Thinkpads Forum

simple question here that i couldn't find an answer to, what are the differences between "rescue media" that can be on CD/DVD or hard drive, vs. "recovery discs".

the "Create Rescue and Recovery Media" window tells me, "Rescue media enables you to access ThinkVantage(TM) Rescue and Recovery(TM) tools, even when you are unable to start the Windows(R) environment."

and i've read that Rescue Media creates only the first of the Recovery Discs.

can Rescue Media do a custom reinstallation of the sysem? where you get to leave out certain thinkvantage bloatware?

sorry to bother with a potentially newb question.

'Create Recovery Media' allows you to produce a set of CDs/DVDs that enable you to do a factory reset.

'Rescue and Recovery' allows you to do regular backups of your existing set up so that you may recover from, for example, a virus attack.

Please RTFM.

Sorry to be curt, but so many people seem to ask this question and I hope I am not being rude by asking people to read the ****ing manual (help screens) but it would save a lot of time and effort and justify why someone went to all the trouble to write the guidance.

ok i admit i didn't read the help section, but i have now, and it's not very helpful.

no where is there mention of a custom reinstall which is available from predesktop.
but, sometimes predesktop is damaged.

the "rescue media" sounds like it could offer what predesktop does, like custom reinstall, but if it is the same as making the first disc of recovery discs, my first disc from dec 2006 couldn't, and i would be happy and surprised if it could now.

i won't be surprised if nobody knows.

All the Rescue Media does is boot up into Rescue and Recovery from a CD. This is useful if your hard drive will not boot into Rescue and Recovery. From the Rescue and Recovery desktop you can perform various tasks - backup, restore, copy files to another medium, restore factory contents, etc.

The Product Recovery Discs are on several CD's (6 or 7) or can be on 1 CD + 1 DVD. From these you can restore the Factory software including Windows onto a blank hard drive, or overwrite an existing hard drive. When you use these discs, all existing data on the hard drive is lost. The first disc of the Product Recovery Discs is the Rescue Media CD.

I'm creating rescue media right now for my X200, I ordered an x25-m 80gb, so I figure the media will be helpful. My ultrabase only has a CD burner, and I am currently on disc 12, babysitting on and off for a good 12+ hours now (each cd is taking a good 20 minutes to burn+verify), can anyone give me an idea how many more discs? 6-7 DVDs? Getting myself into this and having to burn say 45 CDs, is a bit insane. It's a one shot get it right type deal too eh? Kind of scared to back out now, but this looks like its turning into a marathon.

Ok so done and done now, that create rescue media is a labour intensive process imo, the few bucks that lenovo saved, certainly wasn't equal to my time. Anyhow, grand total for "create recovery media" for my X200 running Windows Vista Basic 32-bit = 14 CD , way too many imo.

You can create the Recovery Media onto one CD (for the recovery program) and one DVD (for everything else).

killer wrote:You can create the Recovery Media onto one CD (for the recovery program) and one DVD (for everything else).

I had similar problems. When I got my x200 (upgrade win 7), I instantly made recovery media and it came to 7 CDs. When I needed them, they didn't work. Luckily I had an old hard drive with the original install on. A second attempt at making Recovery media ended up with 12 cds, and it didn't give me an option to use DVDs. Long burns as well.

All odd, because I used the same dvd drive to make R and Rs for my old x60 without problems.

It is a clunky system and one of the few things with my thinkpads I haven't been impressed with.

I have an older T61 with Vista Buis but since I got it used, I never had a chance to make recovery CD's. Currently I do not see an option to create recovery cd's. I was able to succesfully recover via recovery partition on the HDD. I am thinking of upgrading the harddrive and would like to do a "fresh start". Is there any way to re-enable "Create recovery CD's"? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

As soon as you recovered from the hard drives recovery partition, the option to create recovery media should have reappeared. Check under Thinkvantage on the start menu.

It is not there. Is there any way to re-enable it?

No, reinstalling from the recovery partition is the only way to re-enable the create recovery media option.