"New" T40 Laptop- "Operating System Not Found

[john_pasquini]

Hi all,

I am beginning a work-at-home job and the company sent me a T40 laptop, pre-configured.
But every time I boot it up, I get
----
PXE-E53: No boot filename received

PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent.
Operating System not found.
----

It may be that something got jostled around in transit. I've reseated the hard drive but no good.

Now--- I have a System Restore disk for Vista (this laptop has XP) which I tried, allows me to get to a command prompt. I see a drive X: there with Windows. Also in the BIOS, I see IDE HDD0.

Any takers?????

[Brad]

Welcome to the forum!

The hard drive is no longer working even though the hard drive is seen in the BIOS.

Can you read the hard drive from the recovery system CD prompt?

Do you have another hard drive to try?

Brad

[john_pasquini]

That's the thing- I saw IDE HDD0 in the BIOS. I wonder if that means that the drive is not dead?
Also, I see a "system" on X:, using the disc. I can get out to a prompt, and dir these files. But I'm not sure if this is the real hard drive, or some kind of temporary system that the Vista CD created.

-------

At this very moment, I just had a delivery boy at the door. There was a package from the company.
It was an envelope with 8 CDs in it.

One says "IBM Rescue and Recovery 1 of 1"

The others say "Product Recovery 1 of 7.....7 of 7"

OK.
Booting with the Rescue and Recovery, we'll see what happens..............

[john_pasquini]

Well the IBM rescue/recovery disk brings up a menu, but it appears to see no hard drive. Or does it??****

I wonder if there's some way to prove that the hard drive is dead (i.e., must be replaced)?
When I boot this laptop with a Vista OS Recovery Disc (I have no XP OS Disc) I see a drive X: with Windows, along with many subfolders. I can get out to a DOS prompt and navigate there. It appears to be a complete installation of Windows. I know Windows XP is supposed to be on the laptop.

When I click "Rescue Files" here on the admin menu that comes up booting with the IBM Rescue and Recovery Disc, I see only a drive Z: with files like parallel.cmd, serial.cmd, sysinfo.xml, LOGGER.ini. If I search for these files on the IBM CD itself, they do not exist.

I am only a lowly temp-for-hire starting out (aka, "Independent Contractor") and have to tell the company whether or not to send a new drive.
I'd like to make sure I'm right!

[Brad]

John,

If you can go here and download the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test.

Create the bootable CD from this ISO file. You will need a working computer with a CD-R device to create the disk.

This should tell you if there is a working drive or not.

Brad

[john_pasquini]

Excellent!

I'll try this...thanks

[Brad]

You are welcome John (?).

Brad

[john_pasquini]

OK.

I ran the test after creating the CD.
I selected "Adaptec" and defaults, and got:

Device List

No Dev Address Device Name Capacity
00 ATA Primary Master IC25N040ATMR04-0 40.01GB


I ran a Quick Test on this one and only selection, and it shuffed through alot of bar indicators. Then it said "Test Results: Operation Completed Successfully. Disposition Code = 0x00".

I'm inclined to think this is positive (??) I suppose a message "You are OK. Drive is GOOD!" would be too simpleton to hope for.


? ? ?

[richk]

It's possible that the boot sector is bad and the machine was set up wrong. Talk to the company.

[john_pasquini]

No communication possible with the company. I have already written them and the ball is in their court.

The company is our 'client'. It's hard to explain. Unless they want to help, I'm on my own. I am not in a position to demand help.

I do have the product recovery disks. If there is a bad boot sector, perhaps I can repair it.

I must assume from your response that you agree 00 ATA is the hard disc and that the hard drive is not dead.

[rkawakami]

From your quick test of the drive and getting the 0x00 code (and a green screen), then yes, the drive has passed. You may want to try the "advanced" tests. There is also a DFT user's guide available:

http://www.hitachigst.com/downloads/dft ... _guide.pdf

[john_pasquini]

I ended up getting bold and tried running a system repair off the recovery disk. I wasn't able to access any files anyway. Wouldn't seem to recognize a USB flash drive either.

The good news is, after the System Repair ran, I now see two drives, and the harddrive is spinning when the laptop boots.
It appears to have copied the Rescue and Recovery disk to partition C:. Now every time I boot, I get the Rescue and Recovery menu, even without the CD.

C: and D: both exist with about 1/2 Gig of space in each.
There are drives E: and F: which are unrecognizeable, or perhaps unformatted. D: is empty.

I still have the 7 "Product Recovery" CDs but see no option for loading them off the menu. 'Restore from backup' asks you to put the last disk in a backup series in, but when I put 7 of 7 in, nothing is found.

Not sure how to proceed at this point. I found this article but it doesn't help much, just seems to want to complain about 'stinkpads':

http://www.coofercat.com/node/458

[sktn77a]

Try going into the BIOS and setting the CD-rom as the first boot drive and then put in the recovery CD and do a destructive recovery.

[john_pasquini]

When I boot with the "Product Recovery 1 of 1" I simply go to the IBM Rescue and Recovery with Rapid Restore, which now apparently copied to drive C:.

There is no 'destructive recovery' option. Only "Restore from Backup", and that doesn't recognize any CD.

Wonder how to load these 7 disks. I don't see any guide or instructions. Odd.

-------

On disk 1 of 7 there is two directories, "MFG" and "RECOVERY". The RECOVERY directory is full of .A0D files, a RECOVER.DAT, and a RECOVER.INI.

The CD does not 'auto boot' though, and does not seem to be able to be recognized from the Rescue and Recovery menu.

[john_pasquini]

Hmmm.....only about 13 entries on the Internet about "Product Recovery Disk" and Thinkpad, but nothing says what to actually do with them.
IBM seems pretty quiet on the subject.

Trade secret?

[john_pasquini]

Thanks for everyone's help, by the way.

I think I am close to figuring this out. The hard drive appears to work
now.

I just have to figure out how to load the 7 "Product Recovery" disks.

[SlamX]

Check to see if it is still under warranty. If it is just call IBM they will walk you through everyting to get you going.

[john_pasquini]

That's part of the challenge. I am not getting any response from IBM at this time.
I am contracting for IBM. IBM is my 'client' boss, I am a temp working for them via subcontract by another company. I work from home. They have not answered my emails as of yet. I do not know when I will get a reply.


I suspect that you need to click the "Factory Restore" option off the System Recovery menu. The problem is the option then boldy says:

WARNING! IF YOU CONTINUE ALL DATA AND PARTITIONS WILL BE DELETED FROM YOUR HARD DRIVE

However, at the top of this windows-like notice is the header, "Product Recovery". This matches "Product Recovery" that is written on the CDs.
As an old tech support guy, I am a bit afraid to proceed until I get confirmation from someone.

Has anyone ever used the Product Recovery discs before? I found loads of articles on how to create them, yet nothing on how to actually use them.

[john_pasquini]

Okay, I finally got confirmation from someone at IBM.


The answer is.....drum roll...............>>>>YES<<<<!

Boot the IBM Rescue and Recovery disk 1 of 1. Click 'Factory restore'. Let the cd erase everything and reinstall the hard drive.
The system will automatically reboot and then ask for disk 1 of 7 of the "Product Recovery" set. Follow instructions.

---------------
A little info now and Then
Is cherished by the Dumbest Men.