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Looking at buying a 1st Gen - but has no HD - COA problems?

Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 8:56 pm
by dwilsonfl
I have a few ancient Thinkpads that kind of work for what I need, but they are old (T60, X60) and I need to upgrade and simplify. But my budget is $300 so I was looking at the 1st Gen X1 Carbon. I found one that looks good but it has no HD and I'd assume like most newer laptops, has no COA sticker. Just went through that with an HP and it was a pain. Microsoft said it was HP and HP said buy the disks again. Spending money on old laptops is what I was trying to avoid.

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks,

David

Re: Looking at buying a 1st Gen - but has no HD - COA problems?

Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 9:38 pm
by ajkula66
I don't know about X1C - someone else who actually owns one is likely to chime in - but newer ThinkPads such as *10/20/30 series have a COA in the battery bay.

Re: Looking at buying a 1st Gen - but has no HD - COA problems?

Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 9:05 am
by RealBlackStuff
I have such an X1C1 (1st Gen).
SSDs for that machine are hard to find AND very expensive.
However, I reported about an alternative here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 63#p789463 which forum member cfds installed.
The alternative is quite a bit cheaper!
Beware when you buy this machine, it has all its RAM soldered!
It is only available with 4GB or 8GB, so look for the 8GB, unless you go Linux.
Apart from that, it's a very nice machine.

As for Windows, mine came with a BIOS-built-in W8-key, but I installed W7-Pro 64-bit and activated that with a W7-COA from an X301.
I have installed Slic2.1 in that X301-BIOS, so it does not need that COA.

Re: Looking at buying a 1st Gen - but has no HD - COA problems?

Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 10:51 am
by ZaZ
dwilsonfl wrote:I'd assume like most newer laptops, has no COA sticker.
If it came with Windows 7 it should have a COA sticker, but Windows 8 and up have the key coded into the BIOS. Machines with pro versions of Windows 8 and 10 will have downgrade rights, though they don't make it easy.

Re: Looking at buying a 1st Gen - but has no HD - COA problems?

Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2017 3:50 pm
by cfds
ZaZ wrote:
dwilsonfl wrote:I'd assume like most newer laptops, has no COA sticker.
If it came with Windows 7 it should have a COA sticker, but Windows 8 and up have the key coded into the BIOS. Machines with pro versions of Windows 8 and 10 will have downgrade rights, though they don't make it easy.
Confirmed, mine came with Win7 Pro 64 bit and has the COA sticker in the bottom...very happy with my X1C 1st gen except for the battery life, that could be better!

Re: Looking at buying a 1st Gen - but has no HD - COA problems?

Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2017 6:23 pm
by dwilsonfl
K, so I'll look for an 8 gb of RAM model

Thanks