I'm stumped.
I'm migrating a Win XP Lenovo T500 to an SSD:
- I copied the XP partition using EaseUS to the SSD.
- Aligned the boot sector using Gparted
- The MBR needs to be rebuilt (fair enough)
However, all attempts to use the Windows Recovery console hang (both via a boot CD and even when the console was installed as a boot option).
I've tried using a bunch of tools to rebuild/replace the MBR, but no dice. They all say the MBR has been fixed, but I cannot load Windows from the SSD.
The HBCD's boot from windows option works just fine however. I'm confused as to what HBCD can do that my drive can't. How can I get that functionality on my SSD? Is it a MBR fix I can mirror?
The SSD is extremely fast when I do use HBCD to boot up… but it would be nice to not need a token-based access to the machine! 🙂
Note: I know, windows 7 may be worth a fresh install, but I'm trying to avoid the cost and hassle if possible.
Best Answer
It looks to me like the problem is that Lenovo requires a custom bootloader on Thinkpads in order to provide functionality to the ThinkVantage button: How do I recover the MBR on a Thinkpad t420?
Grr.
I guess I need to recover the MBR to the SSD first, copy over the old partition from the HDD and then realign everything to take advantage of the SSD.