600E Recovery Error

[Bg357]

I'm trying to re-image a 600E with a 600 series IBM recovery disk. I didn't change any hardware, just re-imaging the same hard drive.
The recovery process seemed to start OK, the system booted to the CD-Rom, formatted & partitioned the hard drive... and that's when the trouble started.

"Z:\ warn 1" came up on the screen followed by an error "not ready to read on drive Z", Abort, Retry, Fail
My first impression was that it was trying to read from a non-existent drive (drive Z???), so I switched the command prompt to drive D. That didn't work at all so I switched it to drive E and got the same error as above. I repeated the whole process countless times with much the same results. Shortly before I gave up, I started to get a different error, "Invalid drive specification". Sometimes it would get past the "warn 1" command and move on to "Z:\ PFCO" (I think that was it) and then it would hang up on the "not ready to read on drive Z" error. Each time, the CD-Rom would spin up and the light would blink like it was reading but it would quickly stop with the error message.

One other note, the CD-Rom installed is not a 600 series drive, it was pulled from a T23 and installed in the 600 caddy. I don't know if that would cause an issue but in the interest of full disclosure....

I subsequently ran a Win2K OS disk and loaded the OS without issue, the CD-Rom presented no problem with that install. I was previously running a Win2K install with IBM drivers downloaded from Lenovo but I was having constant problems & errors, which is why I wanted a clean IBM recovery in the first place.

Any help would be appreciated,

[rkawakami]

Sounds like you were having read problems with the IBM recovery CD (i.e, a scratch on it). That you were able to install an OS from another disk says that your T23-transplanted drive is okay in the 600E. One test you can do is to get the PC Doctor for DOS for the 600X and run the CDROM tests using the IBM recovery disk as the "test" disk. You can get the PC Doctor program from details in this thread:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 050#197050

Boot the PC Doctor diskette or CD and then select Interactive Tests / CD-ROM/DVD Test. Execute each listed test in order:

- Reset Test (should get a "Reset OK" result)
- Capabilities Info (will display details about the data on the disk)
- Linear Scan (should pass)
- Random Scan (should pass)
- Funnel Scan (should pass; note: this test is both long and noisy and will stress the movement of the laser carriage - you can abort by pressing the Esc key)

[Bg357]

I can give that a try, although this recovery disc is a brand new copy, very clean disc.

Sounds like you were having read problems with the IBM recovery CD (i.e, a scratch on it). That you were able to install an OS from another disk says that your T23-transplanted drive is okay in the 600E. One test you can do is to get the PC Doctor for DOS for the 600X and run the CDROM tests using the IBM recovery disk as the "test" disk.

[rkawakami]

Another explanation would be that the optical drive is having problems reading a specific type of disk; it might be fine with a commercially pressed CDROM but not able to read a burned CD-RW, for example.

[Bg357]

In that case, you wouldn't think that it would have booted from the CD and started the recovery, formatting & partitioning.
I don't know, the whole thing is very puzzling to me.
Between this and the Tryptophan, Thanksgiving afternoon did not go well!

Another explanation would be that the optical drive is having problems reading a specific type of disk; it might be fine with a commercially pressed CDROM but not able to read a burned CD-RW, for example.

[rkawakami]

Ah, true. Usually when a drive has a problem with a burned disk, it fails to read right away. Well, then it's back to a bad sector on the disk....

Hmm... It's been awhile since I closely followed the progress of a factory re-install, especially on a 600-series system. Could drive "Z:" be the ramdisk, as opposed to the optical drive? If so, then you might have a memory issue. Run memtest86+ to verify your memory module(s). Grasping at straws now...

[ieee488]

I've found with the CD-ROM drive with my 600E that it does have a bit of trouble reading burned media. I'd suggest burning at a slower speed.

[Bg357]

rkawakami,

I'm thinkin' way outside the box here so try to keep up...

What would happen if I took the hard drive out the 600E and put it in say, a T42, as the main hard drive and ran the 600E recovery disc in the T42, restoring it as a 600E. When it completed I would switch the hard drive back to the 600E.
Is there any chance that would work???

This 600E was running OK with all the same hardware before this restore attempt so I doubt there are any hardware issues. It's also had no trouble reading burned media in the past, although I didn't burn this recovery copy and have no source for a replacement. I did read it in my T42 and it seemed to work fine and had the typical stuff that restore discs have.

Thanks for the help,

[rkawakami]

I doubt that the transplanted drive in a T42 would work. The reason is that the standard recovery disk(s) will look at the whole hardware system and attempt to configure itself to those pieces that it found in the T42. As far as I know, the recovery disk only contains those drivers and configuration files that goes with the hardware found for the particular Thinkpad it was designed for. I know that you can sometimes use a recovery set made for one model on a different model, but those would be using fairly compatible hardware. With the drastic differences in CPU, memory, video and system chipsets. I don't believe that you would get a disk drive that would eventually work inside a 600E. Of course if you wish to give it a try, you have nothing to lose except for some time .

Now if the restore disk is actually something like an image backup (ala, Ghost or Acronis) then, yes, that could work.