Thinkpad T61 recovery media help please.

[speakingpcs]

Hi all, I'm a new member here. My name's Ed, I'm a blind IT tech and access tech specialist in a bit of a pickle.

A while back, I was the victim of a mugging on the way back from a call out late evening. As I was waiting for a local bus to get me home, I was jumped by a thug who ripped my hard case off my shoulder containing an IBM X60 laptop filled with my tools, my screen reader (JAWS 14 PRO), disk destruction and recovery equipment, etc as well as my service tools for installations and repairs. Sadly, after reporting it to police, I was treated with the comment "if you can't visually identify the attacker, we can't help you." My insurance couldn't assist me other than costs for certain tools.

A contact has come to my aid and is providing me with a Thinkpad T61 1.8ghz machine with 80gb hdd and 1GB ram (I'll be upgrading it as soon as it is collected friday. I'm told the COA is windows vista business but that's not much of an issue really.

The problem I face at the moment is finding recovery media. I need to be able to flash and reset the machine and then install my tools, screen reader, etc without hassle. I spent today trying with great patience to navigate Lenovo's website with my current workstation (a mac) running voiceover and struggled with various unlabelled elements. I phoned Lenovo UK support to ask for help and was told they couldn't send recovery media to me because they had to direct me to Lenovo's website and request payment, which leads me to my other issue of not using credit cards as I find them stressful when it comes to security and captcha matters, etc hence paying cash where I can which is easier for me. I've emailed rmedia@lenovo.com and asked for their assistance and heard nothing yet.

As I don't yet know the exact serial number, code for the machine, all I know is it's a T61 and I'll be relieved to have it up and running and get back to my work.

Does anybody have access to T61 recovery media that I can use please? ideally Vista business or windows 7 pro or something like that as the full recovery suite. Someone passed on a download of T60 old recovery disks which have XP Pro but these will cause a few problems with the software and hardware I'm using.

Any help would be appreciated. I can be emailed directly at edwardredfern@icloud.com to talk more, etc.

I loved my X60 to bits as it was light, happy to perch on one hand, etc. it suited my needs just about fine. As soon as my T61 comes home with me friday, I will be upgrading it with some spares including a 500gb hdd and 4GB ram. I know that 32 bit OS's support upto 3GB but from what my contact's told me, I could run Windows 7 pro without hickups.

any help would be appreciated. Sorry if this causes any trouble here.

cheers.

ed

[91011]

email sent

[Cigarguy]

Personally I never bother with an outdated recovery partition/disk. I simply load Win 7 then between Windows Update and Thinkpad Vantage System Update you can load all the necessary drivers. Then load the programs that you want. This way you get a fresh clean install.


http://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/think ... -10-31.exe

If you are running with 4 GB, I'd recommend Win 7 64 bit to utilize the full amount.

As for finding out the machine type, the easiest way is the 7 digit to the right of "Product ID:" located on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop. Alternatively, hit F1 on startup to enter BIOS. To the right of "System-unit serial number" the first 7 digit of this number is should be the same as "Product ID:"

[speakingpcs]

Hi guys, I'd just like to say a huge thanks to both of you for your help both on and off list. you're both life savers. sounds like I've some work ahead of me lol

The whole ultrabay experience sounds exciting. tue ability to swap drives there and then. nice.

at least I'll have a working accessible host for remote work.

ed