Win 7 recovery discs (for T410) will not activate on my T61 8898-AGM (solved)

[cadillacmike68]

I've done this several times. Put in the recovery discs (PN 71Y7100 and 76Y2207) let it run, babysit it for 2-3 hours and eventually it finishes.

But it won't activate win 7 pro 64. It activates fine on the two 15" widescreen T61s (6363 and 6465) bit these discs do not seem to like my T61 8898-AGM which is a 14.1" 4:3 XGA system.

Any ideas? I have an OEM Win 7 pro DVD with key that I bought from amazon, but I bought it with a w7pro-32 disc. The W7pro keys are supposed to work on either 32 or 64 (only the first one you use in on though). I also bought a license with key from someone here, but I shouldn't have to use it, the discs should run and activate win 7 automatically - correct? Or am I missing something... Do I have the wrong disc set? Everything loads fine, it just won' activate "product key is invalid" message and no way to get to the phone activation screen.

Any help is welcome, since I want to make a w10 test drive, and would prefer to have it activated.

[RealBlackStuff]

Have you installed Middleton's BIOS on that lappie?
It includes Slic2.1 which is needed for the Lenovo-recovery...

[cadillacmike68]

Yes, I did that first.

From the 8898's BIOS screen:

Ver 2.29 (7LETC9WW)
Date 2011-03-18

Same as my T61- 6463 and two other T61 15.1 wide screens.

The embedded controller is only ver 1.00 while my widescreens seem to be 1.08, but i don't think that has anything to do with the win 7 activation.

The activation error message is: "the product key you typed in is invalid for activation", probably because I typed in the one from my 6463.

The product ID on the control panel system screen is 55041-OEM-8992671-00437. That's the same as at least one my my other T61s.

[RealBlackStuff]

Install an older regular Lenovo BIOS (e.g. V2.26/2.27/2.28) to update to EC 1.08, then reinstall M's 2.29 BIOS.

[cadillacmike68]

I just checked my wife's 8897 4:3 T6 it has embedded controller 1.08, so this is the only one (I think) with old ver 1.00 EC.

Where can I find that Bios version you mentioned, and do I have to boot the machine with a 32 bit OS to update the BIOS? (I have HDDs with 32bit XPP that I can boot).

There is a 2.30 - 1.08 BIOS here:

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds013943

OS Update Bootable CD
iso
6041.6 KB
Windows 7 (32-bit)
Windows 7 (64-bit)
Windows Vista (32-Bit)
Windows Vista (64-Bit)
Windows XP (32-bit)
2.30-1.08
6/3/2015

I'm assuming BIOS Ver 2.3 and embedded controller 1.08.

Yes / no don't touch it?? It's an ISO which I can burn to a CD. Then I can re-load the Middelton BIOS - correct?

I found a link on think wiki for 2.29, but it dumps me to the Lenovo support page with 2.30. I guess this is the one to use - unless you say not to.

[RealBlackStuff]

That's Lenovo's newest V2.30, which you do NOT want!
Scroll down on that page to "Determining Which Version is Installed" and pick any older one (2.24 - 2.27) with EC 1.08
They are all bootable .ISO files.
After installing that, run M's BIOS 2.29/1.08

[automobus]

It activates fine on the two 15" widescreen T61s (6363 and 6465) bit these discs do not seem to like my T61 8898-AGM which is a 14.1" 4:3 XGA system.
…
the discs should run and activate win 7 automatically - correct? Or am I missing something

Yes, you are missing something: license. ThinkPad T61 8898-AGM came with a license for Windows 6 "Vista Business Edition".

[RealBlackStuff]

@automobus:
you should know better by now!
Middleton's BIOS with Slic2.1 takes care of W7-activation thru any Lenovo W7-recovery-set.
Been there, done that a few hundred times on numerous machines from T43 to T420 and more...

[cadillacmike68]

RBS, Thanks!

It was the embedded controller. So far that's the only one I had with V1.0. Putting the Lenovo V2.3 1.08 BIOS and then putting Middleton on gave me the same versions as the the others and the restoration of the backup worked fine.

You guys will fall over laughing when I tell you how many months this has been driving me nuts. Between this and the recurring BSODs from Acronis True image (which apparently conflicts with the T61's Soundmax in win7) it's been Several months of WTF and dammit, etc. It would BSOD while restoring from a BSOD!?!?! When I dug into it I discovered that my BSODs started on 2 Feb and I had installed Acronis on - yes - 2 Feb!!! Checking memory dumps confirmed it so I removed it. That was a PITA as well because it refused to uninstall. Fortunately Acronis has a removal utility that actually works.

The strange thing is that Acronis works fine with these T61s when they have XPP on them. Definitely a w7 driver issue. But, since I made two boot CDs a long time ago, I am able to boot the CD from the Advanced dock and backup the system HDD to a backup HDD in the internal ultrabay or to a USB HDD (Toshiba had a good deal on 2TB USB HDDs so I got one). Restoring is easy either using the dock and ultrabay HDD or the USB HDD with the new drive always in the main bay.

@automobus, I PAID Lenovo for 3 sets of Win 7 discs to upgrade my systems. AND, I purchased Four Win 7 licenses from other sources. So I HAVE paid licenses, I just don't want to do the ridiculous dance with babysitting a machine for hours just to get to a base installation, where I would then have to load over 200 winBlows updates, with the attendant issues that w7 has with extremely slow update processing, then Lenovo bloatware removal dance, then the utilities / antivirus / antimalware install dance then regular applications loading.

That's about a week per system - at least, IF you don't run into conflicts that cause BSODs, etc.

No thanks, I prefer to get one machine set up the way I want it and use it as a base image.

[RealBlackStuff]

I have (bought) Acronis True Image (ATI) Home 2012, Update 2.1 (build 7133).
Never had any problems with that (running on W7-Pro/SP1 64-bit).
Then I bought a Crucial MX100 SSD, which came with a free license for ATI 2014.
I thought I'd update my ATI 2012, but with ATI 2014 I had nothing but problems.
So I completely uninstalled everything ATI, reinstalled ATI 2012 + update, been good again ever since.
I have a brand new ATI 2016 (still sealed) sitting on my desk, but haven't had the need yet to install it.
Which version Acronis are you running?

[cadillacmike68]

I'm running ATI 2011 (don't know build) and Disk Director 10. I haven't used disk director in a long time.

These both worked fine in an XP environment, but the ATI 2011 has a known (at least I know of it now) conflict with T61s that have SoundMax drivers. I had to physically remove it (Acrinos TI & DD) from my main T61 system. Fortunately I had made the bootable CDs (2 sets) quite some time ago and these work fine, with the occasional CD fails to load on power up problem, but that's not Acronis' fault.

I got my four existing systems all win 7'd and a test w10 HDD for each of them. I bought another 2 T61 (both Intel graphics).

BIOS issues with them as well. The first one has a retail Win 7 home premium license and a retail Office 2010 prefsssional license. That's what I wanted it for, I needed another Office 2010 license for Publisher. Well there was some strange BIOS code in that T61 (a 7658 with the T9500 2.5GHz CPU!!!) The W7HP was activated, but when I "recovered" the W7 image to a fresh HDD for it, It wouldn't activate, same issue as the 8898. So I flashed the Lenovo 2.30 - 1.08 on it and then the Middleton and now it works.

The other one - more issues. It errored out on the Lenovo recovery DVDs three times. That's a few hours each time. The error was something about a CD drive being disconnected or an HDD that was failing, but the same HDDs later worked fine in other systems. I Then swapped out the CD/DVD - no change. When I recovered a backup image it succeeded, but after removing and powering off the system, it refused to start windoze, and it Trashed the HDD on powerup. Even my other T61s couldn't do anything with the HDD after that except re-partition it.

So, I flashed the BIOS on that one. Maybe there was something on it that was screwing up booting. It's now recovering a backup for a W7 to W10 test system.

I'm in no hurry to use W10, but in a few years that might change, and I don't want to pay some $200 per system for 6 systems to get it if I need to later. I have plenty of spare 10GB HDDs that I can use as test subjects and update them every month or so, until I make up my mind.

But I have to get these finished by the end of Friday!!!

[RealBlackStuff]

I went from ATI 2010 to 2012, because 2011 (yours) caused problems with W7 Backup and Restore functions.
Some proof: http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-resto ... ction.html
My advice: get rid of ATI 2011 and find a newer version.

[cadillacmike68]

That's Lenovo's newest V2.30, which you do NOT want!
Scroll down on that page to "Determining Which Version is Installed" and pick any older one (2.24 - 2.27) with EC 1.08
They are all bootable .ISO files.
After installing that, run M's BIOS 2.29/1.08

My computer is messing with me. I didn't see this message until today

I loaded that V2.30 and then flashed M BIOS over it and it seems to be working?!? What is the problem with using the Lenovo 2.30?? The two machines that were giving me grief and my 8898 seem to be fine - so far. I'll have to watch them though.

On the True image 20-11 vs 2012. Yes, 20911 was trashing my test win 7 system so badly that I eradicated it from my system, I had to use the acronis cleanup utility and scan the registry for leftovers, but it is completely gone.

What I'm doing now is I'm using the bootable CDs that you can make (I made these on my T30 with XPP a few years ago) and the CDs work pretty well. Sometimes they won't load on power up, but that might be a CD / DVD drive issue, because other bootable CDs do the same thing. I boot the CD, make the backup or restore and it's fine. Acronis never touches the Win 7 installation.

[cadillacmike68]

It's been almost a month and that v2.30 Lenovo BIOS that I put on and subsequently overwrote with Middleton's seems to be fine in this 8898.

I did however DL and will use the ver 2.27 / 1.08 from now on.