Thinkpads Forum

I just went to reset my new T60 back to factory specs and found a VERY cool new option called "Custom Restore" which allowed me to uncheck all of the Lenovo crapware that is typically installed.

Now, I have a system with the basic ThinkVantage apps (Active protection, R&R, Power mgr, client security), the ATI apps, and the multimedia apps for burning CD's and such. and that's it! no symantec, no crapware, no wallpaper, and only 57 processes running.

so far, this is the BEST improvement I have found on this new machine, which is obviously due to a new version of R&R.

Has anyone else discovered this new 'feature?'

How did you do this?

-- Barbara

after pressing the power button to turn the machine on, press the blue thinkvantage button, which will take you to a screen with a bunch of options on the left side. choose restore my system to factory settings, and you'll see the option to customize the restore by unchecking all of the programs that you don't want installed.

Do you know if restoring a T60 to factory settings recreates the hidden partition too? Mine is gone, thanks to MacOS X86 installer which messed up the partition table.

I recovered everything except the hidden partition, but since I formerly made the set of recovery disks I was thinking to do the following:

1) make an R&R backup of the current system;
2) restore the system to factory settings (for regaining the hidden partition, hopefully);
3) restore the current state of my partitions from the R&R backup made in point 1).

Is this feasible? I have a doubt, since in the R&R documentation it says a strange sentence: "If you do a complete system restore, it will not be anymore possible to restore the system from a previously made backup". Anyone noticed that warning? (located in R&R help, under "advanced functions").

Best regards
Neb

If you restore using CD's that you made, it will wipe the drive and reinstall the hidden partition.

Thanks stephenaron

I am still left with my doubt however, because of that warning in the R&R Help system. I will be more precise now.

If you launch R&R (from Windows, not via blue button or recovery CD), go to the help and follow this path (I translate from my version which is written in italian, so I may not be very accurate):

Utilization of rescue and recovery -> Advanced functions -> Creation and Utilization of recovery disks -> Disks for factory preinstalled content recovery

You will end up in the page which explains how to create the full set of recovery disks: the CD for booting into R&R plus the DVD (or some CD's) with the preinstalled content.

In this very page, however, ther is a "Warning" sentence (written in green) stating, among other things, that:

1) due to the licencing policy of Microsoft, only one set of recovery disks can be made, and that's quite reasonable;

2) If a user restores the pc to the factory preinstalled content by using those disks, he will NOT ANYMORE be able to later restore it using a R&R backup copy which has been done before to restore the factory preinstalled content.

What does this second sentence mean exactly, somebody knows? That, after a factory restore, all the existing R&R backup copies are "flagged" as invalid and the R&R software refuses to use them, or that there exists some other technical reason (which I can't figure out) by which it becomes impossible to restore a R&R backup after having reset the pc to the factory preinstalled content?

Did someone try to apply the two operations in sequence (i.e. first a factory restore and then a restore from an existing R&R backup)? And if so, did he succeed or not?

If anybody has an idea on the subject I would appreciate.

Regards
Neb

hoya wrote:after pressing the power button to turn the machine on, press the blue thinkvantage button, which will take you to a screen with a bunch of options on the left side. choose restore my system to factory settings, and you'll see the option to customize the restore by unchecking all of the programs that you don't want installed.

I don't seem to find the option.

So
1. Restore your system
2. Restore my hard drive to the original factory state
3. ??

Thx

hoya wrote:after pressing the power button to turn the machine on, press the blue thinkvantage button, which will take you to a screen with a bunch of options on the left side. choose restore my system to factory settings, and you'll see the option to customize the restore by unchecking all of the programs that you don't want installed.

Am I the only person that doesn't see this? I followed your directions after pressing the ThinkVantage button AND also tried using my recovery CD but I don't see any options to customize the restore. I only have options to save files have changed since the last restore.

I have a T60 and the ThinkVantage software says ThinkVantage 3.

do you have a newer (merom) T60? I don't have time to run through the procedure right now but I know it's on my newer T60. look closely when you're doing a full system restore.

make sure you're using the latest R&R. If you have recovery CDs from the old version, it won't be on those CDs, and if you recover from those CDs then your hard drive will have that old version too.

redking wrote:
Am I the only person that doesn't see this? I followed your directions after pressing the ThinkVantage button AND also tried using my recovery CD but I don't see any options to customize the restore. I only have options to save files have changed since the last restore.

I have a T60 and the ThinkVantage software says ThinkVantage 3.

I can't seem to find the "custom restore" option as well. The help boxes in the recovery software mentionned this option numerous time (along with the standard Full System Restore), but there was never a way to choose it.

From memory (I did it two times yesterday), I first selected the restore option on the left column of the screen. Then I selected the third option (Restore to Factory Settings) in the window that appeared. Then I choose the fourth option (do not save any files) and it then detected that I had more than one partition (C and D), so I choose to restore only the C partition (this option is not supposed to be available if you recover from the Restore CD/DVD). Then it started the restore process, whitout asking about customizing it or not.

I'm doing the restore from the hidden partition, with R&R 3 (updated just before trying to restore) and with a 2 months old T60 (CoreDuo 1, 200776u). Any help would be appreciated.

yellow_lenghan wrote:

redking wrote:
Am I the only person that doesn't see this? I followed your directions after pressing the ThinkVantage button AND also tried using my recovery CD but I don't see any options to customize the restore. I only have options to save files have changed since the last restore.

I have a T60 and the ThinkVantage software says ThinkVantage 3.

I can't seem to find the "custom restore" option as well. The help boxes in the recovery software mentionned this option numerous time (along with the standard Full System Restore), but there was never a way to choose it.

From memory (I did it two times yesterday), I first selected the restore option on the left column of the screen. Then I selected the third option (Restore to Factory Settings) in the window that appeared. Then I choose the fourth option (do not save any files) and it then detected that I had more than one partition (C and D), so I choose to restore only the C partition (this option is not supposed to be available if you recover from the Restore CD/DVD). Then it started the restore process, whitout asking about customizing it or not.

I'm doing the restore from the hidden partition, with R&R 3 (updated just before trying to restore) and with a 2 months old T60 (CoreDuo 1, 200776u). Any help would be appreciated.

This is exactly what I did. I have a T60 1953D9U, not more than two weeks old. If I am not able to do a custom restore, I am going to just do a clean install of XP, update it then install the IBM software that I need. After doing all that, I will image it with Acronis TrueImage.

I used this too. I left off Google Desktop and Symantec (I'd rather leave most of Lenovo's other software on there).

Definitely a sweet feature.

I can verify that it's indeed possible.
My T60 comes with Rescue and Recovery 3.

I pressed the blue buttom during bootup to go into IBM RnR and I choose custom restore, then you can pick and choose what "optional" softwares to install.

Great to know. Will try the next time i need to reinstall. Thanks.

redking wrote:

hoya wrote:after pressing the power button to turn the machine on, press the blue thinkvantage button, which will take you to a screen with a bunch of options on the left side. choose restore my system to factory settings, and you'll see the option to customize the restore by unchecking all of the programs that you don't want installed.

Am I the only person that doesn't see this? I followed your directions after pressing the ThinkVantage button AND also tried using my recovery CD but I don't see any options to customize the restore. I only have options to save files have changed since the last restore.

I have a T60 and the ThinkVantage software says ThinkVantage 3.

When you are in the wizard to restore, it is a 6 step process asking what files you want to save etc. After you get to the last step (6), it will bring you to ANOTHER wizard that will allow you to choose custom restore. It is misleading, since step 6 looks like the final step before it reformats your machine.

It worked great on my new T60 with RR version 3.

Because my X60s now is becoming very slow I too want to follow mentioned "protocol".

I would however like to transfer "my documents" folder, and I think i will simply put all the files on ext drive then copy-paste back.

What I need to know before doing this R&R trick, and would be most grateful if one could help - do i have to bother with uninstalling software, cleaning registry etc. prior to using this R&R trick, or does this completely wipe off the drive, reinstalls windows etc (or does it simply return it to "R&R saved state".

What i want (not to waste too much time) is exactly what the described steps are saying, but would like to make sure that it really FORMATs (or equivalent) cleans my drive, so that my thinkpad will be faster. It currently takes 2min to boot up and that just shouldn't be so - very little software installed (MS Office, Adobe Suite and that is about it).

Cheers and many thanks for your help !!

RR will completely format the drive, it installs windows xp, then once in windows xp it runs an automated script that installs the drivers, shell components, and then loads all the software you selected.

Yes, it is a completely clean install. But if you choose the restore form image option, it will restore form a previously "saved" point.

Hey !

I will follow mentioned steps, that is "factory restore" STEP 7. "custom install" and un-tick the crapware and that's it. And if i am correct, that will be the "licensed" WinXP that will be installed (again).

Many thanks for your kind help!

cheers

My machine comes with XP home. I have my own licensed XP pro. Is there a way to build an image from my xp pro with the custom restore program? Or is the only option I have is to do a clean-install of XP pro if I want xp pro?

hoya wrote:I just went to reset my new T60 back to factory specs and found a VERY cool new option called "Custom Restore" which allowed me to uncheck all of the Lenovo crapware that is typically installed.

Now, I have a system with the basic ThinkVantage apps (Active protection, R&R, Power mgr, client security), the ATI apps, and the multimedia apps for burning CD's and such. and that's it! no symantec, no crapware, no wallpaper, and only 57 processes running.

so far, this is the BEST improvement I have found on this new machine, which is obviously due to a new version of R&R.

Has anyone else discovered this new 'feature?'

It seems that this custom option is present only on T60 machines with core duo 2 cpu.

My T60 is one month old, 2623D7U model, and r&r is 3.10.xxxx, the latest one, but I still don't have that option.

Not true, my T60 is a 2007-67U and I can do custom re-install just fine.
My build date is Dec. 2006

justthinking wrote:Not true, my T60 is a 2007-67U and I can do custom re-install just fine.
My build date is Dec. 2006

hmmm, so there are some config files that can unhide this option for us that don't have it shown

Does anyone know whether X60s has this option ?!