A31 2652 new owner need some software help

[ty18769]

Hey guys. First post:

I just bought an A31 2652 at an Illinois state auction. It came with the XP pro COA that IBM provided but the hard drive had been wiped, along with the recovery partition. From what I understand, I need the official recovery cd's for my particular model to utilize the COA provided with the machine. Could you guys point me in the right direction. I called customer service and the guy was nice enough, but said that new recovery cd's would run me 50 bucks. I own a copy of Vista, XP HOME, Millinem, and media center.....needless to say I don't want to buy another OS, so any help would be appreciated. I have the 1.9ghz version and plan on upgrading to 2 gigs of ram and using it for browsing and some office work. Always wanted a Thinkpad......I just need some help getting it up and running!

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

If you own a retail copy of any OS, you can load it and just add drivers from the Lenovo website.

Just in case that doesn't work for you, I can burn you a set of XP recovery disks for your machine, PM me if interested.

[ty18769]

Welcome to the forum!

If you own a retail copy of any OS, you can load it and just add drivers from the Lenovo website.

Just in case that doesn't work for you, I can burn you a set of XP recovery disks for your machine, PM me if interested.

PM'd you. Just to be clear. If I get the proper recovery cd's, I can use the OEM COA that came with the laptop correct?

[ajkula66]

PM replied to. Please be advised that unlike retail disks, OEM CDs from IBM do not require activation of the OS.