New to the forums and LF T43 Boot disks

[lostscientist]

I've got a T43 Type 2679 that I would like to wipe clean and start from scratch. I tried creating my own boot disk from the i386 folder but I guess I did something wrong because when I get to the point where I put in my product key it says that the key is invalid. I called Lenovo but they want $45 freaking dollars for something that I bought years ago. There must be a better way!

Any help or advice is appreciated.

Admin note: Welcome to thinkpads.com. Crossposting is not allowed so I have removed the duplicate post in the T4x conference.

[BillMorrow]

do you mean the original factory preload for the T43..?

if so, i probably have a set of CD's and i can make a copy for you..

also, have you deleted the recovery partition..? if not you can get there by pressing the thinkpad button on boot up and there could still be the factory preload recovery that you can run and either make a set of CD's or just recover the factory preload directly from the recovery partition..

this post should probably belong in the T40 series confrence so i'll move it there..

[lostscientist]

Sorry for posting mistake. Neil already PM'd me about it. I got a copy of 7 from my old job and the license expired. I tried doing the system restore from the partition but it seems that the 7 install did something to it.

Thanks for the help!

[James_K]

if so, i probably have a set of CD's and i can make a copy for you..

I could also use those. I recently acquired a T43 type 2669-CTO that originally came with XP Pro, but had a corrupted version of Windows 7 installed. It has the XP Pro licence sticker on the bottom. I can make discs from an ISO file.

[Neil]

Welcome to the forum, james_K...

Send me a PM, if you would like for me to make a copy of the eight CD recovery set for you. Another option would be to use an OEM XP install CD (if you have one) and use the license key on the bottom of your T43 to activate it. The Rescue and Recovery set doesn't require activation.