Trying to restore R31

[SVTarHeel]

I have a handful of laptops I'm in the process of refurbishing for sale while I stay with my mom as her full-time caregiver. One of them is an R31 that came to be with a screwed up WinXP install. There is no recovery partition on the hard dive nor do I have recovery media. In fact, as I've been poking around craigslist and eBay looking for recovery options, I've seen conflicting info - some places say they R31 came with a recovery partition, someone else told me that it would have shipped with CDs.

Can someone tell me which recovery option would have been present on the R31? And, if discs, is there a way to get a set? If a recovery partition, would it be possible to buy a working unit and clone the hard dive? Or, can a working unit make a set of recovery discs?

Thanks in advance for any help.

All the best,
JEFF

[posscakes]

Lenovo supplies drivers on their website http://support.lenovo.com/en_AU/researc ... D=HT072387. You'd just need a windows disk yeah?

[SVTarHeel]

You'd just need a windows disk yeah?

As a last resort. Is there such a thing as an IBM OEM XP install disc that works on multiple models?

My preference is to restore either with factory discs or a recovery partition, but I don't know what I'm looking for.

[RealBlackStuff]

I wouldn't waste any time/money on an R31 that was not even made by IBM, but by Acer.
If there is a COA on the bottom, install that Windows version and get the IBM drivers from the earlier mentioned Lenovo website.
You'd be wasting space if you still install a recovery partition. The Windows version will be grossly outdated and contain bloatware as well.

[SVTarHeel]

I wouldn't waste any time/money on an R31

I understand that many people wouldn't do it like this, but I'd prefer to put it back this way if I can find either a restore disc set (if that's what it came with) or an OEM XP disc - or whatever - I'm just not familiar with ThinkPads and how they came out of the box, so I don't know what to look for.

Thanks for the replies.

[jronald]

Stop looking for a R31 recovery disc, and start looking for a T23. The 2 machines are close, so it will probably still need a driver or 2, but the chances of finding the disc is much greater. However the T23 was 2000
While it came with XP, it had to be dog slow, 2000 would run like a bat out of hades on that machine, or a Linux based OS would also do great!

If you decide to go the 2000 route, I also have many clean serials for 2000, as well as the disc.

YMMV
Ron