Installed retail vista on my T60 (had XP) now RnR is not bootable

Greetings forum!

I installed a retail copy of Vista business on my thinkpad T60 that had XP.

Now, when I press the thinkvantage button at startup, it just boots the vista partition.

I see the hidden partition in the disk manager.

Any ideas? I was going to reinstall the RnR software.

Also - any way to make this hidden partition visible in the main OS? I want to see if I can get the dvd player software to install on vista.

Thanks.

 

One other question - if I reinstall rescue and recovery, should I get the one for XP (the original operating system) or Vista (what I installed).

I'm thinking that my current RnR partition has XP files? Would the vista version mess this up?

 

Once you reinstall R&R, the ThinkVantage button will "reconnect" with the recovery partition at boot-up. However, if your computer came with XP, then the hidden partition will still contain the XP preload.

 

I have a similar problem.. Got my T61 with XP and I tried to install a clean XP while keeping the hidden partition.
In the installation process, I'm sure I chose to install the new XP and delete the old XP on the primary partition, and didn't touch the hidden partition.

Wierd things come out after the installation. Now when the machine boots it shows a menu to let me choose which system to boot from (just like what some dual-boot system shows). There are three choices:
1. XP
2. XP
3. Undientified system
While the first XP boots to my newly installed XP, the second XP cannot boot at all, and the third "Unidentified" system boots to the hidden partition. I mean if I choose the third choice then what happens is exactly what happens if I press ThinkVantage at the very beginning of booting my machine.

Some other informations:
1. When I boot into my newly installed XP (the first choice), I can see the hidden partition in my C:\, and the new XP is on D:\. I can browse C: freely.
2. Under factory configuration, i mean right after I got the machine and before I did any installations. When using diskpart to check my partitions, it shows that the "Primary" partition is numbered partition 1, and the "OEM" partition, which seems to be the hidden partition, is numbered partition 2. I noticed that this is not the same as in Johnny's FAQ. Not sure if this makes any difference.
3. I am not comforable with this result so I used the hidden partition to restore my machine to factory configurations. The process was smooth and now everything seems to be restored, and I don't have a triple-boot menu during startup.

I'm just very curious about the reasons of the above stuff. Also I do want to install a clean XP without seeing the booting menu when I start as well as the hidden partition in my XP. Any ideas would be really appreciated...

 

So you don't like the boot menu? No problem.

This article gives you excellent instructions on how to trim down the boot menu so you never have to see it again:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022

And no, those different numbers on the partitions are nothing but different numbers.

 

I'm just taking a shot in the dark here, but it may have some merit

Is it possible that Lenovo installs its own boot loader that allows access to the hidden partition via the blue button? If so, could it have been replaced by the default of the new operating system, thus losing access to the hidden partition? If this is the case, is there a place to go to replace the original boot loader? I messed around with ubuntu as a dual boot on my t60p and installed grub to manage the boot process, and lost access to my restore partition.

 

TPA, for your problem, you just have to reinstall R&R as stated. As I said earlier, when you reinstall R&R, it will repair the blue button's function.

 

Someone in forum.thinkpad.com ( http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=26847) suggested another possible solution to TPA's problem:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-54483

Not sure if and how this works..

 

Mr Playmakers solution worked like a charm. It even offered an option to remove those space hogging backups automatically. This version of R&R opened on XP desktop in windows environment!

 

Yup. Pays to read...