Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad X60 Tablet - Disaster strikes

Yesterday was one of those days when everything that could go wrong went wrong. On Monday night I was rebooting my X60 and it failed to reboot. I tried booting into safe mode but found that the boot sequence stopped at the crcdisk.sys driver. A quick search turned up a known problem with no real solution. Adjusting the registry, unplug the fan, etc seem to work for some individuals however for the most individuals reinstalling the OS was the only choice.

I called IBM support, they at first gave me a driver to install, but how could I install it. I could boot in Thinkvantage mode using the hidden recovery partition, however I could not easily alter the main partitions registry or driver settings. In the end the only choice was to reinstall the OS from the recovery partition. IBM had seen instances of this issues when individuals tried to install Linux in a dual boot configuration. I never tried or would install Linux. I was resigned to rebuild my machine and was glad that all my key files were saved on a shared synced drive on the desktop I use as a server. As another safety measure, I was able to copy my user directory off to a USB drive in Thinkvantage mode. I started the recovery process, unfortunately it hung preparing the drive.  Since I had run the disk diagnostics, I was pretty confident that it was not a hardware problem. I called IBM once more and they said the most likely scenario was that my drive got corrupted and they would have to send me recovery disk.

I decided to try installing my MSDN copy of Vista Business. The problem is that I never purchased a CD/DVD ROM unit for my X60 or X41. I copied the Vista setup DVD to my USB driver, made the drive bootable using the utility in the boot directory. I was able to boot from the USB drive unfortunately the process hung at installing. I tried the recovery options to no avail. My thought is that the recovery partition is locked, there is an options in the BIOS to disabled it but that seem not to affect the process. I finally gave up, ordered a LaCie slime CD/DVD ROM USB unit and will wait the 3 - 5 days for the IBM recovery CDs.

Since I had totally migrated to my X60, I was about to reformat my X41 and sell it. Boy am I glad I did not. When I get my X60 working again I will be sure to image it with Acronis.

Anybody with any thoughts on the subject don't be shy to comment...

Comments

[neomor]

I hope you have got it all working now again. Where was the exact problem? I have just ordered a X60 for myself. Your experience may surely be helpful to many of us.

[neomor]

I hope you have got it all working now again. Where was the exact problem? I have just ordered a X60 for myself. Your experience may surely be helpful to many of us.

[Stephen Skarlatos]

Hi,

See my posts in this category http://www.mydigitallife.us/thinkpad_x60/index.html on the subject. I am convinced that I just got a bad hard disk. The new 7200RPM drive seems much faster than the original.

[M YS]

Man I have an X60 and I am experiencing the exact same crap with it :(

[Vojslav]

Hi, I recently get x60, and I'm more that desapointed at it. I have the same dificulties as you. Wright now , I'm traing to open that hidden partition to reinstal it.

[Vinod Shankar]

I have a Thinkpad X41 and I can't seem to restore the OS or choose the hidden recovery partition. Can anyone send me a copy of the Recovery Disk? Just host on a free hosting site and I can download it from there.

Please assist me with this. I would really appreciate your help!

Regards,
Vinod
jediknight80n(at)hotmail.com

[web hosting]

I thought IBM are good laptops and Tablets.