T21 and Windows XP

[ieee488]

I am thinking about purchasing a T21 from a seller on eBay.
He says the unit is intact except for the hard drive which he has removed, and that there is a Windows XP COA on the bottom of the unit.

Is there such a thing as a Windows XP recovery CD for this system or will I have to buy a copy of Windows XP?

[RealBlackStuff]

There is no (official) T21 with an XP COA.
It only has max. 512MB (expensive and rare) RAM, and only one USB port (1.1 not 2.0!)
XP was not issued until on late T22 and T23 models.
Go for the slightly better T23 (with max. 1GB RAM), or spend your money on an R51 or R52 or T43 with integrated Intel graphics, or go direct to the T60 class.

[ieee488]

Thanks.

I'll keep my eyes open for a T23.

[RealBlackStuff]

I have XP-Pro Recovery CDs for the T23 (and others).
PM me with your T23 requirements/price ideas, I have several available.

[ieee488]

After thinking it over, I am leaning now towards getting a laptop with Windows 7.
I feel like I'm falling behind since I skipped over Vista.

[wgg]

Well Vista was an awful OS and do not feel behind as I run XP on many of my units and it is a very good operating system compared to Vista.

[Unknown_K]

Look at what software you want to run and then pick out the hardware and OS that will do it. I have seen too many people stuffing the latest and greatest OS on old hardware with no upgrades while still using old apps that ran better on the older OS. What is the point other then saying you are current? Its not like Win2k/Xp/Vista/7 are that much different in day to do use that you can't junp from Win2k directly to 7 and not know whats going on.

A cheap T23 with a 60GB HD and 1 GB of RAM running XP will do well with older versions of office and other productivity apps and still let you browse the web and watch your videos. If you absolutely need to have a state of the art laptop as your only machine then buy a new one. Most people just need something usable that is mobile and use it more for entertainment (web/email/im/video) then an actual work machine. If you need a workhorse machine for work you generaly get issued one anyway (unless you are the company).

[slvrldy17]

Have run Windows XP on both the T20 and T21 and both worked fine - memory upgrade is nice and need not be overly expensive - XP will run fine with 256MB of RAM. If the machine has a valid COA sticker for XP then any XP OEM install disk of the correct version ( Home or Pro, SP 1 or 2) will work with the key code on the sticker - ask around - you might be able to borrow a XP disk somewhere. Try this place for RAM,

http://www.kahlon.com/rm15699_IBM_Think ... 7-27U.html

[nikki605]

...XP will run fine with 256MB of RAM.

My new (in 2001) T21 came with Win98 & 128MB of memory. About 6 years ago when I decided to upgrade to WinXP, I also upgraded the CPU to 1GHz, memory to 512MB & HDD to 80GB, 7200 rpm and WinXP was pretty snappy.

Since then however, it seems to have slowed to a crawl with "stuff" I have added. The HDD is constantly being accessed. Seems like its paging to disk for every mouse click. Just clicking on the Start button sometimes sets off a flurry of HDD activity before the menu opens. I think it may be time to do a fresh reload of WinXP (sigh).

I'm not looking forward to it. I'm not sure I could even find where I put all the TP Sys Update files like for Access Connection, HotKey, Keyboard Customizer, Battery MaxiMiser, etc., etc.

[RealBlackStuff]

On a T2x or T3x, when you re-install XP from recovery CDs or recovery partition, remove the obsolete Software Installer, and install System Update 3.14 instead, run it to get all the latest IBM/Lenovo updates, then run all the M$ updates.

If you install from just an XP CD, install System Update 3.14, run it to get all the latest IBM/Lenovo programs and drivers, then run all the M$ updates.

In either case you need not worry about where you may have stored the drivers/programs.

[nikki605]

I've got System Update 3.10.0007 installed right now even though the official company position is that it is not "supported" on the T20, T21 & T22. Its always seemed to work just fine. (Sure, as soon as I say that, I just ran it and got "Error 95: received from the Package Index Server.")

I've got a boxed retail WinXP (SP1) CD that I used for the T21. In 2008, I used nLite to make a slipstreamed CD with SP3 on it. I've never had to actually try to use it to install so I guess I'll find out if I did it right and it works.

Last time, after installing WinXP, it took me days to get all my apps loaded and my setup customized the way I wanted it. I'm still not done loading apps on my T410. I install a few, most work fine, but one gives me a problem and I have to stop and figure out what the problem is before I can move on. Very time consuming.

[jronald]

Putting XP on a T21 is kind of like running premium fuel in a VW Beetle. Can you do it, sure you can. Should you do it, well thats your call.
I can tell you that W2k runs like a bat out of hades on the 21's/22's and 23's.

Ron

[nikki605]

I attempted to scratch load WinXP on my T21 and immediately ran into a MS problem. I replaced the current HDD loaded with WinXP with another one I had, newly formatted so it is blank. The XP CD I have is an "upgrade" not the full product. Since the upgrade CD doesn't find any OS on the HDD, it asks for a previous product CD. What I have and put in the drive is the original T21 Recovery CD for Win98, but the WinXP "upgrade" CD rejects it saying its not valid.

Is there any way around this or am I going to have to "recover" Win98 from the IBM recovery CD first and then "upgrade" to winXP? (YUK! That's an awful solution! Not clean)

EDIT: Nevermind... I got it. I went ahead and used the Win98 SE Recovery CD and loaded it. Boy, I forgot what Win98 SE screens looked like. That made the WinXP Upgrade CD happy and I just selected new install rather than upgrade. Converted the HDD to NTFS and I'm back in business. Got System Update 3.14.0029 installed and did what few updates were available from lenovo (had to install .NET Framework 2.0 & SP1, first). Now, I'm installing all the other MS updates. That'll take the rest of the day.