the Recovery Discs - how exactly they work?

[ThinkCris]

I am not sure if the Recovery Disks (created by the Lenovo utility) will restore the system to the Factory defaults or what exactly does that mean.

Meaning, the three partitions (ThinkVantage, OS, Recovery Data), the MBR will be recreated and everything will be exactly like the first time when the laptop has been powered on (with initial OS customization too..) OR will only install a fresh working OS? Do I have the choice to install the OS on a specific partition at my will? I read other posts but they not address all the questions exactly. Can someone confirm which?

Also - has someone tested if the original Lenovo Recovery Disks make any difference to the Recovery Disks created by the Lenovo utility? Even the choice to use a preferred partition for OS install, or to create a custom size partition, etc.
Are they identical, just the Lenovo logo over the physical media making the difference?

I had a case (not Lenovo) where the original discs and the created discs differed on these aspects I point; if someone knows others differences, please tell.
Btw, will the Lenovo Recovery Discs differ when bought from US or Europe? Because in the above mentioned case they did (on install options + utilities)

Thank you!

[Harryc]

The recovery discs partition the drive and install from scratch like a fresh factory drive. The original discs are identical to those created by the recovery program.

[aviography]

This question has been bugging me, the X series don't have internal optical drives, so the recovery disks have to be used with an external USB optical drive, I'm sure this will work fine since I can't think of any other way the recovery disks can be loaded.

Is this in fact the case? That I can put in a blank hard drive, hook up an external USB optical drive, turn the system on, pop the optical drive open and load the content of the recovery discs to the new blank hard drive through the recovery process?

[Harryc]

Yes that works, I do it all the time on my X60.

[Sandstorm83]

Yes that works, I do it all the time on my X60.

This also worked perfectly on my X200.

[ThinkCris]

About Recovery:
I've done the real test (having the disk image saved on another computer though!!) and.. YES. I've got the original working system with the three partitions, had to go through initial registration, all the bits.

About OS Restore:
It went fine, the Win OS got reloaded just fine; however I did not have any other choices like to choose the destination partition, to create or shrink the existing destination - very handy sometimes!