Need some help upgrading a T22 HDD (w/o CDs)...

[jeffcrilly]

Hmph. Not going too well. Here's what I've done...

1) Cloned 32Gb IBM Travelstar -> 60Gb Hitachi Travelstar using Acronis True Image Trial. I did this on a desktop win2k machine - I set the notebook drives up on the secondary IDE channel.

2) Inserted 60Gb in T22.

3) Got "NTLDR not found" msg.

4) Booted from recovery disk created w/ desktop win2k machine. Put ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from old drive on diskette. Was able to boot the old win2k OS install on the new 60GB drive, but had to always boot from diskette.

5) Tried various ways to get the MBR fixed without luck. chkdsk, etc. Didnt have, and couldnt find fixmbr or fixboot. Finally tried F11 recovery.

6) F11 recovery appeared to get errors writing to i386 on main partition. I ended up removing the main partition on the new drive. No luck w/ F11. Manually created a partition. Didnt format it though. F11 recovery now just doesnt work. I used it once many moons ago on the old drive. I'm suspecting that when I did the last F11, somehow the recovery partion broke and I never noticed it broken until now. (Fwiw, I've only restored the machine once.)

7) Examined 60Gb IBM_Service partition. Compared it to old HDD service partition. They look similar. IBMWORK is empty, which seems odd.
There's lots of files in RECOVERY, but when I manually run the recovery program (PQER?) it fails saying it cant find a PCX file. I suspect I just dont know how to use it manually.

Q0: Possibly the recovery program cant cope with the larger disk?

Q1: Is there a description somewhere of what's on the service partition?
This way I can tell if I've got a busted ibm_service partition on the old drive, or something usable.

I can still clone the old drive again (its not dead yet, jim).

However, I'd need to sort out these issues w/ the ntldr, mbr, etc. There's lots of info out there suggesting fixing it with fixmbr and fixbot, but I dont have those on any win2k machines here.

Q2: If I get ahold of win2kpro setup CD, can I just use my win2kpro CD-Key which is on the bottom of the laptop?

thanks

jeff

p.s. It would really suck to have to pay m$ again for software I already own. I'm really really hesitant to buy another OS license from them when I've already got one. I just need the media! (The winXP upgrade guidelines seem to require a win2kpro cd, which also kinda sucks. I may be inclined to go the XP route, but dont really need it, nor the bloat on this machine.)

[GomJabbar]

Just an idea. Did you disable the Predesktop area in the BIOS under security, before cloning the drive? While I think this only makes changes in the BIOS, perhaps it sets a flag or something on the hard disk itself.

Another possibility is perhaps only the ThinkPad can read the existing hard drive properly for cloning. You may need to clone from the ThinkPad to an external drive (or else one in the Ultrabay).

Something else, did you partition or format the new drive before the cloning process? You may need to start with a drive that has no partitions on it.

These are just ideas. I have not done any cloning of ThinkPad drives myself.

[dsvochak]

I've had exactly the same problem you've described using Acronis 8.x on a 560Z with W2k.

The only was it worked for me was by booting with Acronis (the 560Z required creating boot floppies) and, instead of cloning, creating a full disk image. Then I installed the new drive, booted with Acronis, and restored the image.

I can't explain why it worked, but it did. The new drive booted and ran fine. Of course this requires another drive, Cd/r's or something where you can burn the disk image.

[d lehmann]

If you want to clone the predesktop too, you must make it visible in bios.
Cloning or a full disk image will give you a working mbr
Acronis can restore to larger drives
You should be able to use your key with the files from another cd
Acronis trial version will NOT do a restore. You have to buy it. There are lots of problems with their latest release and you'll have to wait till they are sorted out.

[Nolonemo]

You should be able to use your key with the files from another cd.

Not necessarily, there are different flavors of Win2k (OEM, normal retail, upgrade), and one flavor's serial number won't necessarily work with the other flavor's.

On the other hand, since you have a license for one version of Win2k, I don't see anything ethically wrong with installing from another CD if you have the serial # for that CD -- though it may illegal, I still thinks it's ethical. Just my 2 cents on that, don't mean to start a flame war.

[Nolonemo]

5) Tried various ways to get the MBR fixed without luck. chkdsk, etc. Didnt have, and couldnt find fixmbr or fixboot.

Acronis has a utility program for fixing the MBR. Search their website for it.

However, I'd try another clone after making the IBM partition visible as the other poster suggested. (or whatever, don't know anything about it since the first thing I did when I got my TP was to low format and partition the disk and to a clean install of my OS of choice.)

[jeffcrilly]

What do we mean when we say "predesktop" area?

Is this the ibm_service partition?

It turns out, when I did the clone, the old drive's ibm_service partition was not active, and did not have a drive letter assigned to it.

I've assigned a letter to it, to to see what its got, and if its different than the clone.

Also, when I did the clone, I let acronis expand both partitions on the target drive. Maybe this screwed up the recovery program - e.g. it was expecting some preconfigured size.

Fwiw, there were no partitions on the new drive to start with. It was fresh out of the package.

The interesting thing about this whole adventure is that it could boot from floppy, and the machine was indeed usable. But I suspect I'd still like to re-install windows.

I'll do another clone, but this time I'll not resize the partitions, and see
if that helps.

I'm also tempted to put the old drive back in the T22 and see if it will boot. Maybe something whacked it out (windows?).

As for buying acronis... it might be useful. But I'd feel kinda bad if I spent $50 bucks on it, only to eventually find out what I really need are win2kpro (or XP) install CDs.

jeff

[d lehmann]

As for buying acronis... it might be useful. But I'd feel kinda bad if I spent $50 bucks on it, only to eventually find out what I really need are win2kpro (or XP) install CDs.

jeff

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear on the trial version.
Here is a quote from them:
"www.acronis.com/homecomputing/
From this page you can download a free 15-day trial of the software or purchase it outright for $49.99. The 15-day trial allows the user to see what the program is capable of, although it is not possible to restore an image from within the Windows interface. Additionally, it is not possible to create or restore images or clone disks when launched from the bootable media created during installation."

With the full version; Here's what I do with Thinkpads
Make a hdrive image of the factory os install.
Make an image of the hdrive when my system has all software, latest drivers and tweaks. This can take considerable time (Days and days for me). I don't have the IBM restore cd's

In my humble opinion, being able to clone or restore after a system is tweaked is very time saving over the factory cd's.
BTW, it works flawlessly for me.

[dsvochak]

I agree with d lehmann's comments. Acronis has worked well for me, but for the minor glitch I outlined in my previous post.

If you really wonder whether it's worth the money, there are a lot of posts here about things like true image vs ghost, etc.

Another thing you might want to try is to read the sticky in the Window OS forum titled "How to fresh install WinXP (Step by Step guide). I'm not sure the process described works for W2k but I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't.

If worst comes to worst, W2k with SP3 sells for about $50 on eBay. You can get SP4 and IE6 updates on disk direct from Microsoft for basically the cost of the postage.

[jeffcrilly]

Good points about acronis. I'm not dismissing it, I just am annoyed that its required -- sorta like virus protection software. If the OS vendor did a decent job I wouldnt need to shell out extra $$.

I had considered the notion of imaging after the OS is tweaked, but typically there are driver _updates_, etc, that need to be installed after the image is taken. E.g., if I did an image, I'd like to image _before_ cruft gets on to the machine. Since the driver updates typically come _after_ the cruft, I figured that a re-install is the best bet. An alternative is to partition so that the cruft ends up somewhere else. By cruft, I mean e.g. temp files that arent in temp, cache files, etc.

I've done the F11 restore before, and getting the system (win2k) up to speed w/ latest patches just didnt take that long. I've only got a few apps on the machine. And yes, after time there are new drivers which should be installed. Fwiw, I've been running the T22 for a year without IBM upgrades (though I patch the MS security holes.)

Imo, windows just simply needs to be re-install periodically.

And yes, I'm trying to hunt down a bargain win2k cd install. Or a winXP install.

Maybe I'm just "windows annoyed" -- with OSX we have two machines and they are a breeze to keep running, upgraded, etc. I swapped a disk on one of them and it was a no-brainer. I'd install linux on the T22, but the reason I use it is for some specific windows apps.

thanks for the support.

Here's my alternatives...
1: Try a clone w/ the service partition visible.
2: Try a clone w/o changing the partition sizes.
3: Buy acronis, do a drive image.
4: Install windows from CD.

Btw, alternateives 1-3 assume I have a valid service partition, etc. Its not clear to me that mine is still valid. The only way to find out is to run it on the _original_ disk.

[Nolonemo]

At this point it's not clear to me whether you can use the trial of Acronis to clone something (though it sounds like you did, albeit with an MBR problem).

Here's a freeware app - Ranish partition manager - that I'm told can be used for cloning. Don't have experience with it or more info. Be warned that is is a command line app.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/ranish.html

Alternatively, your HD mfgr may have a cloning utility for download on their website.

[dsvochak]

"Here's my alternatives...
1: Try a clone w/ the service partition visible.
2: Try a clone w/o changing the partition sizes.
3: Buy acronis, do a drive image.
4: Install windows from CD."

I don't know whether it's legal, but for #4 you could try something like this:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=17043

I've never had a T22, but my T21 & T23's all came with restore disks. It's possible some T22's did too. You might post a "wanted" for that while you're at it.

For the long run, I'd go with 4 & 3. Once you've got an image you can use to restore, I'm not sure why you'd keep the service partition.

"The winXP upgrade guidelines seem to require a win2kpro cd, which also kinda sucks"

I'm pretty sure you can upgrade from Win 98 to XP. If you could borrow (or have) a 98 cd to put in the drive when the XP upgrade install asks for it you'd be okay

"Maybe I'm just "windows annoyed"

As are we all from time to time.

[jeffcrilly]

PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 11:14 am Post subject:
At this point it's not clear to me whether you can use the trial of Acronis to clone something (though it sounds like you did, albeit with an MBR problem).

Yeah.. the trial allows cloning and imaging, but I beleive with imaging, the "trial" image cannot be used. (Also, fwiw, I've been reading (as of 10/31/05) that TI 9 is still "buggy" and TI8 is preferred. There's no trial for TI8, but I do know that you can get it if you buy TI9.)

Ranish partition manager

Thanks for the info. I'll check it out. I also checked out g4u, and imaged a small drive to my ftp server. It also supports local diskcopy. But instead, TI seemed like the better bet at the time.

Alternatively, your HD mfgr may have a cloning utility for download on their website.

I wish. Hitachi basically sends you to acronis. They have a deal w/ apricom (?) to do the EZGig USB external drive enclosure - e.g. you buy a new drive w/ the external enclosure, use it to image your notebook drive, then swap drives and you now have your old drive in the enclosure. Sounds great, but the cost is like a $120 premium over a regular drive.

The Seagate transfer tool was great -- that swap just worked. I was very pleased.

jeff

[Nolonemo]

I'm betting that if you do the clone with the service partition visible, it will work, but then my opinion is worthless since don't have any experience with it.

Here's how to get the trial version of Acronis 8. A lot of the time you can find previous trial versions of SW around on the web. So you take the filename for Acronis current trial version, trueimage9.0_d_en.exe, and use that to run a search at filemirrors.com, changing the 9 to an 8, and voila, version 8 trial - on the Acronis website, yet!

http://www.filemirrors.com/search.src?t ... ction=Find

(I note that if I don't turn off ZoneAlarm on my PC while running filemirrors searches, it returns null results, don't know why, but I feel safe enough for the short time it takes to run the filemirrors search, the site is legit)