Windows Restore and HDD questions on T40

[Junior897]

Today I updated all the software on my laptop and forgot the cardinal rule. The last backup I have is a week old. The problem I am having is that it has dramatically slowed my system to an unbearable state. Here is my master plan (good or bad it’s all I have) last week I did a full backup in windows, and last night I did a backup of my documents so hopefully I will only lose one day. When I do the windows restore will I loose my HPA partition?

I have also ordered a new Hitachi 5k100 80gig 5400rpm hard drive. My plan on this one is to clone my 40gig to the 80 then do a factory reload to start from fresh and hope I still have all my install disk for all my software. I guess worse case I can then clone my hdd again and go from there I guess my main reason to do the reload is to be able to burn off the recovery disk since I didn’t do it the first time. I also ordered a new DVD+RW and set up reminders to backup more often so hopefully this won’t happen again.

Sorry about all the rambling it is late and it has been a long day. Thank you all in advance for all of your help your website is a wealth of knowledge.

[christopher_wolf]

Welcome to the Thinkpad Forums

In short, you won't lose your HPA if you do a restore via Windows System Restore as that only touches the majority of the files in Windows that changed since the last restore point. It doesn't touch the HPA and the HPA, in either Normal or Secure mode, can only be accessed by the R&R IBM software. In Secure mode, it cannot be overwritten even by most partitioning software.