A31p 2653-H5G Rebuild after HDD crash

[tinyestspider]

Hello,

Knowledge and running machines seem to abound here.

The problem I have is that my trusty old A31p 2653-H5G had a disk drive crash. Everything seemed so straight forward until then!

I have 'copies' of all the programs etc on the IBM_SERVICE partition and also on the main drive. However, I don't have a partition copy or ghost so need to rebuild the machine from scratch. Added to this, I'm not using the same size hard disk and so can't use exactly the same details as before.

So far, I've tried and been defeated somewhere along the line. I believe I need to create a partition at the end of the disk, big enough for the recovery files to go in (1,179,267,230 bytes). Does it have to be a particular size and if not, how big can I get away with making it and what kind of partition should I create, to go with the other partition on the rest of the disk? Try as I might, I can't find the idiots guide on the internet anywhere and now things have moved on with Rescue and Recover. Active, primary, hidden, FAT32 (for the hidden) and NTFS (for the rest of the disk) are words that abound and confuse. Once I've created that partition how do I boot from it and then get the other to boot when required? Will it reformat the other partition if required and it's not there?

Anyone with suggestions/methodology please? (I'll try most things - maybe not fast as it takes a bit of playing around with and I'm away with work a fair bit.)

TIA

tinyestspider

[Harryc]

If you have the original recovery CD's, they should partition the drive for you.

[tinyestspider]

Sorry - no original recovery disks from IBM - they'll let me have them for £40, but seeing as I have everything - except the disks - all the files etc, I just need to know how to do the partitioning. It sounds oh so simple.....

[Harryc]

Well, why bother creating a partition for recovery when it won't work. You're losing me on this point. Unless you have an exact image of the recovery partition taken using a program like Acronis True Image or unless you use the recovery CD's, the recovery partition will not work. So why bother?

[tinyestspider]

I know the recovery will work because I've had it install Windows XP from the recovery partition, only the overall setup wasn't quite right. I originally had the recovery partition on FAT32 and the other on NTFS. However, after the recovery they were both on FAT32 - something had gone wrong. It's little things like this which lead me to beleive that if I had performed it correctly, I could have the recovery partition and the main partition correct, with F11 working as expected etc. Each time I tried, something wasn't quite right.

I don't beleive I need to have exact images etc. I have all the files and this was in the days before they let you create recovery cd's from the recovery partition, otherwise I'd have done it that way - or I'd have changed the programs and done it from the copies I have.

[proaudioguy]

If someone would host, I could upload the discs you need. It would be nice if there was a website where we could all upload the recovery discs we have, so we could help each other as needed.

[tinyestspider]

That's a really great offer - anyone able to help out here please?

Otherwise, can someone please just tell me how the two partitions should be set up. I know the one is ntfs, but it's the hidden recovery that is causing the problems. Someone must still have an A31p working.

Anyone?

[cmarti]

Someone must still have an A31p working.

Anyone?

I have one but without recovery partition.

[BuddhaNature]

Hi tinyestspider,

I'm not sure if this thread is still live, if it is then maybe you could try this to get one step closer to a fix:

If I'm reading your posts right then you're suggesting that your 'C:\' partition [boot-partition] is now FAT32 but you want it to be NTFS. If that is the case, and assuming Windows XP, then click Start Menu\Help and Support and enter 'convert' as a search term. There you will get information on how to convert FAT32 to NTFS.

Look at the result titled 'Choosing between NTFS, FAT, and FAT32' - that'll explain the convert procedure for you.

Look at the result titled 'convert' - that will tell you how to do the conversion.

It should do the convert without trashing the data on the partition.

Would you know the actual name of the IBM application that constructed and allowed you to use the hidden 'restore partition'? Maybe you could download a copy, install it yourself and then just step through whatever to get a usable restore partition again.

[BuddhaNature]

It's okay. I looked at the IBM site and read up.

I'm thinking that if you have managed to get a working system again on a new hard-drive off the old hard-drive then your best bet (with your level of computing experience) would be to get a hold of Acronis True Image (ATI) and just image off your c:\ partition after doing the convert. (Might be best to do before as well, if you want to play it really safe.)

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/pr ... overy.html

Using ATI you can also setup another 'F11' restore function for yourself. That said that isn't the best way to deal with images as if the drive you have the image on fails you have problems. Also if you do further images later on ATI might overwrite your first image file if it is on a dedicated 'restore partition' (a weakness of ATI).

If you don't want to spend money to buy ATI then you could download the trial version of a program called BootIT-NG. BootIT is far and away the best disk and partition management tool I've ever come across. You could use that to make an image file. Costs nothing for the trial but you might think it frighteningly geeky to use (to begin with, easy once you get the hang of it).

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

However, there are videos of how to use it to do imaging that will take the fright out of it.

http://www.heffy.com/image.htm

And other vids at BootIT website itself for doing other stuff with it.

If you decide to give it a go then I would strongly recommend that as a beginner you don't install it to your hard-drive. Have it make a boot floppy and use it from there. Just remember when you use the floppy not to let it install anything to hard-drive.

Once you have BootIT create the image file you can also use it to create a hidden partition on the hard-drive. Just store the image on the hidden partition and if you ever need to use it then use the floppy to access the hidden partition and get the image restored again.

All that said it is a much better idea to get copies of image files onto dvds; if your hard-drive bombs, you still have the dvds.

[BuddhaNature]

Oh, I though to of one other thing.

If proaudioguy was willing then you could both install Skype (temporarily) to your systems and transfer iso's of the Setup Disks that way.

Might be a good idea to zip and split the iso first though. If the transfer fails first time you don't have to download the whole lot again, just the broken bits.

http://support.skype.com/index.php?_a=k ... ils&_i=116