Thinkpads Forum

How do i go about re-installing W7 as I don't have any install CDs.
I have a genuine windows 7 on my 6 month old T510i that I want to do a clean reinstall.

thanks

Which version of Windows 7 do you have and what language do you wish to install?

Here are ISOs for the install DVDs- the links on this page point to Microsoft's distributors (scroll down for the SP1 slipstream disks) and they're perfectly fine to use.

Just make sure to choose the language, keyboard, and layouts you want from the install screen (it's the first thing that comes up).

After that, you *should* be good to go.

FredGarvin wrote:Which version of Windows 7 do you have and what language do you wish to install?

Windows 7 home premium 32-bit, English, Is what I currently have although I regret not putting 64-bit, I hope I can change that on the clean install...

I just discovered the "lenovo create recovery disks" option in control panel. Is using the lenovo recovery disk or an ISO image the best way to perform a clean install? I can only imagine with the lenovo recovery disk I'm stuck with 32-bit.


Q-ball, I just found those links a few seconds before seeing your post but I was not clear about the difference between the SP1 official ISO update 1, and the intergrated ISO update 2.

Thanks for the help so far, I never thought it would be so tricky, I only know a bit about computers, enough to be a danger to myself hehehe

The recovery discs will restore your Thinkpad to the factory state, which is not a clean install. I asked which language you prefer because being in Brazil I thought you might prefer Portuguese. You can download a Windows 7 disc here in x86 or x64. I have used them myself.

FredGarvin wrote:The recovery discs will restore your Thinkpad to the factory state, which is not a clean install. I asked which language you prefer because being in Brazil I thought you might prefer Portuguese. You can download a Windows 7 disc here in x86 or x64. I have used them myself.

Thanks, and yes i'm English but living in Brazil, or surviving might be closer to the truth. A clean install is my preferred option indeed.

Finally do you guys always create a partition just for the OS with a seperate data partition? and how many GBs do you give it, my HD is 320GB.

I finally got round to doing a fresh install and "upgraded" from 32 bit to 64 bit, my new 4gb ram is in the post too.

First point: I didn't specify on the install to format my HD, or just the C drive, so I was a bit suprised that I only had 150gb free out of 320gb, 10gb is the lenovo recovery and their was a third section with the recovery disk stuff (i think).
But still should I do it again and format C:?

Second: Everything is working fine except the brightness adjuster FN + Home/End, the scale is from O-15 but instead of giving me 15 settings it jumps like this... 0-4-6-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15.

simonjs wrote:Second: Everything is working fine except the brightness adjuster FN + Home/End, the scale is from O-15 but instead of giving me 15 settings it jumps like this... 0-4-6-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15.

As far as reformatting the drive and doing it again, that is unnecessary. Are you wanting to keep your restore partition or ditch it? Click on the Start button and type in "Create and format hard disk partitions." That will bring up disk management where you can delete the partitions you don't want and then extend your current Windows partition to use that space. There is a 100MB System Reserved partition, don't delete that one. That is where the Windows boot info is kept.

Both my T410 and T410s do the same thing with clean install. Not sure what causes this. I can get it to 1 by starting at 0, stepping up twice to 7, and then back down twice. If you go to Power Options, there is a slider bar at the bottom that you can pick the exact brightness you want.

Good to know it's not just me and the power option brightness controls sure help.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/BIOS_Upgrade_Downloads

This link suggests it may be a BIOS issue but I'm not going to fiddle about with anything without more info.

jayton4

If you're interested I managed to solve the problem by downloading .reg files from the link in this thread.
First I tried to install the lenovo driver with no change. At first i was sceptical about messing about with the .reg files but lo and behold it worked!!! A minor but irritating problem solved

Let me know if it works for you too

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-a ... d-p/385113

I tried it on my T410s, and it does indeed work. Thanks! I really was missing brightness level 2 and I'm glad to be able to get it back.

jayton4 wrote:I tried it on my T410s, and it does indeed work. Thanks! I really was missing brightness level 2 and I'm glad to be able to get it back.

GREAT!!

I'm going to post the contents of the .reg file in case that mediafire link is gone some day:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\monitor\Parameters]
"MinimumStepPercentage"=dword:00000001

Put that into notepad and save as a .reg file and then run.