SP3 trashes hard drive - and is cloning possible?

[peter-h]

I have two x60s 1704 machines.

The original one, bought in 2007, was SP2 and applying SP3 always trashes the HD. It won't boot. I was one of many thousands of people whose machines got trashed by SP3. In the end I restored from an old Trueimage backup. I tried SP3 once more, a year later, and it trashed it again.

The second one, bought a few months ago, was fine with SP3.

The two machines are identical except the 1st one has the GPRS/3G radio (a Sierra chip; originally locked to Vodafone) and possibly they have different BIOS versions.

Both have been upgraded with an 80GB Intel SSD.

Both have identical application config.

I reckon it is some software misconfiguration.

What would happen if I simply copied (using Trueimage) the 2nd machine's HD to the 1st one?

Obviously XP is going to complain on the 1st (target) one because the hardware has changed. I am sure XP allows a HD change, but this will be a whole motherboard change

[Kyocera]

If the the target machine is a similar machine with similar hardware and chipsets, I don't think you'll have a problem since it is simply another IBM your installing the OS on. Seems like I have done this years ago with some T42's that needed imaging.

[rkawakami]

I believe that you could have problems with cloning/imaging Windows to your target machine if the OS is not an IBM-branded install. My experience has been that installing a clone/image from a retail XP set would trigger Windows into the "phone home" mode and ask for re-activation. There's a certain level/number of hardware changes that retail Windows will allow before you have to call Microsoft.

I've also never had a problem with an SP3 upgrade on any Thinkpad (so far, knock on wood), besides the fact that the system first has to be at SP2. This has been done on laptops as old as a 600X, up to an X60.

[peter-h]

Both machines have the original IBM XP install - as far as I can tell.

It is just that one of them - the one with the GPRS/3G radio - I cannot take past SP2.

[Kyocera]

I believe that you could have problems with cloning/imaging Windows to your target machine if the OS is not an IBM-branded install.

You absolutely will have trouble with it, due to the one machine at one instance rule from MS. It must be the standard IBM oem build.

You might try removing the wireless card, image the machine from your target, when you get booted up remove sp3 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950249 and reinstall your card.

[Woodenspoon]

That is strange, were all the drivers up to date, cuz sp3 worked fine on my x60 before i went to win7

[Kyocera]

That is strange, were all the drivers up to date, cuz sp3 worked fine on my x60 before i went to win7

Are you using the same wireless hardware he is? GPRS/3G radio, this might be the sticking point. Something in SP3 won't play nice with it.

[peter-h]

Yes; that's a fair point; SP3 might not like the radio. But it would be a suprising explanation because these laptops were for sale new for some time after SP3 came out.

Quite likely the reason is really obscure - as is often the case with windoze crashing / BSOD issues. IME, most such issues are never actually solved systematically. It could be, for example, that the machine crashed during the original SP3 upgrade (all you need is a break in the internet connection) and left some software in a funny state. OK, reapplying SP3 ought to fix that, but who knows?

I would be interested in trying the imaging trick one day...

Anyway, what does SP3 actually do? I realise it tightens up security all around, but surely that is an issue only if you run either a micro$oft browser or a micro$oft email program, and you get a virus attack. If behind a NAT router, nobody can unilaterally "get you" from the outside. I don't run IE or Outlook[Express].