Thinkpads Forum

I'm about to buy a used x201T (311396U) from a US dealer who has a 98% satisfaction rating. Delivery is to the UK and I'm concerned that it may arrive without any passwords being supplied. Is it typical that used Lenovo dealers do a fresh install with no passwords set or do they supply used Thinkpads "as is" along with passwords? I have yet to hear back from the dealer.

Ian

Welcome to the forums!

My own experience is that dealers don't have a typical pattern so to say. I did buy TP's with OS, with no OS, with hard drive, no hard drive... I guess best thing is to contact him/her directly and ask...

My 2 cents...

Windows 7 Pro 64 being supplied but this is not much use if:

(a) there is no recovery possibility (although I will get a docking station with CD'DVD)

(b) there are unknown passwords

I suppose I'll just need to trust the information when I get it from the dealer.

Ian

Or you just get your own MS license or Linux Distro and wipe whatever is on that disk. I rather would advise you to buy a new SSD and keep the hard drive as backup only.

Tasurinchi wrote:Or you just get your own MS license or Linux Distro and wipe whatever is on that disk. I rather would advise you to buy a new SSD and keep the hard drive as backup only.

I may be prepared to do this (already have Windows 7 Pro 64 on desktop and I Macrium cloned it and all programs to a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD)

However I believe that I would not then have the Lenovo Utilities?

Ian

You can install Lenovo System update after your Win installation.

What I normally do is install Windows, and then before running the very first windows update I install Lenovo System Update 5 and run it first. After I have the desired utilities I "allow" Win to do its own updates

re: passwords

Have the seller provide photos of BIOS showing the both the main menu and the Security section. The main BIOS menu will have the system type and serial number. That way you know later on that you have received the advertised system. If everything says "Disabled" in the Security menu, then there's no power-on password, hard drive password or BIOS (aka, supervisor) passwords. That should ease your mind about hardware passwords.

As for Windows passwords, I have received a few systems in the past with a Windows login password. Some will provide the password, while others explicitly say there's a password but they don't know what it is. In either case, I wipe the drive anyway and start fresh. But that's just me .

rkawakami wrote:re: passwords

Have the seller provide photos of BIOS showing the both the main menu and the Security section. The main BIOS menu will have the system type and serial number. That way you know later on that you have received the advertised system. If everything says "Disabled" in the Security menu, then there's no power-on password, hard drive password or BIOS (aka, supervisor) passwords. That should ease your mind about hardware passwords.

As for Windows passwords, I have received a few systems in the past with a Windows login password. Some will provide the password, while others explicitly say there's a password but they don't know what it is. In either case, I wipe the drive anyway and start fresh. But that's just me .

Many thanks for your help yesterday. I have now ordered an X201 311396U with dock and CD/DVD. It has been shipped

This is my first Thinkpad. Its prime purpose will be to use in portrait mode to display pdf sheet-music with a foot operated page turner. It's 16:10 aspect ratio is perfect for this purpose. Of course I'm hoping that the x201T will also allow a finger swipe to turn pages? An iPAD would work but its screen size is too small to read full score music notation.

Ian

Passwords: you just want to make sure there are no BIOS passwords on. I would always wipe the supplied OS and either reinstall using the Windows COA and install Lenovo utilities from Lenovo support website, or install your own OS. Sellers may put the latest version of Windows on without providing a genuine licence.

Touch: if I found the right eBay auction the model is MultiTouch enabled so will support swipe gestures (if your sheet music software does). There is also a wheel of physical arrow keys on the bezel of the screen.

rjwilmsi wrote:Passwords: you just want to make sure there are no BIOS passwords on. I would always wipe the supplied OS and either reinstall using the Windows COA and install Lenovo utilities from Lenovo support website, or install your own OS. Sellers may put the latest version of Windows on without providing a genuine licence.

Touch: if I found the right eBay auction the model is MultiTouch enabled so will support swipe gestures (if your sheet music software does). There is also a wheel of physical arrow keys on the bezel of the screen.

Yeah. Those bios passwords are pain in the butt to remove tbh. (yet it is possible with some tweaking)