In search of Rapid Restore for Thinkpad R51, 1829-9MG
by Volker Weber
A friend has a ThinkPad R51, purchased in 5/2005, and now the disk died. Of course he did not create the recovery CDs and he has made backups with the IBM-supplied Rapid Restore.
Well, without the software the restore is everything but rapid. He has now ordered restore disks from Lenovo, which may take up to 10 days. He has already installed the system back on a new disk, but would really like to have his data as well. So he downloaded the software from the Lenovo site. However, it does not recognize the backups. The people at the hotline tell him, he needs the same version of the software that made the backup. Of course he does not know the version, and the Lenovo hotline won't tell him which one he originally had.
Can anybody help him? Do you have a ThinkPad roughly 2.5 years old with the original software? Can you tell us the version number of Rapid Restore? Can you procure the installer?
And now go forth and create your own recovery CDs. Or better, buy a Mac.
Update: 3.01 did the trick. Thanks to everyone who offered their help here or via email.
Comments
Because hard disks on the Mac don't die?
Because they boot into target disk mode, come with real system disks, boot from all kinds of media, don't mix apps and data. To name just a few.
You can download RnR V3 e.g. here:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-67276.html
V2 is still downloadable from IBM Japan. While my Japanese is a little rusty, the binaries should be in English.
http://www-06.ibm.com/jp/domino05/pc/download/download.nsf/jtechinfo/MIGR-57264
(actually the http download link points to good old download.boulder.ibm.com....)
HTH
We have some R51 in the office. Our admin can check the Rapid Restore stuff on Monday. Good luck with your divine Mac. Unfortunately some other hardware is terrestrial. But I remember some terrestrial Apple products as well, for instance some iPods.
Great advice :-) I am sure that when you use some 3rd party software to back up a Mac, you will be able to restore without the software - by means of magic?
No magic, Jan. ;-)
First of all, you get the installation medium (DVD) which contains the full O/S and not some restore image. The software is not on an obscured partition of the disk which just died. When you install the O/S, it will ask you on startup whether this will be a clean install or whether you want to load your data from (a) another Mac, (b) another disk or partition, or (c) from a Time Machine backup.
If you use a 3rd party software, you will need that.
So this mess is neither Rapid nor Restore, then? Okay, LOL!1!!!1!11
This blog got infected by the "Friday-Heise-Newsticker" virus. :-)
