Recovery Disks don't work and W520 won't let me make more

[Kylan]

I saved Product Recovery Media to my SSD in the UltraBay of my W520. It acted like everything worked, but when I put the SSD into the normal HD slot and tried to run the Product Recovery stuff (to install Windows 7 Pro on the SSD) it said I was missing a .ini file.

Now it won't let me make another copy of the WIn7 OS, saying, "You can only have one copy of the Microsoft Windows operating system. The Product Recovery Media Creator will exit now."

Frustrating... since the first copy didn't work and they don't send a DVD anymore.

Any recommendations? Or better yet, anyone have a link where I can download the ISO file in the very near further?

Thanks

[twistero]

Well, you did it wrong. The recovery media is supposed to be an external media, either CD/DVD or USB flash drive/hard drive, which you can use to install Windows to an internal drive. So theoretically you can now put the SSD in a USB enclosure, boot the computer from it, and install Windows to the internal hard drive. Except that your goal was to install windows on that SSD

Anyways, in your other post http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=105511 ZaZ gave you download links for generic Windows 7 installation media. Just use those to do a clean install of Windows on the SSD. You can even use the tool provided in those links to backup activation data from your current hard drive and restore them to the SSD once installation completes.

[Kylan]

I ended up buying Acronis' cloning software and it (unlike the many others I tried) worked great.

Thanks for the other option. I wasn't sure I could get the file pieced together correctly and time was short.

[Dimitri_P]

After you've created a set of recovery media, system deletes the files necessary to create the media again. Microsoft put their pressure on Lenovo.

[farmall]

I remove then reinstall the recovery media creation utility in order to make fresh media from any Thinkpad which crosses my desk. I'm unlikely to need it for personal use, but folks who legitimately bought Thinkpads and whose hard disk dies often want the factory (barf....) install.

My earlier post on the subject:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=97992

You can use .iso mastering software to image recovery media if you want a backup set.

Limiting recovery media access doesn't help MSFT, but it annoys Thinkpad owners who paid for their operating system.

Imaging with Acronis etc is a very good idea as it preserves your personal settings. Everyone should make recovery media immediately when they get a computer. "CYA" are my favorite three letters!