Thinkpads Forum

Hi

I have a Thinkpad X201T tablet (2985-FXM) with the following parttiions:

C: (Win 7 OS) 156 GB (18 GB free)
D: (Data) 130 GB (4 DB free)
Q: (Recovery) 9.76 GB (2.41 GB free)


Now, three years after buying the machine, Windows 7 has become unstable to the point where I can no longer tolerate it. Most annoying is when the hard drive suddenly becomes continuously busy and the machine grinds to a crawl - this can last five minutes or more.

Have run numerous diagnostics (procmon.exe etc.), uninstalled Avast Antivirus but it still happens sometimes - so I think that re-installing Win 7 is probably the best solution. As well as having the Restore partition I have a set of DVDs from Lenovo from which I understand I can re-install Windows 7.

Q1: Is there any advantage of installing from the Restore partition rather than DVDs? (or vice-versa)

Q2: Is there any easy way of installing or updating all the machine-specific drivers (rather than getting them one by one from the Lenovo support site)?

Q3: I will back up the D: (Data) partition to an external USB drive first. However, I'm wondering whether the Restore process or the re-install of Win 7 from the external DVDs will in fact only reformat and then reinstall on the C: drive, so the D: and Q: partitions will remain intact?

Q4: If I use the external DVDs, I will have to use a USB-connected DVD drive. Is there any tinkering around in the BIOS required to make the system boot from the USB DVD drive to make teh re-installation?

Many thanks
Paul
Melbourne, Australia

Q1:

The restore partition and the DVDs do exactly the same thing. Strictly speaking, the DVDs simply wipe the drive, create a new restore partition, and install from there.

Personally, I don't like this approach at all - it doesn't give me enough control during installation (for example if I don't want to wipe out the drive) and installs too much bloatware. I'd rather use a vanilla Windows installation disk and then install the drivers/software I need manually.

Q2:

If you use the restore partition / original Lenovo DVDs, all the drivers will already be there, minus perhaps a couple, and those you can get individually.

If you use a non-Lenovo install media, you just download Lenovo System Update and it helps you locate all the drivers and software.

Q3:

As far as I know - it wipes and repartitions the drive completely, unless they changed that recently.

Q4:

Just make sure it appears in the boot order before the main hard drive. Alternatively, press F12 at the BIOS splash screen and select it manually.

You can also load any OS you wish to install to a USB flash drive and drop any other programs you typically install into a folder there if you have room.

This works for me on Windows. There are a variety of tools that do the same job:

http://wintoflash.com/overview/en/

I download .isos from Digital River (a very well-known MSFT VAR, they are legit) and use them for clean installs.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/261085 ... river.html

Daz Loader is a proven activator so if you are licensed to use (whatever version) of Windows then I consider it ethical to activate that way if you are on (for example) a poor internet connection or haven't yet loaded drivers for an aftermarket wifi adapter, or you can activate however you prefer.

I keep my USB Windows and Linux install and diagnostic flash drives in a small clear plastic Walmart fishing lure box. Super handy to have everything in one place.

If you are licensed to use a version of Windows, why use an activator? Just use your key and activate over the internet / phone.