Changing the Windows key used in the recovery partition

[Core Share]

I recently bought a second X220 off eBay, in extremely fine condition.

However, the Windows 7 installed, although it had some "Lenovo" wallpaper, was non-standard and the ThinkVantage button did not behave as expected, and did not allow booting into the recovery environment. There was a recovery partition, but I did not trust it.

Thus I did a scorched-earth bare-metal format of the hard-drive and restored it to factory status, using the X220 Recovery DVDs I made from my first X220.

I was aware that the Windows Key for a X220 is encoded in the Recovery DVD, hence the new machine (off-grid) was temporarily operating with the first machine's key.

Using the new X220's key and these commands:

Code: Select all

slmgr.vbs -ipk <insert your product key here>
slmgr.vbs -ato

Alternatively: slui.exe 3

I successfully activated Windows on the new X220 with the proper key.

However the recovery partition on the new X220, would still be encoded with the older X220's key.

I was wondering if there was a straight-forward way to update the windows key that is used in the recovery partition?

Although I doubt that there are any specific X220 issues with this recovery partition question, I have posted it in this sub-forum, apologies to the Moderators if it is out-of-place.

Thank you.

PS: I encountered this useful tip for recovery partition reconditioning, in my researching, for resetting the recovery media creation limitation:

http://www.kensfi.com/cannot-create-ano ... or-lenovo/

[RealBlackStuff]

You don't need to worry about the Windows key from the IBM/Lenovo recovery partition/disk(s).
It uses a general/volume key, which can be used anywhere (read other IBM/Lenovo machines), as long as their BIOS has Slic2.1 and is not UEFI.
If you want to remain legal, having a corresponding COA certainly helps.

[Core Share]

Thank you very much RBS for the clarification.

Guinness++.