How to use IBM Rescue/Recovery??........

[Macflo]

Hello Forum:

After a catastrophic HDD failure I was able to install a new hard drive 160gb.
I was not very upset with the situation because I had performed a full backup 5 days befores the crash and I was able to recover 2 or 3 important files from the damaged hdd.
So I installed the new hdd (formatted) and dropped the first cd of the backup made with the IBM utility, I followed all the steps but to my surprise, when the computer reboot the IBM Recovery setup screen came again.
I was expecting the windows xp usual screens and didn't showed up. To me, all the backup has been restored in the new hdd, the problem is that the computer restarts again and again into the special os environment that runs the IBM recovery program. Any ideas? I will appreciate your comments.
Mac

[RealBlackStuff]

Use PC Doctor, or Killdisk etc. to erase the HD of all it's partition(s).
If you run Killdisk or another util that zeros the HD, it's enough to let it run for just a few minutes, so that the first few sectors on the HD are wiped.
Then redo the restore from your CDs/DVD.
Those CDs/DVD require a 'virgin' HD to perform correctly.

[Macflo]

Thanks RealBlack, I'll try today.
Mac

r50e
T41
T23

[Macflo]

Hi there...........I used Killdisk to wipe out the hdd, but there's no way to install the disk "virgin" with no partition since the recovery program cannot find it. So I created a partition and for the first time the recovery program read the disk with the correct info (capacity and letter number).
Also, the program recognizes the restore cd's set perfectly, at the end of the last disk (6) it calls for a reboot. But again, the computer reboots (no cd in the drive) to the recovery program first screen an so on and on. Drive C boots in the ibm recovery environment again and again unable to boot on windows.
Any ideas? Everything else seems to be healthy, please help.
Mac

[RealBlackStuff]

Do you have any options in that Recovery Screen?
Does it ask something like: restore Windows / Install windows?
I don't know the newer Restore sets (yet), but what I think might have happened is: it installed the restore partition with all it's stuff, and now you have to tell it that you want to USE the Restore option.

Another thing to try: go into BIOS and reset the BIOS to Default values, save settings and the (hopefully) reboot into Windows.

[jdhurst]

If you cannot get your own set to work, you might consider getting a set from Lenovo or see if a set can be obtained from eBay. The one concern I have in your description of the process is that your set would not install in a hard drive with no partitions. The IBM/Lenovo recovery CD's generally require all partitions to be deleted and start fresh. So there may be some issue with the set made by the IBM recovery utility.

You might try calling IBM support and ask them to help you through installing your set. ... JDH

[archer6]

I've had a very similar (if not the same) experience as yours. In my case I used the latest version of PC doctor which helped but didn't fix it, then I used killdisk, and on and on. Bottom line, it was the Recovery disks I burned using the ThinkVantage utility, that were the problem. Upon finally ordering a set of disks from IBM/Lenovo, the restore when fast and smooth.
.
Cheers...
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