New Thinkstation S20 owner, need help.

[farmall77]

A month after I became a Thinkpad user I decided I should update my ancient desktop.

Today I picked up a Thinkstation S20-4157.

When it got sold off they wiped the O/S, I have the windows 7 pro key on the back, which Microsoft won't accept on the website. I didn't get any recovery media.

Any ideas?

It looks like an awesome system, for it's age, I'm planning on mostly using it as a graphics/video workstation.

[RealBlackStuff]

Get a set of Lenovo W7 Pro 64-bit recovery disks from a contemporary laptop.
T400/T500/W500 if yours has ATI graphics.
T420/T520/W520 or newer if nVidia.
Once installed, run System Update, or update drivers manually from Lenovo website.

Place a WTB in our Marketforum, or contact Lenovo.

[Neil]

Whenever I run across a Windows license number that won't activate on-line, I activate by telephone. Hasn't failed yet.

[farmall77]

Thanks!

Tried it last night with the recovery media I made from my intel graphics T520, loaded but failed at startup.

Trying it now with recovery media from the Nvidia equipped T520.

Microsoft won't even let me download the disk image.


Next step is a new HDD, I have a feeling this one is not as healthy as it should be. Step #2 might be a set of factory S20 recovery media.

[farmall77]

Everything is normal until I get to the "Starting Windows" screen, the floating particle animation runs for a split second and then it crashes. Re-boots to the "Windows failed to start" menu. Non of the options have a positive result.

Looks like it's new HDD time, shame as this is a 1tb drive, but who knows how much abuse it has suffered.

EDIT: Conflict with the RAID card it came with, making progress!

Success! RAID card was the issue, we are up and running!

[Utwig]

First get some windows working so you can check whether it has SLIC 2.1 activation. I recommend you install from OEM media the version you intend to use. (for example Windows 7 Pro). If you don't have OEM Pro CD, you can find online, you can also change the language pack after installation.

If you don't have a DVD burner or don't want to pollute environment by wasting a DVD, you can install from USB. You don't need any Rufus or MS utility. You just format USB in NTFS, make partition active using diskpart in administrative CMD and copy contents of .iso (extract with 7-zip) to USB key.

You can check that with Aida64 (download BETA) - you don't need to activate windows yet.
If it has SLIC 2.1 or higher then proceed with steps below. If SLIC is only 2.0 or lower then it supports only Vista. Sometimes on OEM machines a BIOS update adds SLIC 2.1. Go to Lenovo site and update BIOS and all firmware - you don't need activated Windows for that. If the sticker is Windows 7 it's most likely 2.1

Then you need to find the certificate in the form of xrm-ms and OEM key that matches it.
Make a folder usually I create folder called oem in C:\Windows\System32\
Copy xrm-ms file there (you need to confirm to make changes...)
Start command window in administrative mode, (right click CMD icon, > Run As Administrator)
Type:
slmgr -ilc C:\Windows\System32\OEM\certificate_file.xrm-ms
slmgrp -ipk XXXX-XXXX-XXXX - put your Lenovo key - you need a Lenovo key for your version of Windows 7 (Home, Pro, Ultimate..)
Reboot, in Computer > Properties it should show as activated now.

If after BIOS update it still shows as SLIC 2.0 you may find modded BIOS on my digital life or there is some Chinese forum which is difficult to navigate and you need to register to download. If you don't manage to have BIOS to have SLIC 2.1 (no OEM or modded BIOS available), then you need to call Microsoft and activate by phone, you need a valid key and they usually don't complicate if you say you reinstalled.

Activating using SLIC 2.1 OEM certificate and OEM key is much better than calling as in case you change too much hardware it won't activate and you'll have to call again. With OEM SLIC activation you can stick HDD in another OEM machine and it will work which is very convenient for places with multiple PCs.

You can get the certificate and the key from a working OEM machine, such as Thinkpad or find one online. My Digital Life forums are a good place to start.
You can also find Windows 7 48 in 1 or such DVD images where you can select install Lenovo Pro OEM. You can go this route if you trust the maker of the image (usually popular images are OK).

You can extract key from existing install using magic jelly beans keyfiner (google) but be careful to unselect crapware it comes with.

After that you install Lenovo System update or just install drivers for missing stuff in device manager from Lenovo site. Don't install any not needed bloatware such as Lenovo ShareIT

If you really need help, you can PM me.

[UMPC2024]

Also if you're just looking for a Win 7 Pro x64 bit ISO, here's another thread dealing with a similar issue http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=119576
And once you get it working, don't forget to look around the Windows 7 section for some posts about slow Windows updates. Fresh installs have recently been hanging. Good luck!

[farmall77]

Thanks folks,

This got solved quite a while ago, and the S20 has been a rock solid machine for me or several months now.

I installed from my #2 T520 Recovery disks and Win 7 Pro64 activated from the S20's embedded key. I have auto update turned off, but I keep it pretty current on the updates.

The same recovery media provided the O/S for the T61 I'm typing on, thanks to a Lenovo OEM product key from a dead machine.