Cant access predesktop area? but its still there!

[nimba]

Hi guys,

Ok so I installed another version of windows vista on my own but now i cant get into the pre desktop area (i want to recover). Basically, when i press the blue button at the start, all i get are these options:

press esc to continue normally
press F1 to enter bios setup
press F12 to boot other device (or something like that)

What do I do??

In bios, the predesktop area setting is "normal" and my harddrive is still smaller so i know the hidden partition is there.

[ryengineer]

You require the following package to repair the corrupt boot sector to boot into ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery or Predesktop console again:

Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette.

You would need a floppy disk drive though.

[nimba]

is there no way to do this from a usb drive?

[ryengineer]

is there no way to do this from a usb drive?

USB floppy disk drive will do it.

[Jackboot]

I too upgraded Vista (from the preloaded home basic to home premium) and lost the pre-desktop area. I'm really disappointed that there is no other way than a USB floppy drive to recover the pre-desktop area. Not a lot of folks have a USB floppy sitting around. I will need to purchase a USB drive for ~$30 (not to mention a pack of floppy disks!) to use for just this pre-desktop recovery area.

I don't think I've used a floppy for some 5+ years...I wish that Lenovo could have another way to fix the corrupt boot sector...

*sigh*
With that said, anyone know of the cheapest place to grab a silly USB floppy drive? I was hoping a cheapie site like dealextreme would have them but no dice...

[nimba]

this is one of the stupidest things i've seen....

it can boot from usb, cdrom, anything! why the need for floppy?

I guess im just going to do a full clean install of vista ultimate using daemon tools on my x60 and maybe even reclaim the stupid pre-desktop partition to the os

[tarvoke]

my usual steps for booting a cd into dos to do floppy-type things (works great for flashing bios, for example)

1. if you don't have a floppy drive or a spare floppy, install VFD
http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html
and then run vfdwin to start the driver and create a virtual floppy (e.g. B:)

2. get your bios image + flashing tool, or in this case your mbr-fixin' tool (as linked by ryengineer)
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 54483.html

3. extract the contents of the tool to your virtual floppy, e.g.:
rnr31_rrd.exe b:

4. copy the contents of B: drive to a folder on your desktop. you can quit vfd after that.

5. get the bootable iso image (this one boots into dr-dos7 with no extra memory drivers or anything loaded, other than the generic cd driver needed to access your files)
http://bootdisk.com/plan10/flashcd.zip
http://bootdisk.com/txtfiles/flashcd.txt

5. use ultraiso or winiso to insert the folder (or just the files you'd put into it) on your desktop into the iso image. (using free tools to extract the boot catalog from the iso, build a new image with your files and the catalog, is possible but a little annoying)
((also, kiso in linux has similar functionality as winiso/ultraiso, but currently it will destroy the boot catalog if you add the files and save... i.e. don't bother trying kiso, the resulting iso will not boot.))

6. burn the iso image to cd. (obvious!)
an excellent !FREE! burning software is infrarecorder:
http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/
I've used it on 2000, xp, xp64, vista32 and vista64 with great success. it is very small, has all the features you need, and does not come with all the extra crap (*cough*nero*cough*)

7. boot the cd. if you made it correctly, your files will show up in R: drive.

8. run your bios flash or mbr fix etc.

[Jackboot]

Any idea why I get the "not a valid Win32 application" error message when I try to "run rnr40_rrd.exe" on Vista32? I downloaded the file from the link in this thread...

[ryengineer]

Any idea why I get the "not a valid Win32 application" error message when I try to "run rnr40_rrd.exe" on Vista32? I downloaded the file from the link in this thread...

You're not suppose to run it, kindly read the "Using rnr31_rrd.exe to create a bootable diskette" instructions carefully on the following page:

Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette.

[arlab]

Any idea why I get the "not a valid Win32 application" error message when I try to "run rnr40_rrd.exe" on Vista32? I downloaded the file from the link in this thread...

I'm having the same problem. And I'm not trying to run it... WinImage and VFD also give that error....

[Sable_X31]

The reason is simple: it's not a valid Win32 app. IBM (and by extent Lenovo) are still in the habit of using 16-bit utilities, especially when messing around with boot disks. This recovery disk is no exception.

Unfortunately, with Vista, Microsoft finally dropped all support for 16-bit apps. It's gotta be 32-bit.

You'll have to borrow a computer with XP or older to run the app. Or you might be able to do by booting off a Win98 boot disk or something.

One last trick to add on that I don't see mentioned much around these forums: after you get the MBR fixed/replaced, make sure you go back into your BIOS Security tab, look at the Predesktop Area option, and make sure it's set to normal. You'll have trouble accessing the HPA/PDA otherwise.

[arlab]

Thanks for the explanation.

[Pete7874]

3. extract the contents of the tool to your virtual floppy, e.g.:
rnr31_rrd.exe b:

So what do you do when you get this error message when you try to extract the contents?

Code: Select all

16 bit MS-DOS Subsystem

C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe - rnr40_rrd.exe x:

An application has attempted to directly access the hard disk, which cannot be supported.  This may cause the application to function incorrectly.  Choose "Close" to terminate the application.

And so the whole process fails. I've tried with the rnr31_rrd.exe file, too.

I've googled a potential solution that suggest to overwrite autoexec/config files with ones directly from an XP install CD (i386 folder) but the problem remains.

This is on a Lenovo T61 (7658-CTO) currently running XP Prof. The machine originally came with Vista Business, and so I am trying to bring it back to Vista. The hidden recovery partition is still on the hard drive - I just have no way of telling the machine to perform the recover since the ThinkVantage or F11 doesn't work anymore.

Thanks for the help.

[tcone]

ISO cd-versions are also available, just rename ".exe" in the given download urls to ".iso".

R'n'R 3.1 ISO (Windows 2000 and XP):
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... 31_rrd.iso

R'n'R 4.0 ISO (Windows Vista):
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... 40_rrd.iso