R50e XP install gone bad... help!

[bnuttz]

I just got an R50e with XP Home preinstalled, but want to use XP Pro. I have a retail copy of XP Pro, and without thinking or doing any research, I booted from the XP Pro CD and installed XP Pro over my copy of XP Home. I noticed two partitions, and reformatted the IBM_PRELOAD partition and left the other one alone, thinking that I might be able to restore the system with the other partition.

After installation, I immediately noticed something wrong: it looked like a had a dual boot system. Upon opening up My Computer, I found that my system was in the D drive, and the previously hidden partition was the C drive. At this point, I thought that I should recover my XP Home, so I rebooted and used the blue Access IBM button, to no avail. Before installing XP Pro, I made a Rescue and Recovery backup onto an external USB HDD, but the system won't let me recover from that backup. The sytem just reboots. I did not, however, create the recovery discs.

So here are my questions:

1. What is the best way for me to install XP Pro on this system and maintain full functionality of the Access IBM button? Basically, I want the system to seem like it shipped with XP Pro instead of Home.

2. My friend has an X41 with XP Pro which I can use to burn recovery discs, will those work with my system?

Thanks in advance.

[christopher_wolf]

Hello and Welcome to the Thinkpad Forums

Well, recovery disks burned with an X41 won't work on an R50e all that well. Also, call up IBM and order the Recovery Disks (You could have also made your own set as well before you tried to put Pro on the Thinkpad) and they should be able to send them to you for no charge. It might not be possible, but after you get the factory install of XP home on there, you could try and get the Pro Upgrade pack and upgrade XP Home; again, I am not sure if that will work, but it is worth a try. Another option, possibly a much longer shot, is to ask IBM if they could send the Recovery Disks for a similarly spec'd R50e with XP Pro on them instead of XP Home. HTH

[bnuttz]

Thanks for the warm welcome and especially for the quick response.

I've called up IBM already - they want to charge me $50 for the discs. I now realize that I could have made the recovery discs myself before I tried installing pro, but that's water under the bridge.

I also asked IBM if they could give me discs for my R50e with Pro on it, and they said that they don't have them for my model (1834-A58).

Am I just SOL?

[sco1984]

Hey Christofer,
I want to know , is it posisble to create IBM recovery partition by
own ? I have IBM Thinkpad R50e-1834-EQ1 which comes with
DOS . I am now using Windows 2003 STD and Linux, But planning to
buy Windows XP pro edition , i want to keep only XP , but its time
taking process, run cd , install drivers and etc, recovery partition
installs drivers and etc in 1 shot . Automated Any idea about that?


Regards,
Amey Abhyankar.