Obtaining complete installation discs for OS WinXP

[blm]

When I bought my used IBM R51 Thinkpad this past Saturaday, I got no OS installation discs for WinXP Pro-- the WinXP Pro was loaded on the HDD. I wonder who will send me the full WinXP Pro installation discs. The bottom of the R51 has the Microsoft COA and also has the long Microsoft key number. Do I call/contact Lenovo to get the full WinXP Pro OS on discs or do I get them from Microsoft? And if either or both will send them to me, are the discs free to me?

[The R51 had been used either by the state university in my state *or* by someone in state government in my state, in case this has any meaning for you in answering my question.]

Thanks

[killer]

Thinkpads can be shipped without an OS, however if XP was pre-loaded then you do not get a set of installation disks. If you want to recover to factory settings then this is done using the Access IBM key. The OS sits on a hidden partition.

If you have ThinkVantage software installed then you may create a set of recovery disks once (and once only) using the Create Recovery Media program. This copies the factory settings software to disk which you may keep.

An alternative is to use a program like Acronis TrueImage to copy the system as it is now.

I hope this makes sense and is helpful.

[RealBlackStuff]

http://www.<promotion of site not allowed>.com/

[AMATX]

If, by chance, your Tpad is still in warranty(ha!), sometimes you can get CDs from Lenovo if your drive is wiped out; no way to restore from hidden partitions that way. If warrantied, give the support center a call, explain that your drive crashed and want to know if they can help. I think XP support dropped a while ago, but worth a call.

This approach is still in effect, as I used it a couple of months ago on a new W700 I purchased, for which I was having some drive issues...

Another approach is to go hunting on ebay. Skip the guy selling driver restore/recovery, as that's driver stuff, not the original load. I purchased a Z61p CD recovery set off of ebay once; no problemo. You may need to troll ebay for a while, but this kind of stuff does pop up eventually.

Lastly, hit up people on this board. Probably quite a few people on the board with an R51 who'd either burn you a set for free or minimal $ for shipping/handling.

[blm]

Thinkpads can be shipped without an OS, however if XP was pre-loaded then you do not get a set of installation disks. If you want to recover to factory settings then this is done using the Access IBM key. The OS sits on a hidden partition.

When I press the "Access IBM" key, I'm only taken to the IBM BIOS setup. I've asked about this and was told that that hidden partition must have been erased at some point before I bought the R51 last weekend. [It might have been erased when the laptop was prepared for state government or state university use. My R51, before I bought it, was used by someone at the state university or by someone in state government.]

If you have ThinkVantage software installed .........

What does that look like? I don't think I have it, but tell me about it.

Thanks killer for the info.

[GomJabbar]

Try pressing F11 at the BIOS boot splash screen. If it works, you will get booted into Rescue and Recovery. The ThinkVantage software includes Rescue and Recovery, among other things. For the Access IBM button to work at boot, a couple of things need to be in place if I'm not mistaken. You might be able to use the Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette to fix this.

You can get all the IBM/Lenovo software for your R51 here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 55029.html

ThinkVantage Technologies from Lenovo