Thinkpads Forum

Recently, i bought x61s with Vista Business. Before i downgrade the window to WinXP, i want to create a set of vista recovery disks first. I have used the window program "Create Recovery Media" to create 3 discs. One is rescue disk (CD), the second is a startup boot disk (CD), and the last one is recovery disk (DVD).

I want to test the recovery disks before i downgrade the window to xp.
a) I boot the notebook by the startup boot disk (CD)
b) After the notebook has been booted, it prompts a message: "If you have a set of Operating System Recovery Discs, please insert Disk 1 into drive E: now and press Yes, otherwise press No"

Then i insert the recovery disk (DVD) into the DVD-ROM, but it says "This is not the correct disc. Please remove the disc and press OK"

Something wrong with the recovery disk? Please help!

c) Then i press "No". It prompts a message "Insert Product Recovery Disc 1 into drive E:" I follow the instruction and insert recovery Disk into the dvd-rom and it succeeds!

d) After that, it asks me to insert supplemental recovery disc. I insert the same recovery disk into the dvd-rom, but it's not the respective disk.

I discover that there are three recovery items in the checklist
a) Operating System Recovery Discs <-- Missing
b) Applications and Drivers Recovery Disc <-- Created
c) Supplemental Recovery Disc <--- Missing

I want to ask how to create disk (a) and (c).

I encourage you to read the following, all your answers are there:

FAQ "How to use Recovery CD Disc Set".

ryengineer wrote:I encourage you to read the following, all your answers are there:

FAQ "How to use Recovery CD Disc Set".

The problem is that i can't generate an operating system recovery disk. I think the operating system recovery disk is required to restore my notebook to original factory setting. Thanks

The factory restore (i'm finishing one as i type this on my X61s) does not require the Operating System Disc (step 1 in the restore factory install) nor the additional discs (step 3 in the restore factory install) or so it seems. I was somewhat baffled by the entire lack of documentation on this particular feature also. I did create the recovery DVDs and got the exact same problem as you. None of the discs was recognised in the first step. Eventually i just pressed "no" (as i don't have any operating system disks) and then went on with the restore (praying everything went okay anyway ) and also pressed "no" when it asked for additional install discs. It sure takes for ever to run the restore into factory state, but mine has run the recovery dvds and is now finalishing the 'preload customizations' of vista. So it seems everything works out just fine eventually.

Yep i can confirm, factury settings are back and laptop is up and running entirely fresh. Additional bonus, you can create another set of recovery dvd's as a backup.

Hope this helps.

[quote="bergje"]Yep i can confirm, factury settings are back and laptop is up and running entirely fresh. Additional bonus, you can create another set of recovery dvd's as a backup.

Hope this helps.[/quote]

Thank you for your help. Today, i phone to the customer service and ask for solution. The technician explains that the startup disk is a generic disk for all type of models. It is expected scenario for x61s. He suggests me to ignore the operating system disk and supplement disk during recovery. :D

I don't have the DVDRW drive, just the CDRW drive. Is there any way to create the DVD disk as an ISO file, and the make the disk with another one of my machines, windows pc or mac? I can burn DVD media on those devices