Rescue & Recovery woes...

[oskidbear]

Hello fellow T42 users,

I will be selling my T42 (model 2373-5TU) soon & am trying to restore the 40GB hard drive to the factory condition. However, problems w/ Rescue & Recovery are preventing me from completing this. I'm hoping someone might be able to help.

The specific problem I'm having is this:

* After copying all of the contents of the CDs, Rescue & Recovery asks to reboot. When I do so, a DOS-based window opens, showing the process of the various IBM files unpacking & being copied to their proper locations.

* After the unpacking completes, the laptop reboots, but gives me a BSOD with a driver error (IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN or something like that). The laptop reboots again, performs a CHKDSK disk scan, & then boots into Windows as an Administrator with the ID Administrator. I'm told an error occurred & that a report will be sent to Microsoft. Checking the directory of the hard disk, the recovery partition is visible.

What could be causing the BSOD during the recovery process? Could I have done something wrong? When the laptop boots into Windows, is there a way I can jumpstart the recovery process so it continues?

Note that I've used Darik's Boot & Nuke or PC-Doctor (separately, not sequentially) to wipe the hard drive before attempting recovery. I get the same results either way. I remembered to set the BIOS to make the recovery partition visible prior to disk wiping & then reset the BIOS to normal prior to RnR installation.

Thanks again for your help.

Cyrus

[Neil]

I don't see anything right off that looks like you are doing something wrong...
My guess would be there is a hardware issue somewhere. Just one or two bad sectors on a hard drive can cause BSOD, as can some issues with RAM.

My suggestion would be to run MemTest86+ on each stick of RAM (assuming you have more than one) individually, just to make sure they a really OK. Also, run HDD diagnostics that will check for bad sectors.

[oskidbear]

Hello Neil,

Thank you for the suggestions.

While I've heard of MemTest86+, I'm not that familiar with any HDD diagnostic program that can check for bad sectors other than CHKDSK. Are there any that I can run off a bootable CD that you (or others) can recommend?

Regards,
Cyrus

Edit: I'm trying PC-Doctor (DOS) right now, but suggestions for other programs that might catch what PC-Doctor misses would be welcome.

[Orclas]

Download and burn a copy of UBCD, burn it to CD (or even better, make a bootable USB stick) and you'll have most PC diagnostic tools needed, including RAM, HDD (manufacturer specific) and a load of other testing tools. Adding to that, it includes a suite of tools which can be accessed from a full GUI based Linux environment, which runs off a RAM disk.

It's simply a great little toolkit, which has helped me a great number of times.

Also, if you're planning to sell the TP, you may want to do a partition selective disk wipe, or at one which wipes all empty parts of the HDD, else the buyer may with very little effort be able to access most of any of your files which have only been deleted. Also formatting does not really actually delete any files, just the "address" to them. The UBCD site is down right now, but I believe there are selective wipe tools included in the suite.

[oskidbear]

Hello Orclas,

Thanks for the tip. I'll give UBCD a shot this weekend, if I have time. Since it also has MemTest86+ on it, I'll be able to get a good check of my RAM at the same time.

Your note about wiping the HDD is well taken. I had already used Darik's Boot & Nuke on the HDD a couple of times, so that should be sufficient.

Update:

I ran the following PC-Doctor (DOS) tests: Quick & Full HD scan & Quick & Full Memory scan, but they did not find any errors.

Off to UBCD I go...

Regards,
Cyrus

[oskidbear]

I can't explain it, but after running both the quick & full tests on both the HDD & memory using PC-Doctor (DOS), I was able to successfully complete the Rescue & Recovery process on my T42.

Thanks to Neil & Orclas for their assistance. Maybe it was the threat of running the utilities on UBCD which whipped my HDD into shape?

Regards,
Cyrus

[Orclas]

There you go, congrats!