Hidden partition: means you can restore to defaults?

[Muse]

I have a T61 that was a refurb and came (a few months ago) seemingly from the factory with Vista Business installed to factory defaults. I believe there's a ~6GB hidden FAT32 partition on the 100GB otherwise NTFS HD. I've done little with the unit so far, but it is not as originally shipped. I'm wondering if I can make DVD restore-to-factory-default capable R&R discs. In R&R 4 from Vista, I don't see the option to create factory default R&R discs. It seems to have the option to create a disc backup of the system. I believe my T60 back in 2007 prompted me to create factory default R&R discs a few months after I got the machine (and I did so). Doesn't this T61 also have that capability?

[ausmike]

hiya Muse ....
long time no hear .....

If you bought that T61 From Lenovo Ref. Store than it should contain the FACTORY SET install OS (recovery will contain the ORGIONAL OS). You cna check that via this link here ...... just insert your MODEL & SERIAL NUMBER correctly...
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... -WARNTY#sw

Once you get that screen ...you will see the ORGINAL MANUFACTIURE DATE and WARRANTY INFO etc etc ,,,,......
the next info that is important for you is the link on THAT PAGE that reads:
>>View parts lookup results for this system.....
This will give you WHAT THE FACTORY RECOVERY PARTITION contains - whoich OS.
AFAIK- vista Os from Lenovo didnt have 'factory defaults' options like they did in Win XP Pro .....just that I never was a fan of Vista so I kinda skipped over that windows version ....

Hope this helps with your plans etc ,,
Cheers

[Muse]

Well, I didn't buy it from the Lenovo refurb program, I bought it from a leasing company that represented the machine as a refurbished machine, and for all the world the packaging and machine (and what I saw when I booted it up) did look as though it was factory refurbished. I've done parts lookup on it before.

If I make R&R DVDs will I have the option to restore to FDs? Well, in truth it doesn't make a world of difference from my perspective because I've done little other than remove Norton AV and install Avira Antivir Free, probably a few other tweeks, haven't looked at it in a while. I removed the HD around 2 months ago and put in a bigger one and installed Windows 7. I just want to back up the Vista Business in case I want to use it at some time in the future, for instance if I decide to use the Win7 64bit Ultimate on a different machine. Also, at the same time I'd like to free up that 100GB HD for other duty (and still be able to use the Vista Business on the machine in the future if I want to do so).

[Neil]

The option to create recovery media will only be available only once after a factory install, and it should be there until it's used. After it has been used, either by you, or before the machine was delivered to you, it won't be on the menu any longer. However, if you run system restore to factory state from the hidden partition, you should then, again, have the option to create recovery disks.

[craigmontHunter]

Another possiblity is that it is not the true lenovo recovery partition. My refurb/off lease T61 came with an xp preload (which is what lenovo shipped it with), but since IBM had bought it for internal use and loaded their own image, they did not have the recovery disks, so they made their own recovery partition. I don't have the option to build recovery disks, but I cloned the whole drive, so if I want to upgrade my HDD (which I did), I just have to restore the original image.

Check if you have an origional Lenovo recovery partition or a 3rd party setup.

[Muse]

Another possiblity is that it is not the true lenovo recovery partition. My refurb/off lease T61 came with an xp preload (which is what lenovo shipped it with), but since IBM had bought it for internal use and loaded their own image, they did not have the recovery disks, so they made their own recovery partition. I don't have the option to build recovery disks, but I cloned the whole drive, so if I want to upgrade my HDD (which I did), I just have to restore the original image.

Check if you have an origional Lenovo recovery partition or a 3rd party setup.

Thanks, how can I check that?

[Muse]

The option to create recovery media will only be available only once after a factory install, and it should be there until it's used. After it has been used, either by you, or before the machine was delivered to you, it won't be on the menu any longer. However, if you run system restore to factory state from the hidden partition, you should then, again, have the option to create recovery disks.

How do I run system restore to factory state from the hidden partition?

[craigmontHunter]

If you have a lenovo preload, if you press F11 during the bios screen, it should launch the rescue and recovery. if you do not, then there are infinite possilbities to launch it. on my system, it is a vista pe partition, with the vista partition that comes up for 3 seconds on boot, either "Windows Xp Professional" or "IBM Recovery program". If you choose the ibm, it launches "vista" (like what you get when you boot a vista dvd), and then comes up with the option to restore your system, shutdown or restart.

If you need to recover your system and you have a lenovo preload, you should be able to press F11 on boot, and choose "restore my computer", then "Factory Recovery", and go from there. Be warned that will wipe out all of your files.

[Muse]

If you have a lenovo preload, if you press F11 during the bios screen, it should launch the rescue and recovery. if you do not, then there are infinite possilbities to launch it. on my system, it is a vista pe partition, with the vista partition that comes up for 3 seconds on boot, either "Windows Xp Professional" or "IBM Recovery program". If you choose the ibm, it launches "vista" (like what you get when you boot a vista dvd), and then comes up with the option to restore your system, shutdown or restart.

If you need to recover your system and you have a lenovo preload, you should be able to press F11 on boot, and choose "restore my computer", then "Factory Recovery", and go from there. Be warned that will wipe out all of your files.

Thank you. There are no files on the entire HD I want to preserve. I will explore these. What is Vista PE?

[Muse]

If you need to recover your system and you have a lenovo preload, you should be able to press F11 on boot, and choose "restore my computer", then "Factory Recovery", and go from there. Be warned that will wipe out all of your files.

I just did this (F11) and R&R 4 loaded and I evidently have the option to "Restore my hard drive to the original factory state." My aim here is not really to do that (although it wouldn't hurt things, and maybe I should), my aim is to somehow create R&R discs that I can use in the future if I want to to do the same thing, presumably to any HD I have in the T61. How do I go about doing that?

Edit: I think I found the info in R&R Help, Creating and using Product Recovery Discs. It indicates that under XP, a number of options are available from the recovery discs but that with Vista, only restore to factory defaults is supported. Well, that's the one I wanted. Hopefully it would work with any large enough HD in the restoration operation, not just the 100GB HD that came with the T61.

Edit2: The creeps! Prompted for the first disc ("Start Recovery disc") it didn't say what kind of media it supported and I inserted a DVD-R. It wrote 225MB to it! Could have used a CDR. I have put a DVD-R in for "Disc 1" hoping it will use the available space for that!

[Muse]

Well, I have my restore_to_factory_defaults DVD set now for Vista Business on a T61. Presumably I can use this with any HD in the system, although it will necessarily blank the HD. It's the only way I can think of to get some insurance that I will continue to have the option to run Vista Business on the machine (has the CoA), whatever happens. Restoring from the hidden partition is OK if you have the same HD in there, and assuming nothing goes wrong with that HD. That's a lot of assuming, though.