Using Recovery CD on T60 makes Thinkpad enter Recovery loop!

[Zorroson]

Hi all,

I'm selling my T60 (because I got a new T60p), and now need to restore the default XP install before handing the PC over to it's new owner.

Now - earlier the Recovery partition was deleted during a Vista install, so I got myself a set of Original Recovery CD's for the PC. I boot the CD's and chose "Reestablish system" and ask the recovery app. to reinstall everything without saving any files. After playing discjockey for abt. ½ hour, the T60 spits out all CD's and boots from harddrive - just to enter the Recovery app. again waiting for new input/action...

So after reading http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=52133 I see that this is more or less a known situation, and therefore try to reestablish again - but same result! Using a patition manager, I can see the the only partition on the disk, is the "Service" partition - so it seems the Windows partition is never actually created during the process - and therefore not new WinXP install will take place.

So anyone have any ideas on how to proceed from here?
Could the reason be the Recovery app. is checking if this is a "original" IBM harddrive? Earlier the drive was replaced with a "normal" Travelstar drive - not bought as a IBM sparepart...

Any help appreciated!

Cheers,
Zorroson

[DAH]

I have a T60p and have had a number of non IBM drives in it and never needed to do anything special to restore.

Are you selecting the 'Factory Restore' option?

I don't believe it matters but are you in compatibility mode when you attempt to restore?

For XP you should have a number of CDs I believe the first CD installs the service partition, once it is installed you then need to select factory restore which will ask for the rest of the cds one after another. Is this what you are doing?

[ryengineer]

You could've a bad burn of Product Recovery disks from IBM.

Another thought is to perform format (LLF) on your HDD first prior to using recovery disks next time.

Also, if the service partition is already present or been created then what does the blue button do when you press it durig the boot sequence?

[Zorroson]

Guys,

Thank you very much for your suggestions!

It actually turned out, it was a defective set of Recovery Discs from IBM, that caused the problem! Fortunately I had a collegue with a similar set for his T60, which worked without problems for me!

Cheers,
Zorroson