download the instruction as a Word document
This is an overview of how to extract the preinstalled applications from the Transnote Recovery CDs as installable applications. There are a number of dangers to doing this.
WARNING: YOU CAN ONLY PERFORM THIS OPERATION DURING A FULL SYSTEM RECOVERY THAT WILL ERASE YOUR ENTIRE HARD DISK.
I can¡¦t say this enough times. Back up your data before you start, and I would recommend only doing this at a time when you have to recover your Transnote anyway.
Required tools:
Transnote Recovery CDs
CD drive suitable for booting the Transnote and running a full system recovery.
Getting Started:
Back up your data. There are several ways to do this: Windows Backup, Norton Ghost, Nero, and IBM¡¦s Rapid Restore Ultra (a free download). Back up the whole computer, for two reasons: first, if you back up the whole thing you can go back to the backup in case you missed something that you need. Secondly, once you¡¦ve extracted the preinstalled software from the Recovery CDs, you can restore your whole system to it¡¦s previous state (assuming that everything was in good working order) and just install the software that you want.
It is a good practice to create an image of your computer after a fresh install of the operating system and applications (such as an office suite, drivers, and operating system updates). This can be done with backup software, but it is generally faster to using imaging software such as Norton Ghost that can create an exact copy of your hard drive and save it on a network shared drive or to a DVD or CD burner. Saving the image to a CDR or DVD-R will likely take several CDs but not likely more than one DVD.
Extraction:
Turn off your Transnote and connect a CD-ROM drive that is supported by the Transnote recovery CDs.
Insert the first Transnote recovery CD and boot your Transnote. When the boot menu is displayed, press the FXX key to get to the boot menu.
Select your CD-ROM drive from the menu and press enter.
Follow the Recovery CD prompts until you are prompted to reboot your Transnote. This will prepare your Transnote to install Windows 2000 (or Windows 98, depending on which Recovery CDs you have).
Reboot from the CD a second time. This will extract the application installation files to your hard drive to a folder named ¡¥IBMWORK¡¦.
Insert the second disk and continue installing the files.
On the next reboot, you will remove the CD and boot from the hard drive and complete the installation of Windows.
When you reboot Windows after competing the installation, a DOS window that is madly copying files will appear on the desktop.
THIS IS A TIME CRITICAL STEP.
Open ¡¥My Computer¡¦ and open your C: drive (likely called IBM_PRELOAD)
Right-click the ¡¥IBMWORK¡¦ folder and select copy from the menu.
Right click in a blank area and select paste from the menu (not paste shortcut). This will create a copy of the IBMWORK folder called, appropriately enough, Copy of IBMWORK.
Remember that you have to complete these steps quickly and correctly because as soon as the DOS window is finished installing the applications, it will delete the IBMWORK folder. If you make a mistake, you will have to start over from step one.
Overview of IBMWORK:
This is a listing of the directories found in IBMWORK and what is found in each folder. Some of them are fairly easy to identify and install, but others are more cryptic. Most of the folders below will be easily used, but some should likely be left alone, such as the Sysprep related files, as they are used to modify Windows and how it is installed. My advice as an MCSE is to only use the applications and the drivers, as running some of the other things may do irreversible damage to your operating system. Known applications and drivers below are marked with an asterisk *. While the other files would likely not damage to your system, running them is part of a full reinstall, and if you want to run them, then you would be better off just running a full system recovery without interfering with it.
Volume in drive C is MACHIN-SHIN
Volume Serial Number is 1553-1503
Directory of C:\Copy of IBMWORK
01/10/2005 08:55a
259 File(s) 514,607 bytes
30 Dir(s) 4,365,828,096 bytes free
If you have corrections or contributions to the file (and ultimately to the Transnote community) please send them to obsidian[at]cableone.net (replace [at] with @ to send an email) and I will follow up with a revision to this list.
Lester Berg