Thinkpads Forum

1) Update all the critical, recommended and optional components via the system update manager?

2) Charge the battery for 8 hours prior to first use?

Is there a recovery disk?

Thanks !

See this thread:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=14382

My new 2007-76U was shipped today. I've been making up a list of things to do when it gets here and these are on my current list in no particular order other than the first two:

Make Recovery CD's/DVD
Set up wireless connection to modem
Update drivers, etc. from Lenovo website
Install 6840 Printer (see instructions)
Install Norton Internet Security and get updates
Export data from Lotus Organizer on Dell to a CD and Import it into Lotus Organizer on Thinkpad
Download and install MSIE 6.0 with Outlook Express (if not already from factory), then download and install MSIE 7.0 Beta 2
Download FireFox and Thunderbird
Download Netscape 8.1
Export Thunderbird Address Book to a CD and Import it into Thunderbird on Thinkpad
Export MSIE Favorites to CD and Import them into MSIE on Thinkpad
Export FireFox Bookmarks to CD and Import them into FireFox on Thinkpad
Export Netscape Bookmarks to CD and Import them into Netscape on Thinkpad
Install Extensions and Themes on FireFox, Netscape and Thunderbird
Install Wordperfect and QuatroPro
Download OpenOffice and install
Download and install iTunes and Quicktime
Download and install latest Adobe Reader
Install Paint Shop Pro
Download and install latest software for Canon G5
Install MS Works
Set up fingerprint reader to use a common password
Export iTunes Library to DVD on wife's iMac and Import to iTunes Library on Thinkpad
Remove commercial add-on's

I would also recommend downloading Acronis True Image and making backup images of your hard drive with it. It's much faster and more effective, I think, than the IBM Rescue and Recovery app. And you can use it for free for 30 days to see what you think of it.

Especially if you're planning on tweaking a lot of things, making backup images with True Image can save you a lot of headache. I basically make a back up image after every few significant changes I make. That way if any tweaks I want to try mess things up, it's easy to go back just a couple steps. Once I get everything set up, then I don't backup my system partition as often.

Also, when I use Acronis to recover my system partition from a backup image, I always boot off of the bootable recovery cd you can make with Acronis. If you run the recovery from inside Windows, it is my understanding that Acronis rewrites the master boot records on your hard drive and then reboots into it's own separate state. To me it seems like too much of a risk to constantly be rewriting the master boot records of the drive. And Acronis boots pretty fast from the cd.

I would also recommend downloading Acronis True Image and making backup images of your hard drive with it. It's much faster and more effective, I think, than the IBM Rescue and Recovery app. And you can use it for free for 30 days to see what you think of it.

Unfortunately it is only 15 days.

Oops. Right.