Reinstalling operating system from preload partition

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pozarrat · #1 Post by **pozarrat** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 1:56 am

I recently bought my X60. Then seeing all the junk installed, I immediately installed Vista, thinking I'd be able to reinstall the default installation anytime with the press of a button. Well I couldn't. Looks like you have to create a recovery cd to do this and this makes no sense to me. Why is there a pre-partition if I'm not able to use it without bringing in an external drive, usb key etc. In sony's and gateway's you just press a button and you restore the OS. Am I missing something here?

A second thing is that the recovery software isn't working in Vista. Does this mean I have to first install a new OS to create this recovery cd ?

#2 Post by **BillMorrow** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 2:58 am

it all depends on what you did when you installed vista..
if you cleared off the ENTIRE hard drive then you are, in the words of the bard, S O L..

all you can do is call support and throw yourself on their mercy and beg for a recovery CD set..

or, you can lie and say that the X6 won't talk to your USB CD drive.. which is known to happen..

or maybe someone here will make you a set for a nominal charge..

uhmm, i'm out of "or's" now..

a question, how does vista run on your X60..?

also, if you look, the utilities and drivers are coming from lenovo for vista on thinkpads..

good luck..

#3 Post by **GomJabbar** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 6:57 am

It's not Lenovo's fault that....
1) You did not burn a the set of Product Recovery Discs before installing Vista.
2) That Windows Vista changed the master boot record so that recovery was not available on boot up.

You can use the following to rewrite the master boot record. I used this before with a beta version of Vista.

Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette

Boot the floppy or CD and choose replace the MBR (repair didn't work for me), and when the screen comes up, choose Option 1 for newer versions of Rescue and Recovery. I used this diskette after an install of Vista damaged the MBR to access the service partition on my XP hard drive (with the factory preload, updates and added software).

pozarrat · #4 Post by **pozarrat** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:45 am

2) That Windows Vista changed the master boot record so that recovery was not available on boot up.

So if I hadn't installed vista, I would have been able to restore without a recovery cd ? This is what I've been wondering.

Vista was running fine as it is, but I ran into compatibility issues with a ton of my programs, either not installing or not running properly. I couldn't get the fingerprint reader to work, most of the thinkvantage software, including the software update. On top of these, since its more memory and cpu intensive battery life was considerably shorter. So all in all, I think it's too early to move to vista. It was also annoying to figure out the changes from xp, finding where simple settings are etc. [/quote]

lojack · #5 Post by **lojack** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 2:46 am

GomJabbar wrote:You can use the following to rewrite the master boot record. I used this before with a beta version of Vista.

Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette

Boot the floppy or CD and choose replace the MBR (repair didn't work for me), and when the screen comes up, choose Option 1 for newer versions of Rescue and Recovery. I used this diskette after an install of Vista damaged the MBR to access the service partition on my XP hard drive (with the factory preload, updates and added software).

My EISA volume (4+ GB) is in place and seems to be OK but the above mentioned solution did not work for me. MBR is not replaced/fixed.
During the reboot the 'Abort, Retry, Fail' message appears and the MBR screen does not come up.

Any thoughts?

lojack · #6 Post by **lojack** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 3:16 am

Seems like the RAMDrive is failing to be created. Error message says 'Error in extended memory allocation'.

Is there any solution instead of calling support for Restore CD?

NS · #7 Post by NS » Tue Jan 02, 2007 12:58 pm

lojack wrote: Is there any solution instead of calling support for Restore CD?

Another method is to ask around here to see if anyone has the same model number as your X60 or you may also try to burn your recovery via external drive.

lojack · #8 Post by **lojack** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 2:25 pm

Thanks, I'll figure out the way

lojack · #9 Post by **lojack** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:10 pm

Following one suggestion I've installed R&R in order to restore access to the service partition. I've noticed that during the setup the service partition becomes visible and accessible.
After installation R&R still could not access the preload partition to restore factory install.
I'm wondering whether it would be possible to use those files (on DVD for instance) to perform the factory restore?

Reinstalling operating system from preload partition

Reinstalling operating system from preload partition

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