Win 7 Rescue & Recovery CDs on T41p - how? What can I do?

[beeblebrox]

Folks, my best friend fried his T500 at Starbucks yesterday. Result is (Venti Latte 1:0 Thinkpad) Since he is out of cash and needs an urgent replacement he gave me his old T41p to put Win 7 on it.

Now, I have these T500 recovery DVDs (with the license sticker) and tried to install Win 7 on the T41p. All works fine until the first reboot, then I get the error message BOOTMGR missing.
I copied the BOOTMGR from the Win7 RC version onto the HDD and tried again. Another message comes up: changed configuration and reinstall again.

I am a novice to Win 7. My previous experience with XP was that after configuring the HDD the software would be unzipped and then installed fresh on the notebook, regardless of type. But it has to be an IBM because of the BIOS check. Hardware would be checked and drivers loaded.
But here it is not case, somehow.

What can I do? I see 3 partitions, a lot of files in SWWORK etc. but R&Recovery does not unzip un install.
I need help!

Beeblebrox

[Norway Pad]

Did these DVDs come shipped with or were they made from the T500?

I have always had the understanding that Rescue & Recovery discs are machine-specific, and can only be used for the machine they are meant for. I am not sure if things like Hardware Abstraction Layers etc. comes into play here(?), but I am sure the T500 DVD's at least contain machine-specific drivers that will definitely not work in your T41.

Others here know more than me about this, just my initial thought on this matter.

[beeblebrox]

Thanks a lot for the quick reply. The Recovery DVDs are original from Lenovo and were shipped separately.

I have used the T40 XP recovery CDs on a variety of other Thinkpads, without problems. I saw that windows does after unzipping a normal full install and tried to identify the hardware. Just like a normal Windows install.

Since the files of the Win 7 recovery DVDs are copied to the HDD it is my understanding that the process seems to be the same. But after first reboot it should start unzipping the R&R files and then install Win 7 while trying to identify the used hardware.
Unfortunately after reboot the BOOTMGR is missing. Is it possible that the hardware check verifies Lenovo and refuses IBM in the BIOS?
Maybe that is some kind of copy protection?

Beeblebrox