Reloading WinXP Pro on my A31 - how??

[NeedMoreCowbell]

Hi, first time poster, apologies in advance if this has been covered ad nauseum.

My A31 Thinkpad has been a great workhorse since 2002, running Win XP Professional with no real problems except the LCD inverter, which I've had to replace a couple times. Luckily ebay has them for about $12.

Anyhow, it's been almost 6 years and there's quite a bit of 'stuff' on there that i'd love to wipe out with a fresh install as my wife will be using it as a work-from-home workstation. I dusted off my old Thinkpad box and there was no reinstall CD!

So I called Lenovo, thinking I could get the OS reload CD at the usual media price (Dell charges $5 for OEM reload CDs) ... I was quoted $40 + S/H! Yikes!

Do I have any alternatives? I always assumed I'd have the software, since, you know, I already paid for the OEM Win XP Pro license on the machine. $40 seems unreasonable to me. I don't believe I have a reload partition; if I do I haven't run into it in the past 6 years. Is there somewhere I could download an image from? My OEM key should be valid if I reinstall, correct?

Thanks for any help,

NeedMoreCowbell

[jdhurst]

Much as you don't want to hear this, I would pay the money and get the CD's. Two reasons: (1) it is just simply easier (yes, I have read all the posts) and (2) you have them in case you need them again (hard drive fails when you least expect it). ... JDH

[ZaZ]

The other option would be to get a Windows disc and install it that way. Then just download the drivers/apps from Lenovo. You would of course loose the use of the Access IBM button which I personally don't care about.