Restoring the Recovery Partition...?

[shimojimatto]

So... I did something really dumb.

Never created the restore disks when I first got my x40. I saved the "IBM_SERVICE" recovery partition to another hard drive using Norton Ghost and thought that I'd be able to throw it back on the original hard drive anytime and use it to restore my computer....

But the bios won't recognize that I've put the partition back...
I got grub to recognize and boot the partition but I get a bluescreen when that recovery version of windows tries to start:

STOP:c000021a {Fatal System Error}
The Session of Manager Initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0x000003a (0x00000000 0x00000000).
The system has been shut down.


any tips? Ideas? Can this be fixed? Any way to create the recovery disks a different way? I have all the files... there all there... I can access them in linux or with norton ghost in my backed-up image...

help? anyone?

maybe a torrent with the disk images for a Japanese x40 with win xp pro?

[ryengineer]

Give the following solution a try:

How to reenable the F11 function (Product Recovery Program). (It works, I've personally tried it)

Or if you've a floppy drive then install the following instead:

Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette.

You may note that the 1st solution only works when you've the latest version of Rescue and Recovery installed in Windows and both repairs the partition only if the hidden partition is determined to be intact and healthy which unfortunately it might not be in your case.

If nothing works then you would need to contact IBM in Japan to get a copy of Japanese Windows XPP recovery disks.

There is a person selling English recovery disks for many models in the marketplace of this forum (including thinkpad X40):

For Sale: Genuine IBM ThinkPad Recovery CD's - Most Models.

You're also welcome to post a WTB ad for Japanese recovery disks in the Marketplace of this forum.

[shimojimatto]

Thanks for the links...

...but somehow i managed to get it to work with Norton Ghost...

I guess I just had to get it into the right position on the disk. Erasing Ubuntu and getting the disk back to as close to its original state as possible and restoring MBR seemed to do the trick. (i had previously tried to move the recovery partition with 'gparted' to the very end of the disk where it belonged... but i guess it didn't like that)

So now everyone knows that you can use Norton Ghost...

Sorry to trouble you for the links! Hopefully they will help someone.

And yes... I burned the recovery CD and DVD ASAP... now doing a factory restore and then I'll get Linux back and running...