Downgrade from Vista to Windows XP

[LenovoGal]

Hello All,

I have a brand new, out of the box, X61s that I would like to downgrade to XP. When the laptop was purchased, I was given Rescue & Recovery CDs that had been burned by the store, but were NOT from IBM.

When I attempt to begin the recovery process, I've had no success. I've changed the boot sequence in the BIOS as well as changing the SATA drive toggle from AHCI, but alas, nothing occurs to prompt the recovery process to begin. When I use the Rescue and Recovery GUI to restore the OS, I'm not successful either. Initially, I select, "restore your system from a backup." Then I selecgt, "Restore only the Windows OS and applications from a backup." The next screen says to choose the backup to restore from and when I select CD/DVD, I receive the message that to restore a backup made to CD/DVD, please insert the disc labeld "Final C." It continues on and then the option to click, "OK," is presented. But there's no way to move forward, i.e., the Next button is greyed out.

My primary question is - does IBM offer official XP downgrade disks? I'm not sure that the disks that I received from my reseller are actually usable. When I select the D drive in Windows Explorer, there is no recognition of the disks at all. Though when I put the disks in another computer, I can read them w/no problem. I am using a docking station w/this laptop as well. I've scoured the website here for answers and have tried a few recommendations, but still no success.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to proceed next, it would be helpful. Thanks. I look forward to hearing from you.


TIA.

[LenovoGal]

I meant to also mention that this is a non-tablet X61s.


TIA.

[coldfire]

First make sure you are actually booting from the recovery CD, not from the harddrive.
There are three restore options, try use "restore to factory state" or something like that.
I successfully downgraded from Vista to XP Tablet using an official recovery disk.