Windows XP installation on T42

[Antioch]

Hi all. I've ordered my T42, just waiting for it to come - who knows when that will be, heh.

Anyways, I have a couple of questions.

From my understanding the T42 series comes with an IBM partition at the head of the disk which is where the Win XP install data is kept. In otherwords, it doesnt come with a seperate Win XP install CD, its all on disk (Though I have heard you can burn it off to your own install CD). I've also heard that all of the IBM software and utilities are stored in this parition and get installed along with XP.

So, supposing this is true - if I install using a "non"-IBM Win XP CD, can I still install these utilities and drivers? Even if I delete my IBM partition?(ofcourse I will back it up to the 6 or 7 recovery CDs). Are these utilites and drivers available online somewhere?

Also, I have heard that some people have had issues with installing Intel (and others) drivers vs. IBM's drivers. Things have been said such that one works and the other doesnt, one messes up the system and the other one doesnt, one gives better performance and the other doesnt... Any truth to these claims?

Thanks for your help. =)

[richarddd]

Use IBM drivers rather than Intel or other non-IBM drivers. www.tpdrivers.com

You can order recovery cd's from IBM for free if you order them within 30 days of purchase.

The pre-load on my x31 did not have much bloat. No real reason to start from scratch. You can always uninstall any utility you don't like.

[jdhurst]

Unless you ordered a T42 with a 10Gb hard drive, I would not sweat the small stuff. A whole system plus the recovery partition will fit in 10Gb or less, and that is about a third of a slow 30Gb drive. On the standard faster 40 or 60Gb drives it is inconsequential, and some of the bigger IBM utiities such as Access Connections are positively useful. The rest are pretty small. ... JDHurst

[Antioch]

True. Its just that in my experience bundled OSes tend to be cluttered and messy. I prefer to start clean and build up what I need instead of having things set the way IBM (or whomever) wants.

[richarddd]

I've installed xp or w2k from scratch more than a dozen times in the past two weeks on my new x31, trying various configurations. xp from the recovery disks (same as factory install) was my favorite starting point.

The only pre-load bloat was Norton AV. All the pre-load programs could be easily removed with "add-remove programs."

I've spent a lot of time tweaking (mainly turning off eye candy and un-needed services), but I did the same on the factory install as on a regular msft xp install. The factory install was much easier as a start point, since it had usable versions of all drivers.

The factory install is no more cluttered and messy than a msft xp cd.

[Antioch]

Is there a way to install factory XP if I've deleted the ibm partition (and have the restore CDs) without restoring the IBM partition?

[SeanM]

Delete all the partitions on the drive.
Boot to the recovery CD.
When it asks if you want to restore the service partition, answer "No".

[Antioch]

I never encounter that option. When I click restore factory contents I have no choice but to reinstall the service partition.

Additionally, even after doing this I'm unable to boot to windows. I keep going back to Access IBM.