Thinkpad 770X recovery with 770Z discs?

[rheacox]

I recently got a set of 770Z recovery discs from Bill Morrow that I wanted to use to recover my 770X. Bill didn't have the 770X specific discs but I figured that since the two models are so close hardware-wise that there would be little issue doing this.

However, when I booted the recovery disc, it flashed "Starting Windows 95..." like I had figured and then it restarted. It would continue doing this until I pulled the plug. I tired the discs in two other computers and the same thing happened.

There was a floppy image on the recovery disc that I pulled and wrote to a floppy and the same thing happened. My best guess is that it's looking for some certain hardware configuration that it isn't finding so it kills the process? I've been trying to modify the autoexec.bat and config.sys files on the boot floppy but I haven't gotten anywhere yet.

If anyone knows any tricks or has the 770x boot floppy image, that would be great. The discs from Bill are definitely written correctly.

[fultontech]

I've used the 600X Win2K recovery CD's successfully with the 770X, but the 600X Win98 Recovery fails during the OS customization part and will blue screen after a reboot.
If you are trying to do Win95, it may be failing due to a real mode driver version difference between the X and Z models.

[rheacox]

Thats interesting about the 600x recovery discs. The recovery disc I have is Windows 98. I can get slightly further by running the batch files off of the CD after booting from a different floppy but still nowhere close to getting the OS installed.

[fultontech]

I've always had to install Win98/98SE on the 770X from retail media and install drivers later by hand, but of course I don't have the correct recovery media either.

[rheacox]

The main reason I wanted it was to get my hands on the video capture software since I have the DEVA card

[fultontech]

Yeah, me too. I have not been able to get the movie playback/decoder to work on W2K. There are several long threads here regarding the subject.

[Thinkpad Maniac]

Hello, if you don't mind my unsolicited advice, did you try to download the latest windows 95 boot diskette compatible with the 770X, and try booting from that? It should work with all kinds of models not just the 770/770X/770Z so if it doesn't boot from that there may be something wrong with your laptops, or boot diskette.

Just an idea to try.

[fultontech]

In this case we were talking about using recovery media for a different model. The older the system, the more specific the drivers were for devices and chipsets.
The recovery media is a series of batch files and compressed achieves that work fine for the intended systems. Mileage varied for other models.

[rheacox]

Exactly, a regular boot disk will work just fine but still doesn't get me anywhere. Currently running Win2k still but it would be very cool to get the video capture feature working.

On the bright side, the battery is now rebuilt and working well

[Thinkpad Maniac]

In this case we were talking about using recovery media for a different model. The older the system, the more specific the drivers were for devices and chipsets.
The recovery media is a series of batch files and compressed achieves that work fine for the intended systems. Mileage varied for other models.

Hi, I realized that you were discussing using the recovery media for a different model. I'm not sure about Windows 95, but with Windows 98 you shouldn't just get it to turn off as soon as it boots up, if the recovery fails, it is usually after the files have been copied to the hard drive, and are being extracted and installed. I.e. it is during the recovery process itself, not when it just starts.

It should boot into a DOS environment, and then just install Windows 95 with customizations, when the customizations, and drivers are incompatible it should fail during installation. From what the poster explains, even the boot floppy, i.e. not the recovery disk but the boot environment fails. This was a problem with some of the boot disks, that's why I suggested using the updated boot floppy image that can be downloaded from the internet and compatible with the 770X and many other models. That should allow booting into the DOS environment, and then using the 770Z recovery CD to complete the recovery process. It would at least be worth a try.

[Thinkpad Maniac]

Exactly, a regular boot disk will work just fine but still doesn't get me anywhere. Currently running Win2k still but it would be very cool to get the video capture feature working.

On the bright side, the battery is now rebuilt and working well

Hi, my point was that you said that you took the boot floppy disk from the recovery CD, it should have a file size of about 1.44 MB, I believe this allows to boot into a DOS environment that would then give you the option of continuing recovery with the recovery CD. From what you wrote, it sounded like the boot floppy also failed. There was a problem with some of the old boot floppy files, and IBM released an updated version that is compatible for many different models. I.e. it is compatible with the 770X, and 770Z, if you download that boot floppy and boot from that it should work. Then once it does you would presumably be able to attempt a recovery with the 770Z recovery disk.

I.e. if the boot floppy you created from the disk failed, download an updated one for the 770X/770Z/etc and boot into the DOS recovery environment, then attempt to use the 770 disk.

[rheacox]

Ah, I thought you were just talking about a regular DOS boot disk. I’d love to try an updated IBM boot disk, any idea where I could find one?

[Thinkpad Maniac]

Ah, I thought you were just talking about a regular DOS boot disk. I’d love to try an updated IBM boot disk, any idea where I could find one?

Hi, sorry for the delay, I've been very busy.
Your could find the diskette, and other drivers here:

https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad- ... m/770.html

Look for the diskette under the "recovery" section of drivers. And let me know if it works, in case you try it, as I'm genuinely curious.

[rheacox]

Well, I downloaded the boot disk maker for the 770/E/ED since there wasn't one under the driver list for the 770X or Z and I did get a little further.

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipO ... k4UDN2TktB

So, I'm thinking there may be a problem with Bill's disks.... They did begin to unpack but failed. Although this may be an issue with using a boot disk for a 770 and CD for a 770Z.

If anyone else has another 770x or z recovery ISO they could send me it would be interesting to try.

[rheacox]

So, I'm curious if anyone out there with a 770Z would be willing to try the recovery disc from Bill just to make sure it isn't a compatibility issue once and for all. PM me for a link to the ISO.

[thinkpadcollection]

One suggestion could be the memory modules at fault? This is where certain installations of the win 9x fails.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[rheacox]

I suppose it's possible but I doubt it. I've recovered the system with a Win98 recovery disc for the 770X and a 98SE disc for the T20 over the past couple days.

Running Win98 SE from the T20 disc and it seems to be working well. I'm using it to type this right now

I guess the old girl still has some life in her yet

[markgm]

I thought I'd chime in here a few years later and report that I too am having issues getting the 770Z recovery disk to work on a 770X. The CD is not bootable, so I made a floppy out of the files in recovery.bin in the image. When I use that floppy the computer gets to "Starting Windows 95..." and then reboots. When I use a standard Windows 98SE boot disk the files on the CD aren't listed properly. For example, bootcat.bin is bootca01 and dft.bat is dft_bat. When I put the disc in another computer the file extensions are right.

I ran into the same issue when I used the 770 boot disk. I unpacked the ISO files and burned them to a disk, but part way through the recovery it failed with CDR101: Not ready reading drive Z. I kept hitting retry (8 times) and eventually it finished. I got a message that the recovery was successful, though the computer didn't boot! I put the 98 bootdisk back in, ran fdisk/mbr, and then it boot Windows 98. The first time it attempted to boot it rebooted shortly after the splash screen came up. The second time it came up it created the hibernation file and then booted into Windows. The only downside to using this bootdisk is that the drive is formatted FAT16.

The system was missing drivers for the 'PCI Multimedia Device', and the Windows version is 4.10.1998.

[Edward Mendelson]

Just noticed this thread. I wrote about a similar problem here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=132294

If anyone has the physical 770z CD, is there any chance you might be willing to make an ISO of it? Our member theterminator93 made one that he let me have, but it won't boot, despite some further work he (very generously!) did on it.

I realize I'm asking for help beyond the call of duty...

[rheacox]

I thought I'd chime in here a few years later and report that I too am having issues getting the 770Z recovery disk to work on a 770X. The CD is not bootable, so I made a floppy out of the files in recovery.bin in the image. When I use that floppy the computer gets to "Starting Windows 95..." and then reboots. When I use a standard Windows 98SE boot disk the files on the CD aren't listed properly. For example, bootcat.bin is bootca01 and dft.bat is dft_bat. When I put the disc in another computer the file extensions are right.

I ran into the same issue when I used the 770 boot disk. I unpacked the ISO files and burned them to a disk, but part way through the recovery it failed with CDR101: Not ready reading drive Z. I kept hitting retry (8 times) and eventually it finished. I got a message that the recovery was successful, though the computer didn't boot! I put the 98 bootdisk back in, ran fdisk/mbr, and then it boot Windows 98. The first time it attempted to boot it rebooted shortly after the splash screen came up. The second time it came up it created the hibernation file and then booted into Windows. The only downside to using this bootdisk is that the drive is formatted FAT16.

The system was missing drivers for the 'PCI Multimedia Device', and the Windows version is 4.10.1998.

I decided to dust off the old Thinkpads recently and I tried that restore disc again while pushing through the drive read errors and what do you know, it worked! Like you said, it didn't install the MPEG decoder drivers but luckily those drivers are available here. Pretty neat to have it working on it's factory image finally. Of course, I have no idea where the RCA dongle went for the capture card...