Clean Install Guide (works for 32-bit or 64-bit)

Sir

How will I know if my Lenovo T61 has the 1GB turbo memory for the Hard drive? Thank you.

 

I have the 7k200 HDD. There is nothing different to install.

 

The hardware should be listed in the device manager and the application to adjust the settings should be in the all programs menu on your factory install.

 

You can go to parts look-up and type in your Laptop "type" (This is not T61. It will be something more like 6459) and your serial number (all of this information is located on the bottom of your laptop). This will give you a list of all the parts on your laptop including turbo memory if you have it.

The second option is to go into the device manager and locate it. I'm not on my laptop at the moment and I forget what it is called in the device manager.

 

So this must mean that the disk encryption that lenovo refers to his hardware based and not software based?

Thanks

Jim

 

It is hardware based. I can't claim to know all that much about it. This is all I think I know.

It IS at the hardware level.
Not all 7K200 HDD offer it. Only certain serial numbers.
A password must be enabled in the BIOS.
It requires typing in this separate password every time you use the hard drive.

Here is a thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=149661

Personally, I didn't attempt to set up the hard drive encryption. If your hard drive is capable. You should be able to enable this feature anytime after the clean install.

 

So I guess the hotkey driver and system interface driver does not install the fn+f5 utility...it is the ibm thinkpad pm manager that does that

 

When you say PM Manager, are you referring to the Productivity Manager or the Power Manager utility? If it's the Productivity Manager, i have never installed it after my clean install(s), and i am able to access the wireless radio OSD through the FN+F5 command.

 

I am referring to the power manager driver...i only call it the pm manager because that is what windows update calls it

Lenovo - system - ThinkPad PM Device

Installation date: ‎10/‎13/‎2007 2:33 PM

Installation status: Successful

Update type: Recommended

Driver update provided by Lenovo for support of ThinkPad PM Device

More information:
http://winqual.microsoft.com/support/?driverid=11635538

Help and Support:
http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=hub

 

Who knows really. I have completed a clean install on two different laptops. I installed the Power Management Driver on both of them. One of them I was unable to use FN+F5. However, immediately after installing Access Connections I was able to use FN+F5.

The other laptop I never installed Access Connections, but always had ability to use FN+F5.

Also, it could be paranoia, but I will never let Window update install my drivers. Who know what it might want to install for drivers. The Lenovo Support and downloads website has the latest drivers. I might use Windows update as a prompt to check for new drivers. It will also tell you there is a "new" driver when your current driver isn't working properly and just need to be re-installed. Also, I obviously allow Windows to update itself.

 

Hey guys, I dunno if anyone is interested in this, but I did a clean install and I have had some problems running Bioshock.

I wanted to test my video RAM to see if it was the problem, the only way I heard of to test this was using PC Doctor.

However, since I did a clean install, the system partition that had pc doctor on it was gone off my hard drive.

Lenovo lets you download pc doctor but it's only on floppy format (from what I could find).

Anyways the point is I made a bootable CD iso image out of the floppy drive files.

The only problem with it is it gives some error message that one of the tests wasn't loaded. I don't know which test that is, but it has the CPU, memory, and video card tests I wanted.

Anyways it might be useful to someone if you want to test your hardware, here it is:
http://jerry.cleedo.com/pcdr.iso

 

I have a t61p and ran the clean install guide today. I have one problem that I would like some help on. The one driver I could not install was for the integrated smart card reader. I read the instructions and it said to find the smart card reader in device manager. Well, since there are no drivers installed, it is not in there. Anyone run into this issue? How can I install this?

Thanks

Jim

 

I downloaded the smart card driver and installed it, then I had to go into device manager where it showed the unknown device, tell it to update the driver, then I told it I wanted to select a driver, and I went into the directory under c:\drivers where the installation program had put the smart card drivers, and selected it there. So basically I had to manually show it where the driver was. Then it worked.

 

How would you save 2-3 non IBM-lenovo programs to be restored after the clean install of XP pro ?

 

put it on an external or a flash drive...or burn it onto a cd/dvd

 

Which program would I use for the backup?

 

^^^you said you were doing a clean install....you don't need a program to do a clean install...just the windows discs

 

Right, then I want to restore completely 2-3 non ibm programs..[that were currently installed before the clean install erased them](I dont have the discs for those programs anymore)...is this possible?

 

Most programs were in the swtools folder on the C: drive, so if you backed that folder up then you can likely restore/reinstall the programs.

 

The programs are not IBM/Lenovo /Thinkvantage programs. Like Word, Act and photoshop and I cant find the installation disks for these 3 programs

 

If they are not in swtools then you may be SOL. Hope not, but.... I am not aware of any other backup location for the installers.

 

Stellan - a super small suggestion on your already excellent guide - the matrix storage manager install isnt completely straight forward - when u click on the exe file at ibm site - it unzips the files into a folder called drivers on your C:\.

The process is to update the driver going to the device manager and choosing IDE/ATAPI device and going about updating the driver by pointing to these files in the unzipped folder. in doing so i found out that every other installation works smoothly even the bluetooth radios - atleast that was the only difference between the first time installation and the second time installation i did...

maybe you can update your guide to reflect that so that people dont get confused when they dont see an exe file in the newly unzipped folder for matrix storage manager.. i couldnt figure it out the first time around...

 

Strange. I remember having a setup.exe file in the folder where Intel Matrix Storage Manager was unpacked...

 

Just did a clean install. For the most part was fking sick! A few small issues/questions i had, though.

1. Still having a bit of trouble with the bluetooth driver. im going to try the method suggested in the faq to get it up and running.

2. I was a bit confused about power management. i dled and installed the driver, but from what i could tell it was lenovo bloatwear. i did control pannel-uninstall "power management" and seems to work well.

Anyways, thanks stallen. a great guide.

 

The fn f5 tip for bluetooth worked perfectly.

still confused about power manager, though.

 

Eeeek, it's not a good idea to uninstall the Power Management Utility after it is installed. I had all sorts of trouble once. That's why I have this note in Step 2 of the guide in the list of drivers:

"(NOTE: If ThinkVantage Power Manager is installed it can only be removed properly in "safe mode". As for the driver, uninstallation should never be attempted.)"

Basically there is the Power Management driver and the Power Management Utility.

I have the Power Managment Driver installed, but the Power Managment Utility is optional since Vista has it's own Power Mangement Utility built-in that caters to laptops.

 

Well, we'll see what happens. so far, working like a charm.

 

On a side note: the default generic Bluetooth driver included in Vista works well on a T61, so I think there's no need to install the 60 MB Lenovo drivers.

 

You do not get all profiles if you run the generic driver, but if it gives you the functionality that you need then... I suppose it is fine not to install the Lenovo driver.

 

If everything is working fine, you should be OK. I think the reason you might have problems uninstalling the ThinkVantage Power Manger Utility is because there isn't really anyway to turn it off prior to uninstalling it. So essentially you are uninstalling a utility that is still running and trying to function. However, if you boot into "Safe mode", the utility is not started upon boot-up so it is easier to uninstall properly.

As for the Power Manger Driver, the read me file from Lenovo says that uninstalling is "not supported".

 

This is an excellent guide, I followed the steps and it works perfect, but then when I opened the System Properties page, I found out I forgot to backup the Lenovo Logo and the Support information, which was known as the oemlogo.bmp and oeminfo.ini back in Windows XP. Is there any way I can get in Vista for my T60? Thanks

 

I just googled "Lenovo oemlogo.bmp" and "Lenovo oeminfo.ini" without the quotation marks and came up with some things. Try that.

 

Hi Stallen,

Thanks for the prompt reply. I did that before and all those come up are for Windows XP. In Vista, they changed it to another format and uses the registry to control that. It will be great if anybody with Vista and post up the image for me and the registry entry. It is under
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OEMInformation]
and there should be a entry Logo="xxxxx.bmp" ,this is where the bitmap file is stored.

Thanks a lot

 

Been searching various forums, sites all morning to no avail, it would help relieve some frustration if someone can share their experience and help me out.

Did a Fresh Windows XP Pro (no SP2) reinstall on an X61s
I read in a guide, install Intel Chipset Support before anything else.
Downloaded from here. http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-67818

Now I keep getting this error message

This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.


I'd like to start using this laptop, please lend a helping hand. Is the Intel Chipset Utility an absolute must?

 

I know this is stallen's thread, but...

This thread is about clean installing Vista on your laptop. You will be better served if you create a new thread in the main IBM/Lenovo forum.

 

I will just say that your computer will most likely function without the chipset driver. However, I would expect instability issues to start creeping up. I wouldn't proceed without it.

Try this chipset driver. It is the one I recommend in my guide. It is for your chipset. Also for XP or Vista. http://downloadcenter.intel.com/con...All&OSFullName=All Operating Systems&lang=eng

If that doesn't work then I would recommend trying in the main forum as orev suggested or even the Windows OS section of the notebookreview forum.

 

stallen,

what exactly is a chipset driver? it shows on my thinkvantage update, but i never installed it. I don'tt rust ibm update; I have installed everything via windowsupdate. thanks

 

I don't trust either one. that is why I download and install drivers myself. No need to have an application install your drivers. That is just another factor that is subject to error. When windows update says there is a new driver, I go and look for myself. I sort of use it to alert me of new drivers, but not to actually install.

The chipset drivers are very important. I'm not an expert, but I've buil a couple computer and been playing around with this sort of thing for almost 15 years. The chipset drivers have always been something as recommended to install first thing after a clean install.

Here is a cut & paste from the readme file for this chipset driver:

That's pretty important stuff. You are talking the Processor, Hard Drive, anything plugged into the PCIe slots, any peripheral plugged into a USB. Almost everything hinges on this.

So why does it work at all without installing the chipset driver? Vista is going to provide generic support for all of this, but you should have the support that is intended for your laptop. Without this driver installed. Any technical problems should be blamed on the lack of proper chipset drivers.

 

actually my computer is performing perfectly! i did not install chipset driver; but i guess windows update installed a generic one for me....too many bad experiences with thinkpad update

even though it is generic; it work's fine, so i don't think i will mess with a new driver

 

Well I finally found some time to do a clean re-install following Stallen's guide. Everything worked very smoothly and it only took me about 4 hours to finish the complete reformat (what really took the longest was finding and downloading all the drivers ).

However I was unable to install the Matrix Storage Manager Driver. Did anyone else have problems with this one? Is this driver really needed?

Thanks again Stallen!
Tim

 

I'm glad the guide was helpful. Do you have TurboMemory? Did you install that driver? If so, then you already installed the Matrix Storage Manger Driver. The Turbo Memory Driver is a combo - TurboMemory/Matrix Storage Manger driver.

If you don't have TurboMemory, then you can try to download and install the driver from Intel if the one from Lenovo didn't work.

You should install it. It has something to do with SATA. So it could effect your hard drive performance.

 

I never installed the matrix storage driver; and I have had no adverse effects; I have absolutely no complaints about HD performance; I also have turbo memory and did not install the driver for it

 

Did you install any drivers? And is it possible that Windows updates installed them and you didn't realize it? I would doubt that Turbo Memory is operational (not that it does much anyway) without the driver installed.

 

I followed the guide on my brand new Presario F700 with Home Premium (not IBM sorry guys) and everything went flawless.

I backed up the OEM activation with ABR Beta2.
Formatted the 8GB recovery partition (D:\) and moved the C:\SWSETUP folder there so after the clean install i could find all drivers easily and store a future ghost partition backup there.
Booted with my retail Vista DVD, formatted the C:\ partition and installed Vista Home Premium clean.

After the clean install, restored activation, reinstalled all drivers and ran the Vista score tool to enable the Aero interface, to my surprise, the score went from 2.3 to 3.0 on graphics and everything else stayed the same, 5.3 ~ 5.5

Now i enjoy the laptop the way i like, no more shareware or trialware, only the stuff i need and own and now laptop runs greater than new, i'm very happy with it

Cant wait to do the same on my girlfriend's Dell XPS and my brother's HP DV9000

Just wanted to share

OldMX from the [H]

 

if you remember, i purposely did not install the turbo drivers....that 1 piece of hardware was solely responsible for all of my bsod's and freezes

Matrix manager goes along with that and I never installed that as well.. I looked at my windows update and there is nothing even remotely close to the matrix manager driver that could have been installed

remember I said I never installed the chipset driver? and let windows update do everything? i also found that it did install it for me...here are the details

Intel Corporation - Video - Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family

Installation date: ‎10/‎10/‎2007 6:02 PM

Installation status: Successful

Update type: Recommended

Intel Corporation Video sofware update released in March, 2007

More information:
http://winqual.microsoft.com/support/?driverid=20054236

Help and Support:
http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=hub


Is that the proper one or is there even a better one out? THanks

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. I always appreciate it when people post just to share a positive experience.

Yes, the ABR utility should work with just about any laptop out there. I suppose it works on desktops too. I don't see why not. Maybe oreve will chime in.

Other than that, the basics of this guide can be used for installing Vista on any system. Obviously the user would just need to install the driver appropriate for their specific make/model.

Oh OK, then you do have the chipset driver installed. You just didn't install it yourself. The Chipset is the Intel 965 chipset. It says it installed an " Intel Corporation" driver so there you go. Hopefully it installed the most recent. It probably did, because there have only been a few releases since the 965 chipset was released back in May.

 

I used the clean install guide and it worked great. The only problem I had was that I was not able to delete the hidden partition on my t61p. I want to delete it now but am not sure how. I did some research and it said to go into the bios, security and predesktop area and disable. I went into the bios, security but do not see a predesktop area.

Any help on this would be appreciated. I am running bios 1.22.

Thanks

Jim

 

Please read the F.A.Q. at the bottom of the guide:
• How do I remove the "hidden partition" on my hard drive?

It includes a link to a guide to removing the hidden partition. Did you try that?

 

Sorry, I missed that link. I did delete the partition. Of course, I had already did the clean install. Is there anything that I need to do next to combine the deleted partition with the hard disk? Or does it now give me the extra space since the partition is deleted?

When I go into computer management, disk management it now shows the 7gb as unallocated. How do I get that to combine with my c: drive.

Thanks

Jim

 

Yeah, that's why I put that in the guide to do it before the clean install. I think someone mentioned how to get it to combine in one of these 55 pages of this thread.

If you can't find it, someone will probably chime in. I'm not sure, really. I think there is some sort of utility that will do it.