I'm a novice, going to reformat the HDD of my T42

[Frankie]

Hi,

I'm about to reformat and reinstall Windows XP Pro SP2 (french) on my T42 2373-6UU for the first time (on account of many problems, virus and spyware, not being able to upgrade to IE 7, etc.

The laptop has its COA sticker (oem) on the back (I will take note of the key so that I don't have to look under it while reinstalling lol)

What are the steps I should follow after repartitioning and reinstalling XP?

Should I use the Thinkvantage System Update 3.14 or should I first do all the Windows Updates? Is there something I need to know before? I installed an Atheros Wifi card not long ago. Will everything be recognized? Any tips?

Thank you
Frankie

[killer]

My advice would be:

• Take backups to external HDD or CD or DVD of anything you wish to keep.
  Do a restore to factory settings. I have used Rescue & Recovery to do this.
  Install any wifi drivers you need.
  Do all the windows updates.
  Use Thinkvantage system update to install all the Thinkvantage updates.
  Restore your saved files from your backup.

Job done.

[Frankie]

Thanks for the reply. Could you tell me more about the Rescue and recovery? Can I get by without it? Can I do that online? I bought this laptop used of course, without any CD.

[killer]

Frankie,
R&R is a standard Thinkvantage program. It may have been called something else (similar) before R&R but does the same thing. (Maybe it was IBM recovery or something.)

To find out if you have the hidden partition on your HDD, restart the machine and hit the Access IBM blue button when it starts to reboot. This should take you to a menu for R&R. One of the options should be 'Restore to Factory Settings'.

If nothing happens then you need to get the product recovery disks either from Lenovo or via eBay. If you buy off eBay then make absolutely sure that the set you buy are for your machine type and model. The model numbers are printed on the disks.
I hope this helps.

[Frankie]

Thanks. When I press the Access IBM button during the POST, I only get three choices:
Esc to resume normal startup;
F1 to enter the IBM BIOS setup utility;
F12 to choose a temporary startup device.

If I had that "hidden" partition, would I be able to see it in disk management?

I haven't found it on ebay. I may try to find it on Lenovo website...

Thanks
Frankie

[killer]

Go to Start, All Programs, Thinkvantage. Is there a program called 'Create Recovery Media'?
If there is then try to create a set of Factory Restore disks.

If it creates the disks then you can boot from them to restore to factory settings.

[Frankie]

There are no Thinkvantage program there. Thanks anyway. I'll just reformat, reinstall windows, get the internet back and use Thinkvantage system upgrade and see how it goes.

Frankie

[jwege]

As I have seen you bought a USED T42, I would guess that you do NOT have the "original" programs and drivers installed. (I got a used as well, all those problems).

Therefor you may probably not have the actual drivers etc.

I have set up my T42 from scratch, took some 2-3 days hard work (only patially attended).

Here is what I have done:

1.) put the original disc aside and got a new 250 GB one (the few bucks are worth to be able to start the old system at any time)

2.) partitionned, installed WIN XP and Acronis Image Software to make an image of the "virgin" (any other imaging software will do maybe)

3.) used the NEW drive in an USB slot (or Ultrabay) to did the downloads of all drivers for the new system from the lenovo website - put it into a folder on the future "D" partition and stored all the files there, printed the table from the website first

[here is a link for my model - check if yours is the same make and accepts the same drivers

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... ind=117092]

4.) Looked into the drivers' help texts, because there are some, that require others to be installed first

5.) Inserted the new HDD into the T42 as drive #1 again (or booted thru F12 from Ultrabay)

6.) Ran the Driver Packages just downloeded.

Many of them create setup directories (they extract themselfs first, then it's needed to run the setup.exe in the respective folders) When asked, I stored the setup files [extractation] on c:\Drivers\XXX (XXX = WIN if you are on an XP OS). This used to be the location where IBM original pre installs stored the drivers.

You will end up with somewhat 12 or so subfolders like "ACCON", "AUDIO", "BMM", "BDCACT", "DISPLAY", "ETHERHNET" etc. One for each major device like the screen, the LAN Adapter, the Audio etc. etc.

7.) Run the setups in such folders

AND: Try to make an image (I recommend Acronis) BEFORE installing all the drivers. In case something goes wrong, you can copy that image to the HDD again and do not need to go thru the whole process of re-partitionning and installing Windows again.

8.) Where setup-procedures are not there, go thru the UPNP-Installer from Windows in the Control Panel

Hope that helped a bit.
jwka






7.) Run the