ThinkPad R51 Product Recovery media

[jerry12]

Didn't know where to post, as this is a specific question to my hardware type, I believe.

Just wanted to ask, I found some product recovery discs online for my specific machine, they were for R51 ThinkPad and 1831AU2 machine model number.

...they were a total of eight CDs - 7 Data CDs and one bootable ISO.

When I made the Restore discs on my machine from the Access IBM software in Windows XP SP2, there were only 7 CDs total - 6 Data CDs and one bootable ISO.

Where can I find out how many CDs I should have, and if it made them correctly on my machine, (it verified each CD, though).

Also, can I copy the CDs with a CD burning software, or is this not allowed or not recommended?

Please note my machine is from 2004

Where can I find more information about these CDs, as I don't know if Lenovo offers replacements anymore, or how to find them and order them, if still possible?

[ajkula66]

I believe that you should have a total of 8 CDs for that machine type.

Having said that, I only have the original set, never created one from the partition itself - it's possible that it would work.

And yes, you can copy the media...entitlement to that is given by the COA on the bottom of that R51.

[Neil]

IIRC, one of those eight disks is a supplemental disk, that may not be needed when burning recovery disks for a specific machine.

[ajkula66]

Neil wrote:

IIRC, one of those eight disks is a supplemental disk, that may not be needed when burning recovery disks for a specific machine.

That's the case with T43/p and R52, along with some later machines. T42/R51 have an 8-disk set with the first disk being R&R and others are numbered 1 through 7, no "supplemental" there...but once again, I'm referring to the factory set.

[Neil]

Ah! Yes, George is usually correct about these things... I guess the last machine I used recovery disks on was a T60 now that I think about it. That's where I remember the supplement disk from.

Now I'm curious as to why Jerry only burned 7....