How to Restore from Hidden Partition T42

[dankatzir8]

Hello,

I have thinkpad T42 which came with windows xp.
my brother reinstalled windows from a new cd, and now all the ibm features and the drivers are missig,
Including the feature to restore.
When a try to restore using the "Access IBM" blue button i dont have the option to restore windows to default.
I see two options - Enter ibm bios or Choose a temporary startup device.
Is there any way to access the IBM_SERVICE partition and restore from there?
Or does anyone know another way to fix this?

Thanks...

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the forum.
The Service partition is gone, deleted by your brother's installation using a regular CD.
If you want that partition back, you would need to look for a set of IBM/Lenovo recovery CDs for the T42.
Problem with that: it is very old, most likely without any service packs, and definitely without any MS updates.

You're better off installing Lenovo's ThinkVantage SystemUpdate 3.16 and let it do it's magic.
Make sure you read this first: http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... -12-24.txt
Then download/install TVSU: http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... -12-24.exe

All the individual T42 drivers can be found here: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/researc ... D=HT035441

[dankatzir8]

but i can see that the IBM_SERIVCE partition still exists - in the computer management, and its almost full

[Neil]

Hello, and welcome to thinkpads.com!

I see quite a bit of activity was going on while I was typing. Oh well. Here is what I was writing anyway...

It's very likely that your brother deleted the service partition when installing the generic Windows. So, you have a couple of options now:

1) Continue to use the installed XP, and download all the IBM drivers and features form Lenovo Support.

2) Find or purchase a set of recovery disks (maybe put an ad in our market place). This will restore your service partition and give you the ability to restore to factory state, should you want to do that. Then you will have to go through all the trouble of updating Windows to SP3, so you can get updates, and removing all the outdated software that was originally installed.

It's a lot of time and trouble either way, but, hey, it's a holiday, so what else are we going to do?

[Neil]

but i can see that the IBM_SERIVCE partition still exists - in the computer management, and its almost full

You need the unique IBM Master Boot Record to access the service partition, and it was overwritten by the generic Windows MBR when your brother installed Windows.

[dankatzir8]

and i cant install the SystemUpdate because i dont have access to internet.... no drivers nothing... the ones from the lenovo support doesnt work

[Neil]

The Lenovo drivers do work. You just have to download and install the correct ones. Oh, and do it the right way, as explained in the ReadMe attached to each driver, such as RBS linked in his post above.

If by "don't have access to internet", you mean on the T42 because of lack of drivers, then just download the network driver you need on the machine you are posting from, and put it on a flash drive, then install it on the T42...then update and install away.

[dr_st]

You need the unique IBM Master Boot Record to access the service partition, and it was overwritten by the generic Windows MBR when your brother installed Windows.

If the partition is still there, but inaccessible - installing Rescue & Recovery can fix that . That application knows how to modify the MBR to make the partition bootable.

[dankatzir8]

You need the unique IBM Master Boot Record to access the service partition, and it was overwritten by the generic Windows MBR when your brother installed Windows.If the partition is still there, but inaccessible - installing Rescue & Recovery can fix that . That application knows how to modify the MBR to make the partition bootable.

It Helped! Thank you very much

[nikemen]

How can one install the R&R if it only boots to R&R? I tried to REMOVE R&R and now booting all I get is R&R and it can't find anything to boot from.

[burns334]

How can one install the R&R if it only boots to R&R? I tried to REMOVE R&R and now booting all I get is R&R and it can't find anything to boot from.

1. Using F12 at startup and choose the CD drive
2. Insert bootable CD in drive and enter
3. Go thru all the easy steps, restore to factory, accept etc
4. The program will transfer bootable files to the new hard drive, this takes about 10 minutes and you will see it on the screen when the laptop starts to shut down manually eject the bootable CD
5. Laptop will now start off of the files just put on the hard drive and ask for the recovery disks

Is this what you need?