R40 - Can't do Product Recovery from HD or CD's

Message

SWG · #1 Post by **SWG** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:18 am

I inadvertently placed this post in the hardware section. Sorry about that, first time posting. I think it is a software problem not a hardware problem though not sure.

I hope somebody can help me with this ... have been trying for days to resolve it.

I have a three year old Thinkpad R40. Running WIndows XP Pro, SP2. 60G HD, 512M memory. A few days ago, after deleting some software using XP's delete tools, my system stopped working. Long story about how but esssentially would not boot into XP in normal or safe mode, kept running scandisk and finally would not boot at all.

I have tried to do a System Restore to factory settings using the IBM Access key and restore software in the HPA. I can get to the predesktop and the restore pgm starts then ends with a "Invalid media type reading drive C .... Abort, Retry, Fail." I was able to use another disk I had from a Dell desktop to get into the Recovery Console where I tried everything from fixboot, fixmbr to reformatting the C: drive with Fat32. Nothing seems to work. Keep getting the same results. I also tried the Restore and Recovery CD set from IBM for my system with the same results. During the last phases of the restore attempt I see PKUNZIP extracting (Searching ZIP: D:/RECOVERY/OKDS09A.IMZ") the last line before the invalid media type. Hitting the F(fail) key several times gives PKUNZIP (W10)warning! can't create C:\autoexec.bat and hitting f again several times gives similar warning about other programs it was trying to extract and load on the C: drive.

I have run PC Doctor diagnostics on the HD and aside from a bad cluster or two, no other problems. Have never had a problem with the HD before and I think it is OK. Again, I can

boot into the on-disk Recovery Program. I have access to an external floppy drive which still works and can boot from the R40's CD drive if necessary.

Any suggestions, help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bill G

Zeitgeist · #2 Post by **Zeitgeist** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 1:25 am

Two options:
First try to run the mbr repair tool:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=25861

If this doesn't work, do the following:
1. Delete ALL parititions of the hdd with fdisk, only delete, do not create partitions.
2. Change the boot order permanently in the bios: CD first.
3. Insert the first recovery CD, start the recovery process. be patient, first the service partition will be created than the system partition.

SWG · #3 Post by **SWG** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 6:49 am

Thanks for the info .... tried both options ... mbr repair tool from Lenovo site ... did not help. Next, deleted the only partition on the hard drive using diskpart from the recovery console.

Set bios to boot from the CD drive, started with the first of four Thinkpad product recovery CD's with exactly the same results as before.

During the recovery process, the software loads from Disk 1 and assigns the CD Recovery drive as X: and builds a RAM drive as D: then it asks for Disk 2. During the reading of disk 2, I get a message "File X:\recovery\CM1PBUS.IMD" needs to be opened, Reinsert first media of image set into Drive x:". I reinsert Disk 1 and the Product Recovery pgm reloads then it asks for Disk 2 again and after inserting Disk 2 I finally end up with "Invalid Media Type reading Drive C" message. Exactly as before.

Appreciate the suggestions though.

Bill G

#4 Post by **Kyocera** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 7:26 am

Bill it sounds like you need to get some recovery CD's maybe put a post in the marketplace, i'll check what I have at home tonight.

SWG · #5 Post by **SWG** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 7:49 am

Thanks Kyocera but I already have the Product Recovery CD 's (4) from IBM/Lenovo for my model of the R40. I have tried using these in addition to the Recovery software in the HDA on the drive.

I end up with exactly the same results using either method. I am about to give up on this hard drive and start over with a new one.

Thanks for the response.

Bill G

JHEM · #6 Post by **JHEM** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 8:36 am

You have to go into the BIOS and unhide the recovery partition. then run FDISK and erase ALL partitions.

You should be able to run the recovery CDs after that.

Regards,

James

SWG · #7 Post by **SWG** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 8:15 am

James, can you elaborate on unhiding the recovery partition in bios? I was in bios but could not find the options to do this ..... not that familiar with making bios changes.

Thanks,

Bill G

Bugs_Y · #8 Post by **Bugs_Y** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 9:03 am

Look in bios .. security.. predesktop area and disable it .. then fdisk to clear all partition... then insert recovery media and it will install new HPA partition... then go in bios and enable predesktop area.. and you will be able to recover from HPA

SWG · #9 Post by **SWG** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:55 am

James .... did as you suggested, went into bios, marked predesktop area as disabled ..... used fdisk to delete all partitions .... shut down, did a reboot to the cd rom drive which contained disk 1 of my 4 recovery disks .... it started the boot procedure ... assigned X: to the recovery drive and D: for a ram drive ....

then stopped with the following message:

CDR101: Not ready reading drive X ....... Abort, Retry, Fail.....

If you have any other ideas they would be appreciated .... I am looking for more info on this error now ...

Thanks again for the effort.

Bill G.

SWG · #10 Post by **SWG** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 7:12 pm

After much effort and many false starts I finally fixed my problem. I am posting this to possibly save others from doing what I did, that is, blaming the problem on the laptop hard drive.

You can see from the previous posts some of the errors I encountered while trying to use the IBM Recovery CD's on a R40 which would not boot normally or in safe mode into XP Pro.

The problem was not the HD or the software, it was the memory. The Thinkpad has 512M using two memory simms. The solution was to remove and reseat the simms. I swapped them also but I don't think that was necessary.

After I rebooted using the Recovery CD's the recovery program worked fine and I am back where I started when I received the system three years ago. XP Pro is up and running, now to install all of my apps.

Thanks to those who offered suggestions.

Bill G.

jn1520 · #11 Post by **jn1520** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 10:30 am

Forgive me for this question, but if I were able to obtain a copy of a Product Recovery CDs for an R40 would the Windows XP Product key be recognized as valid?

The reason I ask is because I only have an old "slip-streamed" version of XP Pro (w/ SP1a). Now that Microsoft has made use of WGA, I don't want to waste my time installing it.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Terrahawk · #12 Post by **Terrahawk** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 5:52 pm

jn1520 wrote:Forgive me for this question, but if I were able to obtain a copy of a Product Recovery CDs for an R40 would the Windows XP Product key be recognized as valid?

Yes, it would because the install from a recovery CD is a volume license key registered to IBM. The key on the COA is only used if you install Windows from your own OEM CD.