Restore T60 to factory settings

[The Bard]

I have a 3-year old T60 that runs fine but sometimes gets hung up temporarily on certain applications. I'm interested in restoring the computer to factory settings and reinstalling my applications in an attempt to increase performance. I'm really scared of screwing this up, however, as the T60 is my sole computer. I assume that my computer has a hidden partition, but how do I know? And to restore it do I just hold down the Thinkvantage button during start-up and follow the menu that appears? Can anyone provide guidance, or preferably, step-by-step instructions and any tips. Thanks so much.

[dr_st]

Every time I tried a factory restore on a T60, it was so bloated and annoying (both XP and Vista) with so much useless junk and a setup that takes 2 hours, that any improved performance you get with it will be in the speed it takes you to drive to a mental institution and commit yourself.

My opinion is to skip the factory restore, and just use any vanilla XP CD to install it from scratch, then download the system update, and install all the drivers and software you actually want manually.

But if you do want to try a factory restore, try pressing the Thinkvantage button or F11 during start-up, and see if it starts up your hidden partition boot. If it is there and functional, it should.