Bought T400, opinions about the OS's and system restore dvd's

Hey everyone, I'm new to Lenovo and I just ordered Lenovo T400 with Windows Vista Business. I have heard about system restore disks on Lenovos and how the machine makes the user to burn them after first boot. Is this possible to do only on the first boot or can I do this also later?

I really want to use Windows 7 and I have read mixed opinions about T400 + Win 7. Is it usable yet, how does the graphic chip switching work? Any driver issues? Is it stable enough to be installed yet or should I wait for the official release and Lenovo's drivers?

Also I think that I'll receive free upgrade to Windows 7 because I bought this machine with Windows Vista, but I couldn't find it anywhere if I'll receive Windows 7 upgrade version or Windows 7 clean install version. Sorry if these questions were bit noobish but I just would like to know these things before I receive the machine in couple of days.

 

You can burn the discs at any time you want but its best to burn it first before messing around with the system. As far as Win 7 is concerned, lenovo hasnt released the switchable graphics driver yet. So, the only way to change is through the bios. This should however change when lenovo releases the driver, otherwise the system works just fine with Win 7. Personally, I would wait and install when its officially released but I have seen several people use it ona day to day basis and it works fine. Ofcourse its still a pre-release product so you kinda use it at your own risk. Check the Win 7 sticky for more information and experiences from other users with Win 7 RC.

 

Just like miner said. I would also like to add one thing. You can only make one set of recovery discs and run this program once, so make sure you follow the instructions carefully. I think it will take you 3 DVDs or like ~10 Cds, your choice. I like the DVDs so that there is less media for me to hold on to.

 

Thanks for the answers, I'll definately use dvd's then. I was more concerned about switching the gpu, I'll probably use Windows 7 as long as I can change the gpu from bios. So, basically the system will let me install drivers for both of the gpu's without any problems even though it won't understand they're switchable? Sounds pretty good, I read some another forum and people had some problems with the gpu's in Win 7 but I'll look for the Win 7 read for deeper information.

 

I'm going to add something else.

The very first thing you should do is install a good backup software such as Acronis and make a complete backup of the T400 before you go any further. This image is pretty small, ~16GB including recovery partitions when I did it last August.

Biggest benefit is if the process for burning the recovery disks messes up you can restore the factory image and try again. Gets around the "can only run it once" issue.

I run Win7 RC on my T400 and I've been pretty happy. Only issues have been occasional graphics corruption on windows but nothing that a minimize/restore of the window didn't handle. As noted, there is not yet a switchable driver released, so I've just kept mine locked to Integrated in the BIOS.

Note: If you load Win7 RC, plan on a full system wipe when installing the released version in October. Microsoft won't officially support an "upgrade" install, and even if workarounds come out it's still the smart thing to do.

Even if I was running Vista, I'd do a clean install for Win7 so it really doesn't matter IMHO.

 

Ok, thanks for the help. Theoretically what do I lose if all the backups fail and and I need to install everything from the install disks? Does Lenovo even give installation disks anymore when you buy new machine? Can I use the product key to install Vista from my own 64-bit dvd which I got with my former machine? I also think that I can download all the software from Lenovo so that failing the backups isn't fatal?

 

Lenovo doesn't provide installation disc though I think you can buy it from them. You should be able to install Vista from your own DVD using the product key from the machine, but you will be missing the drivers for your hardware, thinkvantage apps and bloatware. Not a huge deal though, you would just need to download all the drivers and thinkvantage apps from Lenovo. Plus remember that the recovery parition is still on the harddrive so you can recovery from that unless the harddrive dies or you replace the harddrive. That is why you would want to make the recovery discs as a backup, so that you can restore from them if there is a harddrive issue.

 

The machine I ordered has 320 GB 5200 rpm hdd and my old machine has 250 GB 7200 rpm hdd, I assume that 7200 rpm drive is significantly faster? If so, I'm going to put that 7200 rpm in instead of the slower one. However, have I understood correctly that I need to boot the machine with 5200 rpm drive, create the restore disks and then I can change the drive and put 7200 rpm disk in and it will wipe everything from the disk (I have Ubuntu + Windows 7 installed there with GRUB-loader) and put original Lenovo stuff back so the result is that I have exactly the same kind of hdd than the 5200 rpm was but now on this faster disk?

Also does anyone know if the Vista --> Windows 7 upgrade disks that we get from Lenovo are clean install disks or some kind of upgrade disks so that we would need to have the original Vista on the hdd before upgrading into it or are we able to do clean install?

 

If it's anything like the Vista upgrade disks I've gotten from OEMs when Vista was first released, the upgrade kit will consist of:
1.- The bootable Windows 7 disk. Basically a clean install, except it has the OEM branding.
2.- Driver and software disk. Will probably have the Lenovo ThinkVantage software and some trialware - the eMachines disk I used allowed me to manually select which ones I wanted and which I didn't, but I don't know if Lenovo is using the same system.

 

Your thinking on replacing the drive and loading the system is corrent. I can't tell you which drive is faster, since speed does not only depend on the speed(rpm) of the drive. It also depends on arial density(i.e. how much data is packed in a finite space) of the drive and the number of platters it has. If you want to know for sure post a thread in the aftermarket upgrade forum. People like Phil and K-Tron would have a much better idea.

I am not familiar with the kind of discs that Lenovo provides, but if they are recover discs then they will have all the programs and bloatware with it. I used an "Anytime upgrade" disc to do a clean install of Vista. You can also use a retail disc(can borrow from a friend) or an OEM disc.

 

The Vista recovery disks for my T400 are recovery discs with all the preloads. Mine really didn't have a huge amount of cr@pware on it so it wasn't that big a deal to clean it up.

Earlier Thinkpads (T61) apparently had seperate OS and Application disks.

Nobody knows for sure what form the "free upgrade to Win7" disks will take, but my guess is they'll be upgrade disks from Microsoft vs. each manufacturer creating some sort of custom upgrade disk. The jury is still out on whether you'll be able to do a bare-metal install from the Win7 upgrade media; some say say, some say no.