Reinstalling WinXP on a T42

[helebor]

My elderly Mum lost her laptop in the recent Christchurch earthquake, giving me the yearned-for opportunity to equip her with a T42. I picked up an ex-lease one with WinXP Pro-sp3 already installed on the original 40 GB Hitachi drive. On the up-side, everything works physically and I consider it a great buy. I popped in a 1GB RAM module to augment the installed 512MB module, works well, not a blip. So the "plus" side is very-plus.

The downside is that the refurbisher wiped the original HDD and installed XP Pro afresh - from a Dell OEM disk. The XP Pro licence key is not the same as the one on the COA sticker. Audio was a bit flaky so I've already had to de-install the Audio driver and replace it with the proper one from the IBM support site. That went well.

The built-in wireless adaptor isn't working well at Mum's place, though it was OK here at mine. I think it's a good bet I need to install the proper driver for it. There is a trackpoint driver installed but it's a Dell one, I think. It works, sort of, but is quite jumpy and also does not coordinate with the scroll tappers. For Mum this is not really a showstopper as I doubt she could use it, even if the proper drivers were there. But to me these little imperfections are a sign that the T42 would be happier with its own stuff.

What I'd really like to do is give her a new hard disk with everything "just right" for the T42. I'm an old hand at slipstreaming *drivers* into an XP iso but I don't have a clue what I need to do to have the T42 driver installers run (or be runnable) from a custom XP disk, ideally as part of a single installation exercise. Has anyone done this? Any tips?

I do have another T42 here, with its original IBM/OEM installation. As far as I can see, the hardware on both is the same, except for the monitors (Mum's is a 15.4", while the one here is 14.1"). Would I do better if I simply ported the disk image to the new HDD? Are there any possible problems from going that way, such as dependencies on MAC addresses, for example?

Any tips appreciated, TIA.

Helen

[RealBlackStuff]

You have a few options actually.
The simplest would be to install SystemUpdate 3.14 in the current Dell-load
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 66956.html
Then run that. It will get you all the proper/missing drivers and make it IBM/Lenovo compatible.

The next option would be to clone the contents of that other T42 hard disk.

And the third option would be to get hold of a set of T42 restore CDs, to install everything from scratch.
This is probably XP/SP2, so would need a considerable amount of updates.
Check for these CDs in our Market forum.
We do have other NZ members, perhaps even in your area.

[GomJabbar]

And the third option would be to get hold of a set of T42 restore CDs, to install everything from scratch.
This is probably XP/SP2, so would need a considerable amount of updates.
Check for these CDs in our Market forum.
We do have other NZ members, perhaps even in your area.

If you have the original OEM setup, you may be able to burn a set for yourself.

To create a set of Product Recovery Discs, do one of the following:

The old way was to go to: Start > All Programs > Access IBM > Create Recovery Discs.

The new way is to go to: Start > All Programs > ThinkVantage > Create Recovery Media, then click on radio button: "Create a set of Product Recovery discs now", and finally click on OK. You can also create the Rescue Media from this screen.

You can only burn one set of Product Recovery Discs until you Restore Factory Contents - then you are given the option again.