x41 restore partition

[D L Davis]

I formatted my old x41 60g HD and installed xp. Would it be possible that the restore partition survived all that, and I could restore it to TABLET edition by using the restore partition?

[rkawakami]

Slightly confused as to what you are trying to do/asking.

If you truly re-formatted the hard drive in the X41 then most likely that destroyed the restore partition. If, after the re-format, you used an IBM restore disk set to install an operating system (OS), then the restore partition would have been created. However, if you used a standard Windows XP OS (i.e., NOT the Tablet edition), then you would only be able to restore standard XP. Transferring the hard drive out of the X41 into an X41T would not magically restore a Tablet OS.

[D L Davis]

What I was thinking was....if the backup partition is seen by the system as drive Q....reformatting C would leave Q intact.

[Neil]

Your thinking is correct on that...if you formatted the C: partition, then the restore partition is most likely intact. However, in the first post you said you formatted the 60GB HDD. Did you mean a 60GB partition? Or, an entire 60GB HDD?

Also, the method used to format will make a difference, as Ray suggests above. If you don't know for sure how much of the drive you formatted, can you tell us what method you used to format? Maybe that will clue us in on what was erased.

[D L Davis]

Having trouble with my memory. Thinking back on it...to install winxp I would have had to hook up the portable usb cd...and I don't recall doing that. I'm thinking I may have just left the factory software on it, but that wouldn't explain how tablet edition got blown away...if, in fact, it did. I've tried holding down the ACCESS IBM button during boot up, but the system just booted into win xp when I did that, ignoring the key press. I get nothing from pressing the button after xp loads, either.

Looking at the hard drive with a file manager, I don't see any other drive letter than C. So, if tablet edition RESTORE partition resides on the disc...how do I get to it?

[Neil]

Have you tried pressing F11 at the IBM splash screen? That might take you to Rescue & Recovery.

Otherwise, you could boot a live USB rescue OS of some sort, and check what partitions are present. If I recall, Windows is not able to "see" the "hidden" recovery partition.

[D L Davis]

Yes, I tried F11, after reading about that somewhere. It just ignored me and booted winxp. Some free weekend, I'm going to try to restore tablet edition via some rescue ISO's I got here and see what happens. That failing, I guess I'll just resign myself to using a mouse. I think the guy who opened up the machine to see if disconnecting the cmos would make it drop the password demand...forgot to reinstall the cmos battery, as I now have to type in the date and time b4 using the machine.