My T61 Recovery Disks from Lenovo: 6462-CTO is not Listed

[eecon]

Hello Everyone,

My new 15.4 WS T61 6462-CTO with WinXP Pro has been operating fine since receiving it in early August 2007 here in the USA. I requested a factory set of recovery disks because I had a problem making my own. Upon reciept of the disks, I noticed that my model number is not printed on the set like the set I ordered about 3 years ago for my T42.

I called Lenovo and the support tech said the CTO's are not typically listed on the the factory recovery disk labels and as long as the disks are for the T61 with XP Pro, they will work just fine.

Does this sound reasonable?

I have to admit that my T42 was a preconfigured unit and not a CTO, so the Lenovo rep may be right, but I thought it best to double-check with the real experts here on this Forum.

Thanks for everyone's help!

[DAH]

It would seem to me that you should have a part # 43T8160 for English (US) Windows XP pro. That the 6462 should be listed on the recovery CD as well as 6457, 6458, 6459, 6460, 6461, 6463, 6464, 6465, 6466, 6467, 6470, 6471, 6478?

[eecon]

It would seem to me that you should have a part # 43T8160 for English (US) Windows XP pro. That the 6462 should be listed on the recovery CD as well as 6457, 6458, 6459, 6460, 6461, 6463, 6464, 6465, 6466, 6467, 6470, 6471, 6478?

Here is what they sent me for the T61 6462-CTO in question that was highly customized based on a 6457:

"Product Recovery CD for ThinkPad T61, R61 Type 6480, 7659, 7658, 7660, 7661, 6378, 6379, 6481, 7663, 7662, 7664, 7664, 7665, 6337, 1959.

XP-P SP2
EN
FRU P/N 43T8160"

Again, my 15.4 T61 was customized based on a 6457 with the 6457-6PU and 6457-6DU being the closest match from the tabook found here:

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pcinstitu ... tabook.pdf

It looks to me that they sent me the set for the T61 14" WS rather than the set for the T61 15" WS according to the tabook.pdf document.

At this point I am quite concerned that they sent me the wrong set of disks and the customer support person that I spoke with was wrong in saying that my set is okay.

Any other thoughts or experiences here would be appreciated before I call support again next week.

Thanks again for everyone's help!

[GomJabbar]

According to the following two pages, the part numbers are the same for both.

Recovery CD and DVD part numbers - ThinkPad R61 14.1inch widescreen (type 7732, 7733, 7734, 7735, 7738, 7742, 7743, 7744, 7751, 7755) / T61 14.1inch widescreen (type 6480, 6481, 7658, 7659, 7660, 7661, 7662, 7663, 7664, 7665)
English (US) 43T8160

Recovery CD and DVD part numbers - ThinkPad T61, T61p (6457, 6458, 6459, 6460, 6461, 6462, 6463, 6464, 6465, 6466, 6467, 6470, 6471, 6478)
English (US) 43T8160

[eecon]

According to the following two pages, the part numbers are the same for both.

Recovery CD and DVD part numbers - ThinkPad R61 14.1inch widescreen (type 7732, 7733, 7734, 7735, 7738, 7742, 7743, 7744, 7751, 7755) / T61 14.1inch widescreen (type 6480, 6481, 7658, 7659, 7660, 7661, 7662, 7663, 7664, 7665)
English (US) 43T8160

Recovery CD and DVD part numbers - ThinkPad T61, T61p (6457, 6458, 6459, 6460, 6461, 6462, 6463, 6464, 6465, 6466, 6467, 6470, 6471, 6478)
English (US) 43T8160

Okay, thanks .... that makes me feel more comfortable now.

I wonder why they chose to not print all the machine numbers on the disks, something which certainly has the potential to lead to confusion for the uninformed like myself:-)

[DAH]

IF you notice the part number I listed matches the one you were sent. I'd try it.

[eecon]

IF you notice the part number I listed matches the one you were sent. I'd try it.

Okay, but if I try it, won't it restore my system to factory state? I don't need that because everything is working fine including all my installed programs and customized settings.

Are there any other ways to "try it" without risking a wipe out .... I'm not too keen on using R&R (factory restore and then R&R to bring it up to date, just for the fun of it) ..... you know, the old wise saying ..... "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Seriously though, is there any way to check on this without risking a full restore, etc? Especially before I spend the next few month in at the South Pole on a job assignment at a place where Lenovo can not honor my 9-5 On-site Warranty due to logisitic considerations.

Thanks again to everyone for their help.

[GomJabbar]

Seriously though, is there any way to check on this without risking a full restore, etc?

Sure. Just buy a spare hard drive and try it on that. Hard drives are relatively cheap these days unless you need the biggest and fastest drive available. For instance, you can get a Toshiba 60 GB SATA notebook hard drive at Newegg for less than $50. You can also get some cloning software and either the Ultrabay 2nd hard drive adapter or a USB external enclosure and make very fast, complete backups. If your main hard drive was to fail, you can just pop in the other one in and you're back in business. Hard drives are easy to swap out in the ThinkPads.

[eecon]

Seriously though, is there any way to check on this without risking a full restore, etc?

Sure. Just buy a spare hard drive and try it on that. Hard drives are relatively cheap these days unless you need the biggest and fastest drive available. For instance, you can get a Toshiba 60 GB SATA notebook hard drive at Newegg for less than $50. You can also get some cloning software and either the Ultrabay 2nd hard drive adapter or a USB external enclosure and make very fast, complete backups. If your main hard drive was to fail, you can just pop in the other one in and you're back in business. Hard drives are easy to swap out in the ThinkPads.

Sounds good, thanks .... So any make or capacity 2.5" notebook serial HD will work for this test (plus keep as a backup unit for an emergency)?

BTW, wasn't there some earlier debate about certain HD makes not properly working with R&R or something like that? However, I'm not sure if this was applicable for the T61.

[barrywohl]

Since I wanted to run a 7K200 travelstar instead of a 7K100 on my new T61p, I requested a set of product recovery disks for my 6459-CTO.

The set they sent me did not list 6459, but to my surprise and pleasure, they performed better than I had imagined. They "recovered" Vista Ultimate 32 to my brand new 7K200 drive, including the service partition, and including assigning all the free space to the C: drive active partition. What the recovery disks didn't do, System Updater 3 did. The only thing missing after that were two drivers for the Enhanced Bluetooth and Wireless USB.

Easy and thorough and good. I could have skimped and not bought Acronis Disk Director, but I don't mind that purchase either for dividing the C: partition into a C: programs partition and an E: data partition.

My original 7K100 drive has never seen power.

[eecon]

Since I wanted to run a 7K200 travelstar instead of a 7K100 on my new T61p, I requested a set of product recovery disks for my 6459-CTO.

The set they sent me did not list 6459, but to my surprise and pleasure, they performed better than I had imagined. They "recovered" Vista Ultimate 32 to my brand new 7K200 drive, including the service partition, and including assigning all the free space to the C: drive active partition. What the recovery disks didn't do, System Updater 3 did. The only thing missing after that were two drivers for the Enhanced Bluetooth and Wireless USB.

Easy and thorough and good. I could have skimped and not bought Acronis Disk Director, but I don't mind that purchase either for dividing the C: partition into a C: programs partition and an E: data partition.

My original 7K100 drive has never seen power.

barrywohl,

Wow ... that is the kind of good news I was hoping to hear.

Thank you very much!