Thinkpads Forum

Series of 2 problems.
(wasnt sure if I should make 2 topics or not if so let me know)

First Problem
I am currently ordering all our T61s with Vista so we have the license then down err Upgrading to Windows XP Proffesional I do not remove any partitions or add any I leave the space allocated alone. After putting my Xp build with the programs and applications I need I run Rescue Recovery. However even with the restore partition it still saves it to the C drive. Is there a way to change it to save the backup to the restore partition as the entire reason I am doing this is in case we have a user become an Rtard over night and decided to erase things I can restore from the partition. Anyway help would be appreciated on this matter.

Second problem

I am currently using Ghost Suite 2.0 for cloning my machines of same type/model
I create one image and therefore dont have to build 40 different machines I can build one run ghost via cd and bam all I have to do is set it up with a computer name and add it to the domain. However I have noticed that since the T61s I cannot do this anymore. I run sysprep then make a ghost image and try to put that on another machine and I get the cursor in the upper left. Was like darn the image was bad so I dumped it re-ghosted and tried again. Same thing. Went into the Bios and looked around nothing. I am running sata mode in compatability mode but have been doing that since the release of SATA drives when reverting back to XP but I cannot get this problem figured out and with 40+ new machnes coming in and the order of 29 that we just got I dont want to have to build these individually. any ideas?

1. Not sure how you "downgraded" or intent to, your post is little confusing to me anyways that's not possible.

However if you buy Windows XP downgrade from lenovo which comes in a form of Product Recovery disks, you can achieve what you're aiming for but there wouldn't be any restore partition for Windows Vista available anymore once you install Windows XP from them, you can always create Product Recovery disks for Windows Vista prior to downgrading to XP for future use.

ryengineer wrote:1. Not sure how you "downgraded" or intent to, your post is little confusing to me anyways that's not possible.

However if you buy Windows XP downgrade from lenovo which comes in a form of Product Recovery disks, you can achieve what you're aiming for but there wouldn't be any restore partition for Windows Vista available anymore once you install Windows XP from them, you can always create Product Recovery disks for Windows Vista prior to downgrading to XP for future use.

Actually I could care less if Vista stays on or not. I would prefer it to just "go away" However we are still purchasing these with Vista in the off chance that our company decides to change sometime in the future. In the meantime I am putting a custom image of XP on these machines and am wanting the Rescue and Recovery to save itself in the restore partition not on the C drive. Not sure if I can do that or not but figured I would ask.

Lets suppose Rescue and Recovery in your custom Windows XP stores it's backups in restore partition of Windows Vista somehow but what would happen once you try to restore them from Predesktop area...

I don't believe it's possible unless you buy downgrade from lenovo and then put your own custom image leaving service partition intact which I'm still unsure about as to what will happen once you try to restore from backups.

In your case all I can suggest is either use lenovo preload of Windows XP or give your clients specific rights where they can't access tasks like deleting backups from Rescue and Recovery.

ryengineer wrote:Lets suppose Rescue and Recovery in your custom Windows XP stores it's backups in restore partition of Windows Vista somehow but what would happen once you try to restore them from Predesktop area...

I don't believe it's possible unless you buy downgrade from lenovo and then put your own custom image leaving service partition intact which I'm still unsure about as to what will happen once you try to restore from backups.

In your case all I can suggest is either use lenovo preload of Windows XP or give your clients specific rights where they can't access tasks like deleting backups from Rescue and Recovery.

Yeah thats kinda what I was guessing but was hoping I was guessing wrong. Could I just use Rescue Recovery and just make a DVD to install from for that particular machine?