Thinkpads Forum

Hi.

I'm interested in buying a used thinkpad x31 laptop. The original hard-drive on the computer was partitioned in such a manner that it was possible to reinstall windows directly from the hard-drive (eliminating the need for installation from CDs). The hard drive has been upgraded and hence the ability to reinstall from the hard drive has been lost. There is a certificate of authenticity with a product key on the bottom of the computer. Can this product key be used to somehow (say, via the microsoft website) reinstall a legitimate copy of windows xp?

Thanks,

rhz

Your best avenue would be to acquire a set of recovery CD's for your ThinkPad and go that route. You don't need your COA for that. On the other hand, your COA is a OEM COA and will not work with any retail version of Windows. Recovery CD's will save you time in the long run. Just be sure to remove all partition and reset the Master Boot Record before ever trying to recover. .... JDH

I don´t know if it was different with the older ThinkPads, but I wasn´t able to use the serial from the bottom of my ThinkPad for a clean install of XP. I believe you will have to extract the actual serial key from the XP installation. For this purpose you will have to boot back in XP and use program such like magical jelly bean keyfinder (it´s freeware). You may have to call M$ and tell them your story to reactivate (not sure about that), but even that shouldn´t be a problem.

Marin

The product key on the bottom of the ThinkPad will work with a generic OEM Windows XP install CD. I have tried it myself. You will need to activate Windows if you go this route. As mentioned above, the key will not work with a Retail Windows XP install CD.

Of course using the Product Recovery CD's will work. They do not require entering a product key or activation.

While we are still on topic, may I ask why the key founded in the Lenovo XP installation is different from the one on the COA sticker? (...or that was just my machine )

Thanks,

Marin

I believe the key found by Magic Jelly Bean on a typical ThinkPad is a VLK (volume license key) which requires a VLK version of Windows to work. The VLK key can work for a slipstreamed CD using the i386 folder existing on a ThinkPad with the factory install (see the Fresh Install sticky for details). There are a couple of Stickies at the top of the Windows OS (Versions prior to Vista) forum that cover this topic in depth.

Windows Licensing
How to Fresh Install Win XP (Step-by-Step Guide)

I have already read these stickies. Thanks, I now understand the difference. BTW, the VLK does work in my experience also with "simple" OS installation media.

Cheers,

Marin

jdhurst wrote:Your best avenue would be to acquire a set of recovery CD's for your ThinkPad and go that route. You don't need your COA for that. On the other hand, your COA is a OEM COA and will not work with any retail version of Windows. Recovery CD's will save you time in the long run. Just be sure to remove all partition and reset the Master Boot Record before ever trying to recover. .... JDH

Thanks.
What does it mean to remove the partition and reset the master boot record before a reinstallation of windows? Is this something that I would be prompted to do in the course of the reinstallation process via the recovery CD?

No, you are not prompted. If the HD is not clear, the recovery will usually fail. You need to start the recovery, exit at the first available time to a DOS prompt, run FDISK to remove partitions, then run FDISK /mbr, then run the recovery. ... JDH

When I received the wrong recovery media from Lenovo (they were for Vista, not XP as I actually requested...), the Vista DVDs performed the installation without any problems "overwriting" the existing XP installation. I noticed that the first stage of the process was "preparation" of the HD which I assume to be sort of formatting the drive. However, I don´t know if that would have worked the same way with multiple partitions existent...

Just my experience

Marin