Software restore boot problem

[chispe]

I have recently replaced my 765D hard drive with a travelstar 40Gb one, which the IBM website says is supported.
Having installed the drive, I checked it was recognised with the IBM utility diskette, and all seemed Ok.
PROBLEM: When using the IBM recovery diskette (newest version from the website), the laptop rebooted itself. The instructions say this causes a log file error, and that the logfile must be reset when booting from the floppy disk and pressing F5.
I don't know how many times I have pressed F5 on boot, and all I get is a stuck key error. I cannot boot the laptop with that hard drive in with any dos/win recovery floppy. Sysytem works fine when I boot using a Linux install CD (don't want to do that yet), or put the old HDD back in.
Tried running resetc (as instructed) when the floppy is running under the old HDD, but I guess the log file is on the new HDD and has to be reset when the new HDD is in place.
Help! I can't partition and format the HDD any other way as I don't have another laptop, external housing etc.
If there is a workaround, please let me know.
Thanks

[whizkid]

The recovery diskette is used to boot from when re-installing from the recovery CD's, so is only useful if you want to put Windows 3.1 or 95 on the machine. I'm guessing you don't want to do that (but with a P166 you just might).

You can either use boot floppies that come with your new OS (or on the CD) or if installing Windows, you can make a DOS boot disk that will read your CD drive of choice.

What are you trying to do with your new huge drive?

[chispe]

Hi, thanks for the advice.

My plan was to start the new HD from scatch. I was given the TP, so was kind of interested to see what the original config was. You're right though, I don't want to stay there, I am going to get back to Win 98 as was on the old drive.

I plan to use the extra space for a bual boot machine in the end - Linux. I only use the Laptop as a Windows machine for the occasional software that doesn't work on the iMac I have used for the last four years (I'm a convert I'm afraid).
I have such a huge disk becuase I couldn't get a compatible cheaper one anywhere at a better price here in Aus without a lot of messing about.

On your comments - I created a Win98 Rescue disk from the old HD which contains a lot of utilities and should have booted. I was willing at that point to go straight to Win98. However, I got the same problem. The disk boots to a line saying "IBM Thinkpad', then the system hangs, and stops accessing the FDD. It worked Ok the first time until the mid-restore reboot.
I have even tried the Win NT boot floppies (don't have the CD) and they run fine up to the point where I need the CD. Anyone know a Linux programme that boots to FIPS or something, and will format FAT16? That will at least get me to a point where I can boot from a DOS util!

Any more suggestions?

[whizkid]

This reminds me of an old desktop I had. It had a BIOS bug. If you had any DOS partition at all on a drive over 4.2GB in size, DOS would not boot. Not even from floppy.

It sounds to me like your ThinkPad cannot use that size of a drive without a BIOS overlay... in DOS or FAT anyway.

Perhaps if you removed all partitions (use Ranish Partition manager or another repair tool), and never made a DOS partition on it, it might work. Of course, this means no DOS, Win3.1 or Win9x. If you go to NT, W2K or XP (!) and format to NTFS right off the bat, you may be OK.

You could also use only Linux if you like.

[chispe]

Thanks for the tip. I downloaded Ranish Partition Manager and formatted the first 2Gb as FAT-16. The programme only recognised the first 8Gb of the HDD.
Your BIOS theory might be right, as I still can't boot to DOS, but can to Linux (Red Hat).
That causes its own complications, as Red Hat doesn't pick up the Linux disk in teh CD-ROM for some reason. Mandrake 10.1 doesn't even pick up the IDE CD-ROM drive!
I was planning to copy the Linux images to the HDD after installing W98, and installing Linux from the HDD. I might have to re-check the images for Red Hat.

[chispe]

Problem solved.

Using Ranish partition manager, I deleted any reference to FAT partitions, leaving only the MBR. I then re-booted the laptop with a simple DOS floppy (nothing flash) and it worked fine.

This left the issue of not being able to use Win98, which was pretty much the purpose of having the [censored] thing. Fortunately, a friend managed to locate an old version of OnTrack Disk Manager for Hitachi drives (still available free for Fujitsu and Samsung, but Hitachi like to rely on people using WinNT, 2k etc )
Once the Disk Manager was installed (it recognised the whole 40Gb and formatted it FAT-32 for me), I could boot from a W98 rescue disk and away.

Of course, in the future, I may have problems from the existence of the Disk Manager (eg with Linux, or using FIPS), but I reckon it's still better than having a stuffed hard drive.

Thanks to all who could assist.

[chuckster]

you can get diskmanager 9.57 which i placed on driverguide.com, which will also let you boot from the cd rom