Thinkpads Forum

Hi all,

I just received my T510 yesterday, and found that there was no recovery DVD sent along with it (I thought it is free of charge). I am thinking to upgrade my HD to SSD, so a recovery DVD will come in handy. Anyway, I am wondering if I can make the recovery DVD by myself as the lenovo website mentions that "A set of recovery CDs or DVDs can be created in the Rescue and Recovery predesktop area. A CDRW drive or CDRW/DVDRW drive and writable media are required". Thanks for answering my question in advance. Cheers

@plmijn: It is straightforward. Go to All Programs and select Lenovo ThinkVantage tools. The final option on the screen is Factory Recovery Disks. Double click this and you will be able to start the process.

You will require a CD for the start up disk and DVDs for the recovery disks. The number of DVDs will depend on how much was preloaded.

Having made the recovery disks (which you can only do once) you can do a factory restore by putting the start up CD in the CD/DVD drive and restart the machine. As it restarts, press F12 to select boot from CD and follow the on-screen instructions.

Thank you very much

I know you asked about a T510, but when I got my T410 a month ago and burned my recovery set, it didn't specify CD or DVD so I used all DVDs and it seemed to complete the burn process without a problem. After, I inserted the 1st disk to just see if it would boot and it did, but I stopped at that point not wanting to start a full recovery.

I'm under the impression that the first disk can be either a CD or DVD. It is made to be bootable and that's what important. I am also under the impression that the "Data" portion can be burned on two DVDs OR can even be put on a USB drive but I didn't try it this way.

Somewhere in there there is a "recover disk space" button or something similar to that. At first I didn't know what that was. Turns out it will convert the partition of the drive dedicated to "Lenovo_Recovery" (just under 10gb) so it is part of your main C: drive.

usadan wrote:I'm under the impression that the first disk can be either a CD or DVD. It is made to be bootable and that's what important. I am also under the impression that the "Data" portion can be burned on two DVDs OR can even be put on a USB drive but I didn't try it this way.

Somewhere in there there is a "recover disk space" button or something similar to that. At first I didn't know what that was. Turns out it will convert the partition of the drive dedicated to "Lenovo_Recovery" (just under 10gb) so it is part of your main C: drive.

I hope so, because I burnrd all three to DVDs since the instructions did not specify CD or DVD. Like I said, the first one at least booted so I think I'm OK. I'm not anxious to test the waters, but if I need to recover from a disaster, I want them to work. After you've burned the first set, it won't let you burn a second set, either. After burning them, I took them to my desktop PC and copied each one to the HDD just to make sure they were readable all the way through.

Its like a spare tire, it sits in your trunk for years. But will it work when you need it?

I didn't try a USB drive for the 2 daata disks. I also have left the recovery partition (Q) alone. I don't need the space right now.

Reviving an old thread--I'll try to make my situation / question clearer here than it is in my head... , but first-some background.

I purchased a new T510 from the Outlet a few weeks ago. Right out of the box, it had a Fan Error message...has been sent and returned from EasyServ Depot repair. I went to set it up today, as per EasyServ instructions (which included updating drivers from both Microsoft and Lenovo). When it started up, it showed another user account on the machine. I called the Depot and they walked me through a 'restore to factory settings'.

My goal was to set up Win 7 account (single user), update drivers, and create recovery media--in that order. I did not realize the machine shipped with 30-day Norton Internet Security (NIS) subscription, MS Office (MO) Product Key preloaded.

I have purchased both NIS and MO because I wanted 'my own' copy of both. However, as I was configuring the machine, I did opt to enable the subscription of NIS. (I've read the posts on here and thought I would change it after 30 days or install my own copy--possibly not NIS--but wanted something protecting me as I completed the setup of the machine.) I declined to activate the MO since I wanted to do a clean install of that software. (Again, I've read some of the tips for getting the freshest version on my machine using the key card I now own.)

Installing Windows updates took F-O-R-E-V-E-R (I'm talking hours--several of them)! In fact, one just downright wouldn't load and I gave up in frustration. It was a Microsoft malicious software uninstaller released this month. The error code suggested maybe it was due to heavy demand for it from their servers.

I'm almost to my question, but one more piece of info: I thought at one point that maybe the difficulty with the updates installs (since it seemed to be hanging up on Internet Explorer 9) was the NIS. Clicking that icon brought up Norton's activation screen. So far, I haven't activated it (I was never asked to until I sort of stumbled on it late in the day, when my patience was running thin).

I think my biggest question is did I screw up by choosing to use the 30-day trial of NIS before creating the recovery media? Assuming I can (or can't) install that Microsoft malicious software removal tool tomorrow, am I still good to go to create the recovery media? I wanted to do that 'first', after creating my account with Win 7 and updating drivers. Am I still good to go, or do I need to do a 'restore to factory settings' and start over?

I'm not a super savvy computer guy--thanks in advance for your help.

The create recovery media function uses fresh data from the recovery partition to make the discs. Don't worry about what you've done on the existing build.