Glad I test-drove it (PC backup and recovery)

[zxcvbob]

I have a 3 year old Thinkpad.  I do backups to an external HDD every once in a while, but I was curious what would happen with a catastrophic disk failure where I couldn't get into the recover console.  I have a "Rescue and recovery" disk that I burned, and I know it boots, but the only way to really test it is a destructive install.

I bought a replacement (bigger and faster) HDD from geeks.com; it was so cheap I couldn't afford not to buy it.  It got here today, and so I swapped it out with the old drive and booted from the recovery CD.  It asked what I wanted, and I told it to restore the system.  Hilarity ensued.

First I tried a restore back to a factory preinstall.  The plan was to install back to ground zero, then use Windows Backup to restore the system from my most recent backup on the external drive.  It started whirring and clicking and writing; everything going good... then it said to insert CD #2.  There is no #2.  There never was an option to create disk 2.  So I aborted out of that and told it to restore from a previous backup.  It can't find any previous backups.  Apparently IBM or Lenovo used their own proprietary backup format and they don't recognize Microsoft's backup files.  If this had been an actual emergency, I would have had to take the external drive to Best Buy's geek squad, or the local computer repair shop, and paid them big bucks to maybe restore the backup.

I swapped back the old drive and I'm running the ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery backup.  It will be interesting to see what it generates.  It's been running for a half an hour.  Says it has 148 minutes left to go.

[lee n. field]

Microsoft's backup files
paid them big bucks to maybe restore the backup.

Actually not that difficult to do a full recovery using Windows backup.  Assuming you have a good backup file. 

[zxcvbob]

I know it shouldn't be hard to do.
The problem is if I can't get into Windows to run Backup.  The recovery disk only boots into the Lenovo recovery console.  I need to figure out how to make Windows CD.  I can make a Windows boot floppy (virtual floppy drive cuz the system doesn't have a real floppy) but I haven't gotten that onto a CD yet.

I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually, but if you have any hints...

[lee n. field]

You need to start with an XP CD, to install Windows with, to get to the point you can run the restore from.

[zxcvbob]

You need to start with an XP CD, to install Windows with, to get to the point you can run the restore from.

That's where I'm trying to get.  I don't know why Microsoft and Lenovo have to make that so hard.

I did a backup to the external HDD using the Thinkpad rescue and recovery backup (different and incompatible with Windows Backup), and I think that's bootable.  Also I found the utility for burning a set of recovery CD's that is *supposed* to rebuild the machine to factory specs, but I don't know what all is on the recovery discs -- it took two DVD's to hold it all (I aborted out of it at the 5th CD and tried again using an external DVD burner.  It might have taken a dozen CD's)  By then it was 2:00 AM so I didn't inspect them too much.

Now I have several different paths to recovery that should actually work.  Will test them this week.

I'd still like to get a Windows boot CD that can access an external Windows Backup. 

I found a freeware tool called XXclone that looks interesting for cloning a healthy Windows HDD onto a new drive.  I can test that too; make sure the new copy ends up bootable.