Accessing data on recovery CDs

[spwhitty]

I have a new T43 that did not include the recovery partition. I also do not have an i386 dir on the harddrive. I was able to get the recovery CDs from IBM. I have tried using various copies of the i386 dir that I have found (my own WinXP Pro Retail CD, a friends Dell OEM restore CD) and have not had luck doing a clean install as per the guide in the sticky because my product key is failing to match with the install CD I have created.

I would really like to be able to try again with the recovery CDs that I just received, but I have been unable to figure out how to access the i386 dir on the recovery disks. The files are hidden/archived. What I need to do is locate the directory and copy it to my hard disk. Someone mentioned in the Clean Install sticky that they found utilities in C:\IBMTOOLS\UTILS to access the files, but I have not had any luck.

Has anyone figured out how to do this? Thanks!

[egibbs]

You do have "Show hidden and system files" turned on in Explorer, right?

Ed Gibbs

[spwhitty]

Hi Ed, thanks. Yes, I have set Explorer to view hidden files. Files do appear on the disks. The files are all just some sort of IBM proprietary archive - that's my guess anyway. I just don't know which disk has the i386 dir and how to actually copy it in a format readable by Windows.

MORE INFO:
The actual boot CD (there is one boot CD and 6 product recovery CDs) has an i386 dir on it. However, it is only 158MB in size and is clearly not the complete set of i386 install files.

Any ideas guys?

[s0larian]

the boot CD is just for reinstalling the Recovery environment on the harddisk. After doing that you are supposed to boot the harddisk into the Rescue environment to go on with the rest of the CD's.

[spwhitty]

Right, that's what I figured, and that's why the i386 dir is so sparse. So, I still need to get my hands on a copy of the full WinXP Pro i386 dir that is located somewhere on these 6 recovery disks. I'm sure someone has done this before..

[s0larian]

I would use an old hdd, just put it into your Thinkpad and boot with the CD's and do a recovery. Then copy the i386 folder to network or usb drive and after that change back to your original hdd. I don't know of an easier way. But I remember that my T40p IBM Recovery CD's where extracted during recovery with a tool called Powerquest and many files had the extension .pqi or similiar.

[spwhitty]

Does the restore process destroy partition information on a disk, or will it just do a system restore to C: and leave the disk layout and other partitions alone?

[spwhitty]

So, anyone have an answer to the question from my last post? Will system restore (from CD) wipe C: and D: and just give me a big C: plus a recovery partition (which I currently do not have), or will it just put the image onto my C drive and leave everything else alone?

[s0larian]

there are two alternatives:

1. if you delete all partitions, you can restore the predesktop with the CD's. After that you boot into the predesktop and do a system restore.

2. If you keep your partition layout, you are not allowed to restore the predesktop, just the regular system with XP. XP is installed to c:\, all other partitions are kept. In addition you have to activate XP with your OEM key (not necessary doing it the first way).

If you have already the predesktop and other partitions on your hdd and do a system restore from the predesktop, also just the c:\ partition is affected. Other partitions will be kept.

[spwhitty]

Ok, I would need to execute option #2. If I do so, I am assuming that the C:\i386 dir will be created? I will need the CD key from unattend.txt that is located in there, otherwise I don't have one yet (IBM mistakingly sent me a Windows XP Home license and key via the sticker on the bottom).