R31 stuck in product recovery - reboots back into it

[led_snapper]

I am sorting out my old laptop to sell it and wanted to restore everything to factory settings. Not a problem or so I thought...
I instigated rescue and recovery and told it to restore to factory settings and all seemed to go fine except now it won't boot into xp and just keeps on coming back to the same darn screen with product recovery progam - version 5.6 headed at the top. Any ideas how I can escape R&R groundhog day?

[andyP]

Try the following; turn TP off by holding down the on button for 5 seconds.
Start it again and press F11 and allow it to boot into the R&R area.
Then click on restart and with a bit of luck, and if I am right, it will restart and boot into windows.

[led_snapper]

Andy,

Thanks for that but unfortunately that doesn't work - the product recovery version 5.6 (blue screen bios looking type interface) just keeps on coming back up no matter what I do after running the ful recovery option. Honestly it's like the proverbial American Groundhog Day!

I chucked a windows xp pro cd in the drive and asked it to repair, got a dos prompt and the directory listing for C misses all the usual windows components so I am inclined to think the recovery hasn't done its job.

The machine did have windows xp home on it so I think I may have more joy looking for a spare copy of that disk cos I have the product key atrtached to bottom of laptop.

I think the recovery might have given me some drivers though...Any ideas?

[Harryc]

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... t=recovery

[led_snapper]

Thanks Harry, but I have been through the same screens and it runs exactly the same procedure over and over again - nothing new copied, no OS. It certainly doesn't convince me to keep trying five dozen times (currently I must have tried it at least four or five).

It just reboots half way through, then inflates a load of stuff to D: (the OS partition) and then abruptly stops, and reboots back in to the same product recovery screen again with two options, one for more of the same and the other to create a floppy disk, which is US since I don't have a USB floppy drive.

Currently I am trying using a windows home cd (of course I have a product key of my own) and installing an OS that way. Hopefully it will pick up the drivers already copied to that partition. I'll let you know how that progresses, otherwise if you have any better ideas I'm all ears.

Cheers

[led_snapper]

I thought another copy of the disk would work, but hey the product key I have won't work with this disk. MS are more crafty than I had thought....I am now having to erase the system partition entirely to get me out of the windows set-up it keeps on launching me back in to. F11 doesn't work now UC.

[Harryc]

Download and burn a copy of gparted and re-partition and format the drive. Select NTFS if they have that as an option, if not format it with FAT32. Now try your CD's again.

[led_snapper]

I have reformatted the drive but the intel boot is still there and I don't have recovery cd's - I only borrowed the woindows home cd from a friend. Am now well and truly stuck as I can't get back my f11 prompt either and I have tried the link on the forum to get back that - the drive images don;t appear to be on the site anymore and the swtools folder isn't in my service partition.

[vanaya]

Complete your location in your profile (as per forum Rules). Maybe someone near by can offer assistance (i.e Recovery disks for sale)

[Harryc]

Good point Vic, even an X31 set would work...which I happen to have

[led_snapper]

Thanks, I have put my location in now fwiw. I really can't be buying disks for a comp I want to sell - hopefully today as it simply isn't worth the lack of profit left in it. I run a business (not computers) and I just want the thing wiped clean with a fresh install so I can sell it

[Maccess]

Did you set the BIOS to default boot with the CD-ROM drive? Using the F12 option won't work, the next reboot will attempt to boot off the unfinished Hard Drive installation.

Also, the restore process involves 1-3 reboots and will continue unattended for around 15-30 minutes. Don't interrupt it otherwise you'll end up with an unfinished WXP installation that asks for activation. The original Thinkpad install generates its activation code from the BIOS and inserts it automatically into Windows.

[Chris001]

led_snapper,

Did you ever get it working again?

Have you tried testing the HDD with the Drive Fitness Test (DFT)?

Chris

[SuperStuff]

Did you set the BIOS to default boot with the CD-ROM drive? Using the F12 option won't work, the next reboot will attempt to boot off the unfinished Hard Drive installation.

Also, the restore process involves 1-3 reboots and will continue unattended for around 15-30 minutes. Don't interrupt it otherwise you'll end up with an unfinished WXP installation that asks for activation. The original Thinkpad install generates its activation code from the BIOS and inserts it automatically into Windows.

This must be the problem with the used R31 laptop that I bought. It must be an unfinished WXP intstallation. It asks for activation when it boots into Windows XP. It had a different product key on the screen than what was listed on the bottom sticker. It did not allow me to boot off the CD-ROM when I set it to in the BIOS. I'm not sure if it's a bad CD-ROM drive.

[vanaya]

To the OP, a copy of the disks would be a very fair price compared to buying them from lenovo.com if still available.

<snip...>This must be the problem with the used R31 laptop that I bought.

If you use a detector like magicjellybean to find the key, it would be different from the license sticker on the bottom of lappy because ibm/lenovo use a volume license to install the the os on the original harddrive. Or the individual that tried the prior attempt has already used the license that has been registered/validated.