPA - Recovery Issues

[s4zando]

I've got an X31 (2672-5KU. Date code, 4/2004). I increased the RAM to 2gb, and it worked fine for a bit until the original 40GB HD decided to go belly-up right around/over the Windows registry files - Corrupting them, and a number of other startup files.

No big deal. I don't keep much on this laptop, and was able to rescue what I wanted off of it.

I have a spare 160gb HD and decided to throw that in the laptop.

I ran FWBACKUP and get the HPA backed up and off the 40gb drive. I installed a spare drive. Wiped it and then restored the HPA. All was going swimmingly! I then ran the Recovery/Rebuild from the HPA.

That's where it started to go bad.

Deep into the recovery Windows build, it stopped rebuilding and left me at the Windows Sysprep Utility asking for a valid WINBOM.INI (there was winbom.000 and winbom.001 on the drive, but no WINBOM.INI.). My past recovery using the HPA recovery utility on Thinkpads has gone much smoother. Both of the two winbom's looked to be exactly alike, so I renamed one winbom.ini and rebooted - the laptop picked up where it had left off during the rebuild. Now rebuilt with a Factory New Image, it just keeps Blue-screening when I try to complete the end-user setup. I can't get into Safe Mode because setup hasn't been completed. (Don't call me Einstein, but I'm almost thinking that this recovery image is flawed.)

Any ideas? I can't find anyone with similar issues.

Does anyone have any newer versions of a WinXP HPA image for an X31 that they'd care to share?

I believe it's around 3.1gb. I have enough bandwidth at home or work that I'm willing to download or obtain some other way.

I'm also willing to use Recovery CDs as well, I just don't have any.

Thanks much for any help you can throw my direction.

./s4zando

[sjthinkpader]

The bad drive could have corrupted the recovery partition (I assume that is what you mean by HPA). Best is to find a Recovery disk set and start from scratch.

[s4zando]

The bad drive could have corrupted the recovery partition (I assume that is what you mean by HPA). Best is to find a Recovery disk set and start from scratch.

HPA is the "Hidden Protected Area".

You can actually back that up and restore it using the FWBACKUP and FWRESTORE utilities.

It's all documented here:
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... a_aibm.pdf