use Recovery disc to load new drive?

I have the ThinkPad X61 with Vista Home Basic.
I am planning to buy a larger hard drive.
I have created 6 CD-R disc using "Create Recovery Media"
Can I use these CD disc to load the new drives and set up Vista Home Basic?

Anthony B H wrote:
> I have the ThinkPad X61 with Vista Home Basic.
> I am planning to buy a larger hard drive.
> I have created 6 CD-R disc using "Create Recovery Media"
> Can I use these CD disc to load the new drives and set up Vista Home Basic?
Most probably, yes, but in some instance, this process does not work.
Reasons of failure vary, one probably being the recovery disk does not
write a MBR to the new disk).

The safest approach is to use some imaging software (I recommend
TrueImage) to clone your present disk onto the new one. Use an USB
enclosure (cost around $25), insert the new disk on it and clone the
disk from your machine to the new one. Once you have transfered the new
disk to your machine, it will boot. Notice I did not write "most probably".

Just be careful at what you do, using a cloning software requires the
user to be double careful (if you are not, you might clone the empty
disk to the disk you want to preserve ... ).


Regards

--
John Doue

On Dec 27, 2:20*am, John Doue <notw...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Anthony B H wrote:
> > I have the ThinkPad X61 with Vista Home Basic.
> > I am planning to buy a larger hard drive.
> > I have created 6 CD-R disc using "Create Recovery Media"
> > Can I use these CD disc to load the new drives and set up Vista Home Basic?
>
> Most probably, yes, but in some instance, this process does not work.
> Reasons of failure vary, one probably being the recovery disk does not
> write a MBR to the new disk).
>
> The safest approach is to use some imaging software (I recommend
> TrueImage) to clone your present disk onto the new one. Use an USB
> enclosure (cost around $25), insert the new disk on it and clone the
> disk from your machine to the new one. Once you have transfered the new
> disk to your machine, it will boot. Notice I did not write "most probably"..
>
> Just be careful at what you do, using a cloning software requires the
> user to be double careful (if you are not, you might clone the empty
> disk to the disk you want to preserve ... ).
>
> Regards
>
> --
> John Doue

I have done both - cloned and image to the new disk and also used the
Recovery CD's to create a new disk. Either one works. When using the
recovery CD's make sure you first change the boot order to CD, HDD
first (not temporarily change boot disk).

For cloning I have used Powerquest's Drive Image and also Acronis.
The advantage of Acronis is that the target drive can be a USB drive,
with Powerquest I had to use a HDD adapter in the dock. With the X61
if you do not have a dock the best way is to use a USB cable or an
external USB enclosure. I found that with the enclosure you do not
have to put the drive in the enclosure - just use the electronic
module outside it and connect using the USB cable supplied.

Remember that you probably have a SATA drive and so the USB enclosure
should be a SATA to USB enclosure.

sapper wrote:
> On Dec 27, 2:20 am, John Doue <notw...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Anthony B H wrote:
>>> I have the ThinkPad X61 with Vista Home Basic.
>>> I am planning to buy a larger hard drive.
>>> I have created 6 CD-R disc using "Create Recovery Media"
>>> Can I use these CD disc to load the new drives and set up Vista Home Basic?
>> Most probably, yes, but in some instance, this process does not work.
>> Reasons of failure vary, one probably being the recovery disk does not
>> write a MBR to the new disk).
>>
>> The safest approach is to use some imaging software (I recommend
>> TrueImage) to clone your present disk onto the new one. Use an USB
>> enclosure (cost around $25), insert the new disk on it and clone the
>> disk from your machine to the new one. Once you have transfered the new
>> disk to your machine, it will boot. Notice I did not write "most probably".
>>
>> Just be careful at what you do, using a cloning software requires the
>> user to be double careful (if you are not, you might clone the empty
>> disk to the disk you want to preserve ... ).
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> --
>> John Doue
>
> I have done both - cloned and image to the new disk and also used the
> Recovery CD's to create a new disk. Either one works. When using the
> recovery CD's make sure you first change the boot order to CD, HDD
> first (not temporarily change boot disk).
>
> For cloning I have used Powerquest's Drive Image and also Acronis.
> The advantage of Acronis is that the target drive can be a USB drive,
> with Powerquest I had to use a HDD adapter in the dock. With the X61
> if you do not have a dock the best way is to use a USB cable or an
> external USB enclosure. I found that with the enclosure you do not
> have to put the drive in the enclosure - just use the electronic
> module outside it and connect using the USB cable supplied.
>
> Remember that you probably have a SATA drive and so the USB enclosure
> should be a SATA to USB enclosure.

I would have said "either one worked for me" and not "Either one works".
A few days, there was a post on sys.laptops newsgroup of a user unable
to use the Acer Cd recovery. We ended up thinking that was probably
because Acer recovery disk did not create a mbr on the disk.

Regards

--
John Doue

"John Doue" <> wrote in message
news:4iTcj.186$...
> sapper wrote:
>
> I would have said "either one worked for me" and not "Either one works". A
> few days, there was a post on sys.laptops newsgroup of a user unable to
> use the Acer Cd recovery. We ended up thinking that was probably because
> Acer recovery disk did not create a mbr on the disk.
>
> Regards
>
> --
> John Doue

John, what is mbr, and how can I check it the disc created has this mbr?

Well, I started writing CD-R disc, .. then, at disc #4, I ran out of disc. I
had to stop and cancel the Create Recovery Disc media.
After I got some more new CD-R discs, and restart Create Recovery Disc media
again, it would ONLY write disc #1 and stop there.

How can I ask this Create Recovery disc to write the entire 6 discs for me
again?

On Dec 27, 4:30*pm, "Anthony B H" <no.s...@no.spam.com> wrote:
> "John Doue" <notw...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:4iTcj.186$...
>
> > sapper wrote:
>
> > I would have said "either one worked for me" and not "Either one works".A
> > few days, there was a post on sys.laptops newsgroup of a user unable to
> > use the Acer Cd recovery. We ended up thinking that was probably because
> > Acer recovery disk did not create a mbr on the disk.
>
> > Regards
>
> > --
> > John Doue
>
> John, what is mbr, and how can I check it the disc created has this mbr?
>
> Well, I started writing CD-R disc, .. then, at disc #4, I ran out of disc.I
> had to stop and cancel the Create Recovery Disc media.
> After I got some more new CD-R discs, and restart Create Recovery Disc media
> again, it would ONLY write disc #1 and stop there.
>
> How can I ask this Create Recovery disc to write the entire 6 discs for me
> again?

The reason I said either works is because I have done it on a T21,
T30, X22, X31, T42, T43 and on an X60s. About the only time it failed
for me is when I forgot to change the boot device and in earlier
systems I when I did not have a FAT32 partition. I always routinely
create one now.

MBR is the master boot record - Windows uses it for the NTFS file
system. If it is damaged you can not boot the disk - recovey is
possible but it is a convuluted process - requires a Windows XP CD.

As to creating Recovery CD's again - IBM used to let you do it
multiple times until the T42 (I think). The only way I know to create
a second set is to let the recovery partition on the hard disk
recreate your drive - it resets the internal counters and will allow
you to make recovery CDs again.

CAUTION: Recreating the disk will wipe out all your data, and you
will have to reinstall any applications that you installed. Make sure
you use the File and Settings Transfer Wizard to save all files and
settings onto an external drive - USB is best and easiest - though a
CD will work if you have a CD writer on the laptop.