I have the Lenovo recovery CDs (ok, DVDs) for Win7Pro 64-bit OS. I've tried installing the OS on three drives. The installation works fine on the 320GB drive that came with the T420s .. but fails on the mSATA SSD drive (Kingston 64GB) and a Crucial 64GB SSD drive I got with a second T420s.

In both cases, all four DVDs get loaded. About 2/3 of the way through processing the files (before the reboot), the system hangs. It's not frozen - but it doesn't go anyplace .. ever. The result is the same with both systems. Here's what is on the screen at the hang:
Processing LR29A7A2
c:/SWWORK/OEMOffice14/en-us/Office14/X86/Proofing.en-us/Proof.en/Proof.cab

I called Lenovo tech support. They suggested I try compatibility mode (through BIOS). Nope - caused a blue screen when I tried to boot off of the Lenovo drive. After that and all I got was a 'You should be using Lenovo drives' .. They were no help.

Anyone have any thoughts (that would help) as to what's going on? What difference would an SSD make that far through the process? Is there a list of drives (either SSD or mSATA SSD) that are known to work with this system? I've seen posts about the Intel drive but they are a bit more pricey.

I have created a solution that worked for me, though it's not completely working.

I went through the recovery process using my 320GB drive and copied each of the partitions to my two SSD drives. Win7Pro boots fine now - but I don't have the tools I get when I boot select the blue Thinkvantage button. Such is life - but at least I'm booting and running off of my mSATA drive.

Any more input or comments are welcome - in particularly on what may have happened and what to do about it.

-- Bob