OK thanks RBS, that's news to me. I have an aged X61 with XP and might give that a go as it's gathering dust.

cadillacmike68 "Who's automated phone service, Microsoft's or Lenovo's? " Microsoft - I did not know Lenovo provided a license activation service. This was 3 months ago and I cannot remember all details but finding the MS number to call should not be difficult. Yes as I said after the clean installa...

All sorted. The new SSD took a while to arrive but installation on my X230 and activation was clean and easy: 1. Downloaded Win7 iso file, plus "Windows7-USB-DVD-Download-Tool-Installer-en-US.exe" from Microsoft 2. Copied ISO to blank USB drive with the MS tool to create a bootable drive (could have...

Thanks RBS, I'll let you know if that works. I have never created recovery disks but as I am not the original owner of the T420, someone else may have. However I have read elsewhere how to unlock more than one copy http://superuser.com/questions/384658/why-can-i-only-create-one-factory-backup-from-m...

Before I waste hours getting nowhere, can you guys please advise me if I can create a recovery CD or flash drive image from my T420 and install onto the X230 I have just bought with blank HDD and SSD? The T420 has Win7Pro64 SP1 and both the T420 and X230 have OEM COA stickers for that version. FWIW,...