IBM Aptiva M30/M40/M50 (250-0441/12-10609/250-0440) Restoration Faxback Doc. # 17472 Notes on the Restoration of the IBM Aptiva M30/M40/M50 ----------------------------------------------------------- When you first power on the system, you are asked to choose where the computer will be used. Your choices are: Home, Office, School, or Store. The first three choices are basically the same and will leave you with about 480 meg free on the hard disk. If the MPEG software has been run it will be about 463 meg free. If Store is chosen, you end up with about 400 meg free. A self running Aptiva demo is installed and runs automatically. This accounts for the difference in free space. One you go to OS/2 for the first time, you will have about 10 meg less free space, ending up at about 471 meg free when choosing Home, Office, or School. In any of these situations, the full procedures for reinstalling the system are the same. STEP ONE - MAKING THE RECOVERY DISKETTES. If the system is still running and operational, there are two ways to make the recovery diskettes. From Windows, click on the REBOOT TO OS/2 WARP icon. The computer will reboot to OS/2. When in OS/2, a window in the center of the screen titled, First Steps Icon View, has an icon to Create Recovery Diskettes. Click on this icon and follow the prompts for creating three ( 3 ) recovery disks. Another way to create the recovery disks is to boot with the IBM Aptiva MPEG Bonus Pack diskette. You are given three choices after boot up: I - Install MPEG Software C - Create Aptiva Recovery Diskettes D - Discontinue Installation & Restart your computer. Choose "C" to create your recovery disks. You will be prompted for the Multimedia Exploration CD. Follow the prompts to create your three ( 3 ) recovery diskettes. One last way that the recovery diskettes can be created is when you have chosen "Store" for your initial startup, and you choose to Prepare This System for Sale when you stop the self-running demo. At that time you are prompted to make the recovery disks. Follow the prompts and make the three ( 3 ) disks. NOTE: During this procedure, the Aptiva self-running demo may start. Simply double click on the MS-DOS icon in the lower left corner of the screen and continue making the disks. After the disks are completed, a windows appears titled, APTIVA. In this window is an explanation of how to prepare this system for sale. Below that message, it lists the nine ( 9 ) steps to take to reinstall the system. It suggests you write these down. After you click OK, it prompts you to CTRL+ALT+ DELETE, or reboot your system, then follow the steps for restoration. Detailed steps are outlined below. NOTE: If you just reboot the system without performing the nine steps, it simply goes back to Windows and runs the Aptiva Guide. The Aptiva Guide is the "instructional information" that runs when the other choices, (home, office, or school ) are chosen at startup. In the Aptiva Guide, you can choose to load the Aptiva guide each time, and also to choose Windows or OS/2 each time you start up. RESTORING THE SYSTEM. There are three ( 3 ) types of reinstallation you might do. A simple re- copy to "redo" the files on the hard disk. A format and complete reinstall, and finally an FDISK, FORMAT, and reinstall. The procedures start the same for all three. Obviously they differ along the way. Step one is to boot the computer with RECOVERY DISK #1. When the blue "IBM" screen comes up, you are prompted to insert the RECOVERY DISK #2. After continued booting , you will finally see the APTIVA / RECOVERY MENU. There are six ( 6 ) choices. 1. Recover Aptiva OS/2 Warp Image 2. Recover Configuration Files 3. Edit AUTOEXEC.BAT 4. Edit CONFIG.SYS 5. Edit STARTUP.CMD 6. Go to OS/2 Warp Command Prompt If the drive does not need to be formatted or partitioned, and you just want to replace or overwrite all the original files, highlight choice number one ( 1 ) and hit ENTER. You will be prompted for the Multimedia Exploration CD, and also asked to type in the letter of your CD-ROM drive, and hit ENTER. Usually this will be D, unless you have added a second hard drive, then it will be E. You do not need to press the colon. After entering your CD-ROM drive letter, you will be asked if you want to continue. Press Y and hit ENTER. The ENTIRE original image will be copied from the CD-ROM. IMPORTANT !! Be sure and leave the RECOVERY DISK #2 in the drive. When the image is done copying, you will be prompted to remove the disk and press any key to reboot. Once the system is rebooted, you will see the message that the "First Boot" program is configuring your system. The computer will again reboot and take you to Windows, where you will be given the choice of how your system will be used, as described above. If the drive needs to be formatted. Begin with the same procedure described above. However, instead of choosing choice number one ( 1 ), choose instead choice number six ( 6 ) Go to OS/2 Warp Command Prompt. Once at the command prompt, [A:\], put in RECOVERY DISK #3. Type in FORMAT C:. You cannot use the normal DOS, switches as this is OS/2. Just type FORMAT C: and hit ENTER. You may be asked to type in the volume label before you are allowed to continue. The default volume label is MAIN FOLDER. Type it in and hit ENTER. If no volume label exists, you will almost immediately be asked for a volume label, as the format procedure only takes about two ( 2 ) seconds, unlike MS-DOS. You can leave it empty, and just hit ENTER, or you can type in MAIN FOLDER. Again do not be alarmed that formatting is almost immediate. When formatting is complete and you again have the command prompt [A:\], take out the RECOVERY DISK #3 and insert the RECOVERY DISK #2. Then type EXIT. You will be back to the APTIVA RECOVERY MENU, and can choose choice number one ( 1 ) as discussed above. If the drive needs to be partitioned. Begin with booting the computer in the prescribed method. At the APTIVA RECOVERY MENU, choose choice number six ( 6 ) just as you would for formatting. At the command prompt [A:\], insert RECOVERY DISK #3. Type in FDISK. You will see an FDISK menu. Note that it is different than the Dos fdisk menu you may have seen because this is an OS/2 ver 3.0 operating system. If a partition exists, it will be highlighted. Press ENTER, to bring down the Options Menu. If a partition exists, Delete Partition will be your only choice, highlight it and hit ENTER. If no partition exists, or has been deleted, you can choose Install Boot Manager or Create partition. Highlight create partition and hit ENTER. A Size of Partition menu comes up with the 1037 in the box. Just hit ENTER again. A Type of Partition menu comes up, choose Primary Partition, and hit ENTER. You should now see that you have a Startable, Primary, unformatted partition of 1037 mbytes. Press F3 to exit, and choose Save and Exit ( F3) A red message box appears indicating that drive letters have changed and that you need to reboot with CTRL-ALT-DEL. At this time, press those keys to reboot your computer. What it WILL NOT tell you is that your RECOVERY DISK #3 is still in the drive and you cannot boot from it. If you continue to boot with this disk you will get the following in the upper left hand corner. OS/2 !! SYS01475 OS/2 !! SYS02027 Simply take out RECOVERY DISK #3 and insert RECOVERY DISK #1 and reboot the computer. Again you will be prompted for the RECOVERY DISK #2 at the blue IBM screen. The computer will continue booting to the APTIVA RECOVERY MENU. Follow the installation steps above for formatting the drive and reinstalling the software. It is important to note, there is no way to do a partial installation or create disks for the installed software. Once installation is complete and you have booted back to Windows and chosen you installation type, you must exit Windows and reboot with the IBM Aptiva MPEG Bonus Pack diskette. When it boots up, choose the letter I for MPEG Installation. You will be prompted for several CD's from the MPEG Bonus Pack during this procedure. YOU WILL NOT HAVE MPEG CAPABILITES UNLESS YOU PERFORM THIS STEP. In fact, the icon will not even appear in Windows until after this is done. When complete, you will reboot back to Windows with full MPEG capability. (/all/BKL-03/12/96)