Seeking advice about the use of Recovery CDs

[alanr51e]

Hi Group,

I've managed to grab a bit torrent for a set of Recovery Disks for an R51 but I'm having trouble using them.

TP is an R51e type 1843. The disk set is for an R51 an the type numbers do not include my type number (higest value is 1841).

Burned the first disc as indicated in the text file (which claims this is all that is necessary) accompanying the recovery files using an SE version of Nero 6, swapped the HDDs and reset the boot order to make the DVD drive the first.

I'm confident the TP can boot from the DVD drive as I have used a bootable linux OS CD to get the Linux OS on the screen.

But the Recovery Boot CD won't.

The Boot CD shows as a big ISO file (about 250 MB) and I'm wondering if this is the correct type of file to allow booting. If not then do I break the ISO file into its component files and recreate a bootable CD? If so, how?

Or is it that the fact my model and type number are not included in the list for the discs I have the problem?

Any advice will be most welcome

Cheers

Alan

[rkawakami]

An .ISO file is an image of a filesystem and needs to be written onto the optical media (CD or DVD) in a special way. You cannot simply "copy" the file using Windows Explorer, for example. Most CD/DVD burning programs will have an option to transfer an image file onto the disk. You'll have to look in the menu(s) of the program you are using or grab a copy of CDBurnerXP:

http://cdburnerxp.se/

And I don't know if that file you have will work on your system or not (TYPE number differences and all). Also, I'd be quite leery of running something that was obtained via a torrent...

[savarin]

In Nero 6:

Go to Recorder - Burn Image ... a new window "Open" appears, you have to find the .iso file you downloaded, click on it, click on "Open", a new window "Burn Compilation" opens, click on "Burn" and burning begins.

After the CD is made try booting again.

I tried often to use recovery CDs (genuine IBM, of course) on different machines (different types). It often worked between TP of the same line, f.e. two Txx. It mostly failed between two machines of different lines, f.e. one Txx and one Xxx.

[alanr51e]

Thanks rhawakin, thanks savarin,


I remember doing this for another purpose many moons ago but I'm afraid that the grey cells don't always work that well so far a memory is concerned. Thanks for the refresher.

And I'll be careful. If successful I won't let the old working HDD near the machine and as I try to rebuild I'll make sure there is no connection to the internet.

If successful I plan to load a copy of AGV which I have on a flash drive and do a full scan before I try to connect to the outside world. If it isn't successful I'll do a full reformat of the new HDD a couple of times before I put it to alternate use.

Thanks for the cautionary advice.

I'll let you all know how I get on.

Cheers and thanks again

Alan