[ltp] R40 Recovery Partition

[Tony Whitmore]

Paul Kaplan wrote:
> Does anyone know how to get at the content on the recovery partition of 
> a new thinkpad without hosing it?  I'd like to create a CD from which I 
> can reinstall XP if necessary, but I would rather re-claim the 4Gb of 
> space that is used for that hidden partition.  Does just turning off the 
> security option in the "IBM Access" area make the partition visible and 
> therefore accessible to any NTFS capable OS?  Alternatively, who can I 
> contact at IBM to get a real copy of an XP CD to go with my license?
> TIA
> Paul
> 

I know some people claim to have phoned up IBM and asked for a rescue CD 
for their Windows partition, but it didn't work for me. I called up IBM 
and was told that they only shipped CDs if, in the event of an attempted 
recovery from the Rescue Area, the hard drive based system did not work. 
I was also told that the Rescue partition was protected by the BIOS and 
that I would not be able to damage it using either Linux or Windows 
whilst that BIOS protection was enabled.

I was told that they cannot ship CDs when the Rescue Area is OK because 
it effectively breaks MS License Agreement in that only one backup is 
allowed per license. TBH I'm not that upset about any of the above. I'm 
only keeping the Windows partition until the warranty runs out and then 
I'll hose it and the Rescue Area to regain the disk space. I've not 
booted into Windows for months, and that was to upgrade the firmware on 
my CD-RW drive.

Cheers,

Tony