Thinkpads Forum

Ok got my new X61s.

Restored to factory state.

Then using Acronis True Image I copied a 1:1 copy of the factory 80gb HD to the new 200gb Hitachi drive that I purchased.

Inserting the new 200gb Hitachi drive I want to restore my system to factory state again but this time to choose which programs i wish to restore. I had this option last time just didn't use it. Now I cannot find that anymore. Meaning I cannot find on how to restore to factory state again but with choosing which programs to install.

It disappeared. I am furious as I don't want all that crap pre installed software on my 200gb drive, but cannot find a way to restore to factory state while choosing from the list which lenovo preinstalled programs to install and which not.

Could it be that this option disappeared? [censored]. it no longer appears on the thinkvanrage menus. only to resture a backup. not to factory state. what is this thing?

Instead of cloning, you can use the Product Recovery Disks to achieve the same operation of copying all contents of your lenovo preload including Hidden Service Partition to your new HDD.

You cannot restore to factory state from within windows. You must press the thinkvantage button at startup and enter the Rescue and Recovery environment. Once there, choose to do a factory restore. After the factory restore option, you will eventually be presented with the option to do a 'custom' factory restore.

Jackboot wrote:You cannot restore to factory state from within windows. You must press the thinkvantage button at startup and enter the Rescue and Recovery environment. Once there, choose to do a factory restore. After the factory restore option, you will eventually be presented with the option to do a 'custom' factory restore.

I think the OP is already familiar with this fact.

ComputerMinder wrote:snip.......Inserting the new 200gb Hitachi drive I want to restore my system to factory state again but this time to choose which programs i wish to restore. I had this option last time just didn't use it.......snip

ryengineer wrote:Instead of cloning, you can use the Product Recovery Disks to achieve the same operation of copying all contents of your lenovo preload including Hidden Service Partition to your new HDD.

Thanks, I already know that. But when I try to restore from the CDs that I made it doesn't let me choose which programs I would like pre installed. That is, the garbage Norton and some other crappy software I don't like pre-installed. The strange thing, is that I used to have that option once before I first Returned the Lenovo to factory state. It seems that after I returned the machine to factory state, I could no longer return to factory state at all on the same HD recovery partition, but only from the CDs. And when trying from the CDs I don't have the option to select the components. Uninstalling the installed prgs won't cut it, lots of crap still exists in the Registry and uninstalling is never as good as not installing in the first place. Anyway, I think I will just buy a new Windows (thanks Lenovo)

The way I understand it, you only have the option to selective restore from the service partition (booting from the ThinkVantage button). If you use the CD's, you will not have that option, but after restoring factory contents using the CD's, you should be able to restore factory contents again from the service partition and have the selective restore option available. However, to have the selective restore option available, you need to have a newer ThinkPad (T6x, X6x, etc.), and have Rescue and Recovery 4.x installed. If your version of Rescue and Recovery is too old after using the Product Recovery CD's, I believe you can install Rescue and Recovery 4.x, to get the selective restore option.

I could be mistaken in my take above, but that is how I believe the process works.

Absolutely no mistake, that is exactly how it is; and meant to work.

The process is designed to copy all the contents of Product Recovery disks to the layout of freshly created service partition, it's whole purpose is copying and it doesn't give you much choice.

The procedure is beneficial in a sense since everything gets imitated, any future user/owner of the machine can do a custom restore and choose whatever they would like to have installed on it.

GomJabbar wrote:The way I understand it, you only have the option to selective restore from the service partition (booting from the ThinkVantage button). If you use the CD's, you will not have that option, but after restoring factory contents using the CD's, you should be able to restore factory contents again from the service partition and have the selective restore option available. However, to have the selective restore option available, you need to have a newer ThinkPad (T6x, X6x, etc.), and have Rescue and Recovery 4.x installed. If your version of Rescue and Recovery is too old after using the Product Recovery CD's, I believe you can install Rescue and Recovery 4.x, to get the selective restore option.

I could be mistaken in my take above, but that is how I believe the process works.

Thanks, that is what I thought, which proved wrong. Before restoring from the CDs I had that option of choosing which components while in Windows, but after restorning from these same CDs that were created on this computer, I don't see that option anymore. Anyhway I had to purchse the Ultimate to get it done with. thanks for the help anyway, i appreciate it.

That's odd, I've done it few times on my Thinkpad after restoring the machine to factory state via Product Recovery Disks. Please do make sure you have the latest version of R n R installed.

ryengineer wrote:That's odd, I've done it few times on my Thinkpad after restoring the machine to factory state via Product Recovery Disks. Please do make sure you have the latest version of R n R installed.

MMmm. Not that you are saying that, I checked and saw that version 4.0 of R&R in installed. Which is very werid. You see, I never downloaded any drivers from the net. What it says is that my X61s state when I purchased it had the 4.1 R&R but when I restored to Factory State from this machine and then tried to create rescue disks from this same machine, it created rescue disks, then when I restored them I got to ver 4.0 of R&R. Weird.