BOOTMGR Missing saga and Lenovo recovery disk set for X201

[aviography]

Merry Christmas everyone!

Has anyone actually been successful in using Lenovo provided X201 recovery disc set?

I got a set of one OS (p/n 71Y7100 dated Sep 2009) and two application/driver (p/n 76Y1223 and 76Y1237 both dated Feb 2010) recovery DVDs from Lenovo in late 2010 after I first bought the X201 (Type 3249CTO) in June 2010, it's the Win 7 Pro 64bit version provided under warranty period.

Tried to use it once at that time and it didn't work, see http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... GR#p672916, although I was able to get things going again without using those DVDs by cloning the original drive, however I should have followed up with Lenovo back then with this issue but didn't, hindsight 20/20.

Fast forward to a month ago, I was forced to recover the drive from scratch as something got majorly screwed up, the DVD set still didn't work with the same "BOOTMGR Missing" error message after installation and boot up.

I have scoured the internet for this issue over the last month, and have tried a number of things, such as use Win 7 OS disk to run repair, but I get a blank list of OS to select from while attempting this operation, as if the OS was not even installed after the recovery process has been fully completed, I downloaded the free Partition Wizard software and can see there are multiple partitions installed, one for *System, one for Win 7 OS, one for recovery, but the repair utility does not seem to see any OS and asks for driver(s) for the disk during the repair process, ......

I then downloaded Win 7 Pro and Win 7 Ultimate ISO images burned to DVD, I was able to successfully install and then start up either OS after installation without any issue, so that tells me there is nothing wrong with the laptop hardware, or BIOS, or the hard drive itself (500GB Hitachi I've been using for 3+ years after cloning the original OEM hard drive through Acronis).

Another quandary I am in is the Win 7 Pro product license code on the label under the laptop is heavily worn and completely unreadable, so I can't even activate the license after a clean install from the downloaded OS.

Although the chances are slim, I will attempt to contact Lenovo to see if they had issued any revision to this set of DVDs and if they are still available..........

In the mean time, a couple of questions for the folks here:

- Has anyone ever gotten these recovery DVD to work? I find it hard to imagine this issue could escape software QA folks at Lenovo, and maybe there was a revision later?

- Does anyone have a set of Win 7 Pro 64bit recovery disks for the X201 which works and is willing to make a copy for me? I'm happy to compensate accordingly for your trouble and assistance.

I have 5 or 6 new and old Thinkpads around the house at the moment and have owned and/or used close to 20 Thinkpads since the first one bought in 1998, this one has given me the most grief where I had least expected, I mean how could an OEM supplied recovery disc set not work?!

Thanks in advance, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[tarvoke]

as for recovery - I don't use the Lenovo discs - I always use the legitimate bloat-free ISOs directly from MS / digitalriver, and then later install Lenovo update / IBM system update.

as for activation - even without the COA label, your X201 still has a valid SLIC2.1 entry in the ACPI table of its BIOS.

meaning: it is valid to run/register whichever architecture/flavor of win7, as you like. there is a couple of sidestep dances with slmgr.vbs, but it is all legal and above-board, and that's it.

[aviography]

Thanks, another member had PM'ed me with similar advice.

I am up and running now doing clean install, the only thing I found I had to get separately was the Intel Centrino network adaptor driver as I had no network connection capability at all. I am back in business after finding/installing the Intel network adaptor driver.

Thanks again for the help.