Clean Windows 7 install on Thinkpad T420 with recovery disks

[cadillacmike68]

All sorted. The new SSD took a while to arrive but installation on my X230 and activation was clean and easy:
1. Downloaded Win7 iso file, plus "Windows7-USB-DVD-Download-Tool-Installer-en-US.exe" from Microsoft
2. Copied ISO to blank USB drive with the MS tool to create a bootable drive (could have made a disk but why bother and the X230 would need an external optical drive) & insert into X230
3. Start up X230 - the boot process allows you to interrupt booting and select a different boot drive, no need to change BIOS settings
4. Install Windows (nice and fast with SSD), type in COA from under battery and be told that I have 3 days to activate
5. Find and install Ethernet driver, go through a few Windows Update cycles, download drivers package from Lenovo - could have manually installed drivers at this point but instead:
6. Download, install and run Lenovo System Update and let it update all drivers etc
7. Activate Windows: Computer-Properties-Windows activation, dialled the automated phone service, told it I have a volume license agreement, gave it my mobile number and received a link by SMS, went through activation codes as instructed and success

No need for recovery disks or original Lenovo Win7 CD - it all worked with a vanilla iso and the OEM COA under the battery. Thanks for the tips RBS and other guys.

Who's automated phone service, Microsoft's or Lenovo's? I have 4 T61s and the factory W7 recovery disks.

I finally got my test machine to weork properly without giving me 2 or 3 BSDs every day.
Code invalid, etc.

Then, I backed up the test / gunea pig machine and restored it to the other three T61s HDDs, but windoze says not activated. This is probably because I backed it up from one T61 and restored it to another T61. They all have the Lenovo volume license.

[RealBlackStuff]

With Middleton's BIOS the T61 shouldn't have any problems with a recovery process.
http://ali.dj/blog/sata-ii-support-for- ... 61-x61-r61

[Tentpole]

cadillacmike68

"Who's automated phone service, Microsoft's or Lenovo's? "

Microsoft - I did not know Lenovo provided a license activation service. This was 3 months ago and I cannot remember all details but finding the MS number to call should not be difficult.

Yes as I said after the clean installation (no backing up or copying from other machines required) I was "told that I have 3 days to activate". You did the backup & restore route, which you may be able to get to work but that was not what I did, which was a single clean installation with a Win7 Pro 64 volume licence COA. By all means keep trying but I found the clean install using the ISO which I think was linked to by a previous poster, worked nicely. So long as you have the unique Win7 licence IDs for each machine that should be OK. I strongly doubt that re-using the one licence will work. You say you have 3 T61s, these were discontinued before Win7 came out, so your volume licences are for XP, I presume.

Good luck getting it sorted.

[RealBlackStuff]

As long as all those [T61] machines have a BIOS with Slic2.1 (Middleton's BIOS in this case), one recovery set will do for any number of them.
I have installed T420 W7-recovery on anything between T43 and X1, all those machines had Slic2.1.

[Tentpole]

OK thanks RBS, that's news to me. I have an aged X61 with XP and might give that a go as it's gathering dust.

[cadillacmike68]

Yeah, I had BIOS issues. Middleton was on them but the embedded controller was out of whack. I had to put lenovo's latest and Then Middleton on over that. Seems to be ok now.

Good thing too because ms and lenovo were of NO help.