Thinkpads Forum

Hi!
some time ago I bought a Thinkpad x220. It was restored to factory condition. It only had one HDD which was split into the C: and Q: drives.

A few days back I installed an SSD into the previously empty mSATA slot. The idea is, of course, that I have windows on the SSD and all my data on the Hard Drive. From what I gather the Q drive contains all the necessary files to do a factory reset.
Can I apply this factory reset to the SSD? Is there a guide on how to do this?

I've never worked with the Q-drive before and I'm hesitant to just try it out because I have a lot of important stuff on the C-drive that I don't want to lose.

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EDIT: I could just install a fresh windows copy onto the SSD from a USB stick, but I'm really curious about the Q-Drive. Also I'm assuming that the windows installation it contains has all the relevant drivers for my thinkpad. Whereas if I installed 'generic' windows on the SSD, I'd need to hunt for all the drivers.

those are the factory image restore files in the Q drive..
don't mess with them..
unless you want to recover that space, then there should be an option to move the factory restore image and utilities to a thumb drive..

it is what i did with an X1 carbon..

wait a bit and one of the guys with more up to date experience will be along to help..

welcome to the forum..

Thanks for the personal welcome, Bill!

Your comment got me thinking... What if I do the following?

1). Copy an image of the Q-Drive onto a USB stick
2). Remove the HDD from the laptop
3). Use the USB stick to do a factory restore on the SSD.
4). Put the HDD back where it belongs


The only problem I see with this solution is that the image on the Q-Drive probably presupposes that the laptop it's doing factory reset on is equipped with a HDD, not an SSD. Is it possible that my SSD gets destroyed by this?