Trying to restore T43 to factory state

[jhui]

My own T43 has been working for ages until it was virus-infected recently. The virus is a really nasty one. It appears my PC was attacked while I temporarily paused McAfee on-access scan. Now it appears the virus managed to disable McAfee permanently. This is because when I tried to re-start various McAfee services but it won't allow me. Then I had tried to install Avast but it won't proceed neither. If I run the Avast installation files on another machine it get installed and worked normally. Whether or not the virus managed to infect my Avast installation file(s) as soon as I tried to open it I can't tell.

I know what the hidden partition is: disk data designed for recovering my system to factory state. I don't have the full history of this notebook as it was acquired from someone. I haven't really tested the hidden partition working or not (as I don't have the need) but I know the partition exists before or after virus infection. Although my system is now infected WinXP still starts up like normal, though I know the virus has done something nasty before I start using the machine.

Because of the virus, I try to test (just TESTING, I am not yet prepared to proceed because I haven't finished copying all data to an USB stick) if the Access IBM key allows me to recover to factory state. I believe the Access IBM key should do the job as I had done that for some other different IBM notebooks. However, when I press it (during start up) for this T43 it seems to have no effect. Does anyone know why?

Then I tried the F11 key during start up. It brings up Rescue and Recovery 4. Am I right this function is another option to restore my system back to the factory state? I really like to know an answer.

I am really confused now. While in IBM R&R, I find nothing really wants to work. I move the mouse to "restore your system" (it is the 3rd function from the top), the text highlighted but when clicked, it does not seems to do anything. If I select "Access Bios", it responses by telling me I can use the F1 key during start up to access the bios setting which is correct. Other than this, NOTHING appear to work except the "Restart" function at the top right corner! Do I miss anything?

[hiram]

Something similar happened to me about a year ago with a virus attack. I lost the use of key system functions, all my restore points and my recovery partition were corrupted/destroyed. I was only able to get going again by wiping the HD, removing the recovery partition and reinstalling from backup disks. This was actually on a Sony Vaio, but it sounds very similar to you.

I cannot see anything wrong with what you did with the hard disk. It might be worth testing it on another working system. Otherwise I would suggest trying the install again. I once did a clean install of Windows XP from install discs and it said there was a file missing! I tried it again and there was no problem.

I blame my virus problem on not using the latest version of Windows Explorer which made me vulnerable to infection by a malicious website. I run AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition.

[jhui]

I hope someone can provide specific answers to my two questions

This is all about how to restore T43 to factory state
Q1) I press Access IBM key but it gives no response
Q2) I run Rescue and Restore it provides no function to restore machine back to factory state.

Thanks.