Rescue and Recovery

Rescue and Recovery version 3.0 consists of a bootable partition containing various system recovery tools, including full recovery of the preinstalled Windows XP partition. It can be activated by pressing the ThinkPad, Access IBM or ThinkVantage Button during system boot. It contains a FAT filesystem (labeled "IBM_SERVICE"), and has partition type 0x12 ("Compaq diagnostics" in fdisk).

ATTENTION!

Consideration 6 of the Readme states: The Master Boot Record (MBR) must be configured properly for the Rescue and Recovery application to function properly. When possible, the Rescue and Recovery application attempts to ensure the proper configuration of the BR. This can only occur if the Rescue and Recovery application is installed after other applications that requires the MBR.

Apparently, the MBR is not "configured properly" if LILO or GRUB has been installed in it. It is not known how to invoke Rescue and Recovery once LILO or GRUB has been installed in the MBR. There is one report of success after changing the partition type from 0x12 to 0x0b (FAT32). Others have also reported success with this method (see the discussion page of this article).

External Sources

• IBM page on ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery.
• Rescue and Recovery Readme

Models featuring this technology

• ThinkPad T42
• ThinkPad T43, T43p
• ThinkPad R52