creating recovery disks

[HFat]

Quick question: does anyone knows if one can create recovery disks from within the recovery partition? And if one needs to do it from Windows, what's the required software?

Thanks!

[killer]

Go to Start, All Programs, Thinkvantage and one option is Create Recovery Media. You can do this once to create a set of disks that allow you to recover to the original factory settings.

If you want a set of disks to recover to your settings at a given point (for example, today) follow these instructions:

• Prepare yourself by having lots of blank CDR disks (not CDRWs) at your disposal.
  Do a normal backup using Rescue & Recovery (R&R).
  Once that is complete, go into R&R and click on 'Launch Advanced R&R'. On the tool bar at the top select Advanced and one option is to copy your backups to disk.
  Follow the instructions on screen.

I hope this helps.

[poshgeordie]

Have a look at viewtopic.php?t=52133. Also this post will help too viewtopic.php?f=2&t=79608 (thanks Ray!)

[HFat]

Thanks.

I assume I can only create the recovery disks (for a factory install) from within Windows then.

Now my question is: what software do I need to do that? I don't have the Thinkvantage stuff and I'd rather not do a factory reinstall just for that. Presumably the software can be downloaded from Lenovo's website along with the drivers and such.

[poshgeordie]

Follow the steps in this link I previously gave you - viewtopic.php?t=52133

All the necessary drivers etc are included in R&R discs.

To burn the first CD which is bootable, from within windows use the excellent ISO Recorder 2, but burn it at a very slow speed. Also burn the other cd's at a slow speed as well to prevent errors etc.

[HFat]

Thank you but your link points to a thread about how to use the disks while I want to create the disks that are used to install the recovery partition on blank hard drives. I would have thought it was a simple enough question...

[Harryc]

You cannot create the recovery discs unless you do it from within windows using the Thinkvantage Rescue and recovery program. The machine must have the default factory build on it. There...simple answer. Also Killer is correct, you can only do this once. If that is not an option, your only other option is to purchase recovery media from Lenovo, EBay, or by posting an Ad in the Marketplace forum here.

[HFat]

using the Thinkvantage Rescue and recovery program

My answer! You're my hero!

For reference:
XP download: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-70034
Vista donload: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-70035
They're really heavy downloads. I wonder what they've put in there.

I suppose there's no way to know if someone already made recovery disks with the partition. Oh well...

[sktn77a]

I believe this option was first introduced on the T42. Is it possible to download the ThinkVantage R&R software to a T40 or T41 and create the recovery disks from the hidden partition?

[HFat]

Officially, only the T43 is supported by the downloads I linked to above.
Considering the pitfalls and the huge download, I'm probably not going to bother. I'd sooner try with recovery disks for another model. And I can always do a clean install (I assume I can use the OEM files from another IBM-era Thinkpad to validate Windows) or reimage.
I thought using recovery disks was an elegant way to install an OS with functional drivers but they're not worth that much trouble considering that a lot of the software they install is outdated (or plain useless).