T61 recovery discs

[Ianski]

A friend is buying two identical T61's from a business liquidation. They have valid Windows Vista Business product keys on them, but no hard drives and no recovery discs. If she purchases one recovery disc from Lenovo, will she be able to reinstall Vista on both machines? They are the same machine type/model: 6457-4UU. I don't see why you'd need two sets of recovery discs - unique license keys would seem to be the deciding factor - but I'd like to know before she goes to the trouble of paying for a disc.

I have the same machine myself, but I installed Ubuntu on mine, and likewise have no recovery disc, or the partition to create a disc for her.

[EOMtp]

...two identical T61's ... have valid Windows Vista Business product keys ... one recovery disc from Lenovo ... able to reinstall Vista on both machines?

Yes.

[Ianski]

Thanks for this information. My colleague tried phoning IBM at their customer support line (1-800-565-3344) which is supposed to be 24 x 7 - they told her to call back during regular business hours. Then they not only wanted the machine type/model, but a serial number as well. Now she's concerned that the recovery disc will be tied to that specific machine in some way. She bought two 6457-4UU's, both with WinVista 32-bit business product keys on them. I told her if the employee asks for the product keys she should refuse to provide them - they should have no need to ask for that!

Will let the forum know when/if we manage to obtain a recovery disc and what the current charge for one is! I didn't think it would be so challenging. Personally I think they should just provide the ISO of the recovery image as a download, given that its useless without a valid product key. But that would make too much sense.

[EOMtp]

... ISO of the recovery image ... given that its useless without a valid product key. ...

Incorrect -- the product key is embedded in the recovery disks! [The product key on the bottom of the chassis is not used in any way when reinstalling the software from the recovery disks.]

[Ianski]

okay... I must be misunderstanding something here. In a previous post, I suggested that we could buy one recovery disc and use it to recover more than a single machine of the same type/model, which you agreed with. Now you're saying that she needs to buy a recovery disc for each machine. There are other companies on the Internet that appear to sell recovery discs by machine type/model - are you saying they also need to prepare discs tied to your specific serial number to work? That seems improbable, especially if it were a business doing the refurbishment on a whole batch of computers.

Other sources on the Internet also indicate that its a type-model relationship rather than a specific serial number.

If the product key on the bottom is not used with recovery discs then what is it good for? People do buy and refurbish these laptops all the time so there must be a way to do it. The whole point of using a recovery disc rather than using a retail version of Vista, would be that it includes all the Lenovo-specific drivers.

[Ianski]

Further to this, on Lenovo's own forum there's a similar thread and someone has stated: "wjli2 is correct. Thw windows on the recovery discs is pre-activated and will only install on a Lenovo/IBM machine. Since it is using a Volume License Key the same recovery disc set is valid for use on any same model Thinkpad with the proper COA sticker on the bottom. In fact when you get the factory issued recovery discs they list the model/types Thinkpads they are valid on." (found here: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-pri ... /m-p/43613)
But I'd be a lot more comfy with it if someone on this forum has actually done this!

[EOMtp]

... But I'd be a lot more comfy with it if someone on this forum has actually done this!

Why would you presume otherwise? Most of us on this forum state explicitly when we are offering an "opinion". What I wrote you above is a fact, not an opinion.

You can do whatever research you need to get as "comfy" as you like, and to answer your question about the use of the license key on the bottom of the machine. Your presumptions about "The whole point ..." are also incorrect, but irrelevant to this discussion.

Once again: The recovery disks do not need any numbers from you -- they are 100% self-sufficient. Period.

Good luck!

[Ianski]

Thank you again. I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you meant that the recovery disc could only be used on one specific machine, which didn't make sense to me. My friend who bought the these laptops is not technical. She has a lot of questions, and I am simply trying to reassure her that this process will work.

[Ianski]

okay... we finally got (after a few phone calls and some mis-direction) someone at Lenovo to send out a recovery disc, part 46V0812. $55 (Canadian funds) after applicable taxes. Next week hopefully we'll be able to get these babies up and running!

[Ianski]

okay... we finally got (after a few phone calls and some mis-direction) someone at Lenovo to send out a recovery disc, part 46V0812. $55 (Canadian funds) after applicable taxes. Next week hopefully we'll be able to get these babies up and running!

Worked like a charm. Thanks everyone on this forum for your help. The recovery discs for Vista Business come as a set of three DVD's - the first one is bootable, the other two just contain the install and the device drivers. The recovery process is very straightforward.

The only snag I ran into was with the hard drive I used - I was using an old hard drive from a dead T60, which still happened to have the factory partition from that machine on it. The recovery software didn't quite know how to deal with that - just knew it was incorrect for the T61. So it just kept rebooting rather than launching into recovery mode. After using disk partitioning software (on another computer) to wipe the drive clean, everything went perfectly.