T60 factory restore from service partition hangs at FINISH

[nichevo]

This 1951 series T60 wigged out on my pal and he couldn't do any diags or the factory restore. Pressing the ThinkVantage button on boot I expected to find a diag option but didn't. He was happy for me to wipe it so I ran the factory restore from the hard drive, which had failed on him, but which went for me - rebooted several times, the DOS screens scrolling...failed to find a few files, but I continued...and it seemed to finish.

Went into the XP Setup routine, named the PC, declined registration, yadda yadda...and the end.




Thank you!

Congratulations, you're ready to go! You are now ready to use your Lenovo computer with Microsoft Windows XP.





Finish |->|


Yay! My green IT thumb at work, right? Triumphantly clicked arrow |->| button next to Finish in lower right corner of the screen and -

Nothing. Clicked it over and over. Tried alt-F, ctrl-F. Clicked again and noticed that the |->| button now had a faintly dotted outline. The mouse had of course been working allalong and seemed to be working now. Clicked it a bunch more times and at least once I noted the hourglass briefly sit, then go away.

But no joy. T60 is stuck at the finish line. What do I do short of try factory restore again from service partition; restore from CD; replace hard drive and start over? For a laugh, I googled Lenovo support and called the first number; answered right fast; bad connection, probably in Bangalore; with repetition he understood me; then the punchline: $200 to open an incident. Seeya!

So, brethren, who knows what I am dealing with here?

My friend would be glad of a speedy response if anyone can help. If nothing else what diags are there? TIA, N

[TuuS]

Have you tried starting the computer? it's possible it will either boot up and work fine, or boot up and repeat the last step that failed.

Worse case get a windows setup disc and install from that, your T60 recovery software and drivers are vintage 2005/6 and will all need to be replaced after many hours of updates, so you'd be better off installing from a windows disc with the latest service pack then installing all the latest lenovo drivers from the website, instead of the old ones from the recovery partition.

[Cigarguy]

^^^ IMO this is spam. It's a link to data recovery software. How would this fix the OP's factory restore partition? Doubt this will fix the OP's problem. I hate software that do not state upfront the price.

Moderator edit: Spam-post removed.

[nichevo]

I'm sure it is I wouldn't even bother checking.

as to reboot, I tried several times no joy. Next I'll try it from the original t60 discs, I don't have an XP set kicking around, and then update, but I'm afraid the HDD has been damaged by the user - BIOS diags gave HDD errors 0000, 0100 before I quit, read and speed errors - and I'll have to reformat from cd set and start over which I assume the cd set will do - or worse >> worst, put in new drive. But I've already run.the restore once so data recovery is pointless.

[TuuS]

If you want a used copy of WinXP pro w/COA I have them for $30, or I have a couple for $20 if you don't mind a tattered (but readable) COA.

As for your harddrive errors, one trick that sometimes works is to make a small partition in the beginning of the harddrive and don't use it. This is usually the most "worn" part of the drive and by installing your OS in the second partition you would (hopefully) be using a more stable part of the drive, but your best option might be to replace the drive.