Thinkpads Forum

I am looking for the factory restore media. The COA on my machines are Windows XP. Thanks.

burntyellow wrote:I am looking for the factory restore media. The COA on my machines are Windows XP. Thanks.

My opinion on this is you'd be better off installing from a windows setup disc, the factory restore media will likely install XP sp2 or sp1, and you'll spend far more time jockeying discs, then installing SP3 which replaces much of the OS, then you'll still have 10yo drivers that all have to be replaced, 10yo apps that need to be updated if you want to use them, and two redundant copies of everything taking up space on a hidden harddrive partition, or you could install from an upto date windows disc then install the latest available drivers which you can find at the top of this forum in the "drivers" link (when logged in). If you want a setup disc that has been updated with XP3 and all the critical updates till 2012, and drivers for your SATA disc so you don't have to cripple your AHCI abilities for winXP to recognize the drive, or if you want to upgrade to Vista which is still supported my microsoft I can provide you either for $20 with COA, or if you want just the disc I'll send it for a donation of your choice.

If this interests you send me a PM and we can workout the details.

@TuuS: Yes, the factory set is WinXPSP2. Yes, the OP should probably apply SP3, download all patches released since then and update any relevant drivers. Will probably take the better part of a day to complete a full restore. After which, if even more time spent is desired, one could image just the boot partition (handy for restoring later on since you skip all the recovery disks, SP3 and Windows Update), wipe the drive and reload or use some partitioning tool to recover the space taken up by the recovery partition.

Thanks for all the replies. Yes, it's the factory restore that I want. No, I do not intend to use the machine for production work. I am restoring the laptops to their original glory for my "collection", although they are only Z61s.

I am fully aware of the time required to bring the OS up to end-of-life XP SP3 ... it's actually stress-relief time spent on a hobby. The Thinkvantage System Update helps with automation of the driver updates.

Appreciate all the help.

@burntyellow: You have a PM!

there is a registry tweak that can be used to trick windows update into thinking you're running Embedded version of XP which is still updated, FWIW

A forum member was able to help and now I have XP SP2 running on my Z61t. ... and now the laborious task of updating this to SP3. Thanks for the speedy response and help.