upgrading hard drive on X31

Actually I have 2 questions.

1) I'd like to upgrade my laptop's hard drive (X-31) from a 20GB to maybe a 40GB or higher. Initially I thought 20GB would do me fine, however...i'm longing for more space. My question is...I just bought the x-31 about 2 months ago...so I have the full fledged 3 year warranty etc. on this. Is there a loophole that says I'd void the warranty if I do this? Also, If I swap the hard drive, how do I get all that funky IBM back up data that they put on a different partition?

2) I was being stupid one night, and was playing around with some encryption software (Cypherix Cryptainer). I created a couple partitions with Cryptainer, and now, I can't recover those chunks of my hard drive back. When I defrag -- I see approximately 8GB of Unuseable Space. Is anyone familiar with this? Any solutions to get back my precious 8GBs (I only have a 20GB HD). I never paid any attention to the partition when I first bought the laptop...so I'm not sure if IBM put any special data in some of that "unuseable space"

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Hi Danny,
If you have the recovery disks, forget about the IBM hidden partition and the data in it as it is all available with the recovery CDs. The CDs are free from IBM for the 1st 30days after purchase then the price is about $30
Having the CDs and not doing the hidden partition is a good idea caues it takes up 3-4GB of space, you do have a CDROM in your X31 right? I know some of those ultras don't have a CD player, in which case you will need to buy an imaging tool that can copy the hidden partition like Acronis true image 8.0. I know ghost or diskimage won't do it.

Hope this helps
Jack

The color of justice in america is green.
http://pbase.com/joneill

 

Oh, to get rid of those encrypted partitions try using partition magic 8 to delete them.

Jack

The color of justice in america is green.
http://pbase.com/joneill

 

Hey Jack,
Thanks for the info (I do have an external Lacie optical drive)

Maybe you or someone else can give me some info regarding this new problem I face then...

I bought the x-31 2 months ago, and had to immediately go to China for business. I've been here 2 months and counting now...and I've tried calling the local support (to no avail...Can't speak Mandarin), and also tried doing the chat with IBM stateside to get my recovery CDs. Now it's at 60 days and counting, and I still can't get my Recovery CDs or my Windows XP Pro Disk.

Let me tell you... trying to get international help is crappy at best.

So... is there any direct phone number i can call to get my recovery CDs? I'm pretty much reserved to calling the states only.

In any event, thanks for the clear advice. I'll try partition magic 8 sometime this week.

 

Well, IBM has an 800# so it may work in China. 1-800-426-7378 This is there 24/7 support#. Hope it works. Just tell them that you're in China and have been having difficulty speaking to to local support people because of the language problem. They may be understanding and send the CD's to you free.

I don't know if you're in this area code, but there's also a number for support in Hong Kong which speaks English. Here's the #'s: Home PC 852-2825-7799 & Commercial PC 852-8205-0333.

-Vb-