Stuck booting in Rescue in Recovery loop

[seaweedsl]

Problem is: after entering Rescue and Recovery once, it's keeps going back to R&R and will not let Windows boot.

This more an FYI than a question; What to do if you get stuck in the R&R loop and you:

1) Haven't just reinstalled your system from disks (if so, you still need to restore from within R&R, apparently)
2) Haven't just installed the specific new R&R software that Lenovo provides a very specific MBR fix for. (download the Lenovo ixMBR utility, burn it to CD and run it)


I couldn't find an adequate solution to this problem the way I had it and saw no need to recover windows just to fix this glitch as many do. Similar problem: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=66655

I ended up in the R&R loop because I had registry problems on a T42P with XP pro. Windows couldn't finish booting - corrupted onfig file.

Before messing with the registry, I went into R&R in order to check for possible backups and copy over the user's files as a safeguard. That's all I did, but from there on, booting to the hard drive, it would not even try for Windows, just R&R. It seemed like it had tripped something to deflect to R&R so that it wanted me to recover now.

Anyway, I could boot to CD, so went into Windows recovery console and fixed the registry. Fine, but upon reboot, it still kept heading to R&R only, I went in again and ran fixMBR from Recovery console, but it warned that I would basically lose the R&R and I knew that wasn't right, so I cancelled. I did notice in the recovery console that R&R now had the C: designation and the Windows partition now had a D: designation. Strange.... something had changed it.

Finally after trying some other dead ends, I booted with Ultimate Boot CD and ran Ranish Partition Manager. There I saw that the R&R partition had a boot flag or something and the Windows partition did not. So I changed the boot flag to the Windows partition (IBM preload) and that fixed it.

Apparently , R&R had taken over the boot flag for it's partition and it had to be set back.

I'm sure that there are many ways to reset this flag but I, like a lot of people was stuck on trying to fix the MBR for a long time. It was the partition properties - it's boot flag - not the MBR that needed fixing.

OK, just putting this out there so the next person can solve it quicker.

_______________________________________________

Also - This suggestion I retroactively found online might work also by entering recovery console from within R&R (didn't know that one!) and using the fixboot command along with fixmb from there.

http://lnv.lithium.com/t5/ThinkVantage- ... m-p/221997

- let the system start into the RnR partition
- once you see the RnR screen, where on the left side you see stuff like "Restore" ... , press on your keyboard the CTRL+ALT+Shift key and click on the "Restart" button, that is on the right side on the top
- this will show you a command line
- type following:
fixboot
fixmbr

These two commands shold rewrite the boot record and now the system should be able to start into the OS.

notes:

Fixboot Command Syntax:

fixboot (drive)

drive = This is the drive that a boot sector will be written to and will replace the system partition that you're currently logged on to. If no drive is specified, the boot sector will be written to the system partition that you're currently logged on to.

Fixboot Command Examples: fixboot c:

In the above example, the boot sector is written to the partition that's currently labeled as the C: drive - most likely the partition you are currently logged on to. If that is the case, this command could be run without the c: option.


SO, seeing that my windows partition was now being called D:, then I would have typed fixboot d: from the console. Personally, I would only run "fixboot" not "fixmbr" because Thinkpads use a special boot record that I understand would be lost when running fixmbr.


There are probably many other ways to fix the boot flag issue. The trick is knowing to look for it !


Cheers,
Steve

[Harryc]

Thanks for the info Steve. I can't see how R&R would change a boot flag unless you either accidentally or on purpose selected an option in there to recover something...like the factory partition, but apparently that happened to you.

[seaweedsl]

Well, I can only guess that it was R&R that did it, since it started after I visited R&R at boot-up. Before that, it was at least trying to boot into Windows.

I guessed R&R was the culprit also because I know that the MBR is custom for Thinkpads and R&R has some ongoing control over boot settings, because it can set your pc to run PC doctor at startup or else to direct you to the boot options. By the way, I tried telling R&R to run PC doctor, but it didn't, just came back to R&R on reboot. So maybe it's not R&R but some either/or settings in the Thinkpad Boot file. So that, "If Windows has not started X times, go to: R&R automatically. Or somesuch. Or else windows or the drive just flaked.

Anyway, if the cause is unknown, the solution is perhaps helpful in any case.

It would be FANTASTIC if somebody in the know could start a sticky-worthy rundown of the boot management for Thinkpads.

This imaginary Thinkpad Boot Management Rundown Thread could have the various branches it takes depending on settings or installations or temporary flags.

It could offer tools and methods (recovery console, UBD, Linux pendrive, for fixing, including links to the various Lenovo tools for fixing the MBR. It's worth noting that their utility for fixing the MBR after updating R&R is VERY specific. It only works if certain software is installed. Everybody gets run down that false path when they have this problem. I had to go out and get a blank cd and burn it in order to eliminate that solution. Really, Lenovo should explain the utility better.

But, of course, few people really know and even less have time to write it all down !