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

Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

stallen, I noticed that your FAQ no longer contains this section:

Which I found at:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3125272&postcount=9

Is it still a valid option?

 

Thank you for the help so much. After doing some further searching I found the WAU folder, but when i select that in Vlite it wont let me use that folder. Any ideas what the problem could be?

 

The directory for mine is
C:/SWTOOLS/vistawel/WindowsAnytimeUpgrade
or is that folder not actually the right one? Cause Vlite tells me it can not find the expected files in that thaat folder.

 

I #think# this is the right directory:

C:\WAUUPGRD

 

That is still a possibility. I had that in the guide for a short while. Then I discovered that SP1 would not install on Vista operating systems that have been altered by vlite so I removed it. I suppose you can still use that method, but make sure you do not alter the OS with vlite.

Since I no longer have the WAU folder on my system and I have never made an install disk using this method it's difficult for me to offer any kind of "support" or suggestions on how to do it properly.

If that method os working for you guys and SP1 is istalling without a hitch, I could put that back in the guide.

Again, make sure you all visit Orev's clean install guide where he offers several suggestions for making install disks. I think he even found new links to download the files.

Let me know how it goes. I'd like to update the guide once I get some feedback. Thanks!

 

First off, thanks for the detail clean intall information. Really helped me a lot in the process.

But I have a few problems that I hope someone here can help me resolve. This is my system configuration:

X61, Penryn T8300 2.4Ghz, Vista Ultimate, 2GB RAM, Fingerprint, BT, latest video driver from Intel (7.14.10.1461)

My problems:
1) First and foremost, my biggest problem is the fuzzy VGA output to my Dell 22" LCD monitor (native res: 1680x1050). Overall, the output is noticeably less clear than my previous Asus laptop which had both VGA and DVI (I was unable to see a difference between the two outputs). Not only is it globally less clear but there are patches that are even more fuzzy. I have observed that even though the resolution is set to 1680x1050, if I were to move my mouse cursor to the extreme left side of the screen, half of it moves off the screen as if the screen is extended slightly. I don't know if this is related. I would really want to get to the bottom of this.

2) I have the UBEK fingerprint reader driver installed and the latest Intel video drivers but for some reason, Vista SP1 is not showing up in Windows Update. Is there something else that I need to do?

3) After the clean install, I no longer see the Brightness bar when I adjust the LCD brightness anymore. I have the Thinkpad power manager installed.

3) I originally had Vista Home Basic and my Processor subscore for Vista Experience Index was 5.4. After the clean install with Ultimate, my score has dropped to 4.4??? What does this mean? How can I improve my performance?

I would appreciate any help. Thanks.

 

I have a question about Vista 64bit v. Vista 32bit. Are the performance gains in Vista 64 recognizable? Also, what are the disadvantages of installing a 64bit operating system?

Thanks.

~David

 

Just an update. I have resolved some of my issues:

1) I simply had to press the "Auto Adjust" button on my LCD Monitor and the fuzziness issue went away

2) SP1 showed up on Windows Update just now!

Still need some help with issues 3 and 4

 

Performance is really the same in both. Some things are a little faster, others are a little slower. It's really a wash.

Disadvantages are few, but there can be compatibility issues with some software, usually old software.

 

Hi,

I inserted my USB stick with ABRbeta3 and I tried to backup my vista activation key. My Bit Defender instantly reported “activation_restore.exe” file as generic Trojan virus 80182.
I downloaded the ABRbeta3.zip from link posted here.

 

It's not a virus. It's calling it "generic" because the way I compiled it makes it a "packed" binary. It's probably getting upset about that, but it's the same way a self-extracting zip archive works.

 

Hi. I am ready to do a fresh install of Windows Vista Ultimate x64 on a new, blank HDD. That pretty much eliminates the need for me to follow step one. However, does it also eliminate the need for me to follow step two, or do I still have to download drivers? I would think this is the case, but I don't know for sure and I guess it's better to be safe than sorry. I want to do the process as it should be done. Can someone shed some light for me? Thanks to any and all.

P.S. I'm probably going to be leaving a few more questions in here for you all during this process. I'm pretty confident that I know what I'm doing, for the most part, but I may have a few more questions about minor details.

 

You always want to have the drivers in a local place that you can access. You never know if something like networking won't work until you install the driver, and it's also a lot faster to install from a local copy.

 

I heard of a program that you can install and it identifies and stores all of your drivers for easy access when you need them. This way, I guess, a user would not have to download each one of them individually or search, etc. Do you know anything about this? Would this make the process easier? I actually know where to find said program, but I wanted to know if you or anyone else could vouch for its effectiveness.

 

Just download the drivers and you'll know that everything is working. If you're not comfortable going out on your own, follow the guide. If you feel confident that you can go out on your own, then feel free to do what you like, but that's not who the guides are written for.

 

Okay. Thanks.

 

Can a 32-bit Vista Anytime Upgrade DVD be used to install a clean version of 64-bit Vista? That might be an obvious question, but I want to check.

 

Nope, the 32 and 64 bit versions come on separate DVDs. You can download the 64 bit version though, check for the link in one of the pages on this very thread.

 

Can anyone give me a definitive, absolute answer on the following question? Lenovo only ships laptops with the 32-bit version of Vista. Does the license that comes with that legally allow you to upgrade to the 64-bit version without buying a new copy, or is the license only for 32-bit Vista?

 

I was a little confused with this guide. Lenovo doesn't seem to be sending out Vista install discs any more. For some reason I thought that the recovery discs that the guide says to burn were the same as the Vista Anytime Upgrade disc that's mentioned repeatedly. I figured the guide was so thorough that it would have mentioned a way to get the Vista disc if you don't already have it (or at least that you'll need to get it). I didn't see any mention that you'd have to somehow obtain an installation disc until I searched through the responses a bit.

Apart from that, thanks for the very thorough guide.

 

The terminology of the discs can get confusing. There are many discs with different names, and often one does not pay attention and assumes they are all the same. It's only when you start to do the process that you realize there is a difference.

The F-A-Q at the bottom of the guide gives you some information about the different types of discs.

 

This has probably been answered already somewhere in this giant thread, but can the Lenovo start recovery disc, operating system recovery disc, applications and drivers recovery disc, and supplemental product recovery CD be used for the clean install? or will I still have to create recovery media?

Thanks!

 

Hello, thanks for the comprehensive guide! I just got my X61 a few weeks ago and I'm finally getting around to doing my clean install. I started with the lenovo utility to create the rescue media. It seems like everything went well... however, the whole process only took the 1 boot up CD-R and then only 1 DVD+R disc to complete. Is this normal? I did leave the Dvd to burn on it's own and did see the processes on the screen while it completed. When I returned, however, it seemed like everything was normal. Has anyone else gotten away with using just 1 DVD disc? Thanks for your help in advance!

 

Since this guide has been so extremely helpful, I am inclined to share my experiences so that if anybody else encounters the obstacles I did, they can learn from my experience.

My thinkpad is 7 months old and was getting slower and slower probably because of a lot of junk on there. Anyway, so i wanted to do a clean install. I have Carbonite so all my files are constantly backed up online so I wasn't worried about backing anything up. I have Vista Business, so I used the recovery software that you can pull up with you first start the laptop to do the reinstall. However, that didn't work. It would do the reformatting and reinstalling and what not but when it restarted and it came time to load up the next phase of the installation process...it would just stall. This was at "windows is loading files" (on black screen with a progress bar a few seconds after the laptop is turned on). Note that now my computer wouldn't go anywhere because the hard drive was already reformatted and clean and this method of reinstall was not working.

I looked around online and found this article. Well detailed, great! But I don't have an upgrade cd. After some searching I found out I could download the vista upgrade cd as an iso....found a good iso and downloaded it. I don't download much so I actually had to figure out which was a good torrent downloader and then install that and then download vista, but anyway, I read utorrent was a good choice so I got it.

After about 7hrs, the file was downloaded but I didn't know how to burn an iso image to a dvd. Found some software for it, and from what I read, imageburn was good freeware for iso burning. Downloaded it, found the last dvd-rw I had at the house and burned an iso for the first time. Surprisingly, everything seemed to work well. ImageBurn installed well, the Vista iso imaged burned well...and the Vista iso image cd actually worked well too when I took it over to my laptop to install.

I went through the installation process and after the extracting files, the installing features, and half of the installing updates, I got this error message: "windows could not update the computer's boot configuration."

I tried it again, same thing. Now note, I could not get into the computer's OS, just to the cd/dvd installation disc or to that stalling thinkpad recover software. I tried to search online to find a solution to it and apparently it was a wide spread problem. The most common solution to it seemed to be any one of THREE different registery edits/tweaks. However, I could not get into the registry and plus the registry edits seemed to be for those people for whom that error messaged occrued during the extracting files phase...mine almost went all the way through and then gave me that error message.

So aside from the three registry edits, which I couldn't do, another recommendation was to turn off any antivirus software. Well, I didn't have any on so that wasn't the problem. Then somewhere I read that you need to change something about the boot time...I had no setting in my bios for that, but there was a setting for running the boot as "diagonostics" instead of "quick." So I did that (you guys may be laughing right now) and that didn't work either.

Somewhere else I read that you have to do something about the order in which the devices boot because somehow, some reason vista can't change the order around (like it says in the actual error). So I went in there and just, trying to guess, took off all the boot devices from the bios except for the cd/dvd (#1 boot device) and the hard drive (#2 boot device)...there were about five other things on there that I took off (excluded).

After I did that, just magically, it worked! So if any of you end up being in my situation, you know how you can fix it now if you can't access the registry and if you have already turned off antivirus and done every other thing you can think of.

Once again, I would like to thank you for all the very detailed information you guys provided. Though this whole process has taken me about 10hrs (not counting the download time ofcourse, it happened while I was sleeping)...it was well worth it for this nice clean install.

Thanks once again!

 

Hi,

if I would install my OS from a Vista DVD in which SP1 is already included, does the Orev Key-restore-tool work with it? Or does it just work if I restore the Vista key first, AND then install the SP1 after...

Edit: I did this key-backup 4 month ago. Do I need to get a 'new' version of the orev tool first? Or was there no new Version release the last 4 month?
Thank You!

 

This guide actually requires the user to read the entire guide. As stated just before Step 1 in big bold print (for emphasis):

"DO NOT PROCEED UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS GUIDE FOR MORE INFORMATION"

Then as stated just after Step 1 in italics (again for emphasis):

" NOTE: You will not use any of the back-up disks or files from step 1 to do this clean install. They are only used if you ever want to restore any optional files or revert back to the original factory state."

You are correct it is that thorough. That information is in the F.A.Q. As described in the F.A.Q. you can borrow an install disk from someone. You just need an install disk. Unfortunately, it seems that the Vista disk can no longer be downloaded from the links I provided. As soon as I get a break in between semesters I will devote some time on a solution to that problem.

You didn't read the F.A.Q.s at the bottom of the guide. It states quite clearly what you need to do a clean install.

Your welcome. Welcome to NBR

 

Thanks for sharing your experience, nanotech!

Thinkme - that's a good question. I seriously doubt that SP1 will interfere with activating using Orev's ABR utility. If you want to check out his guide (link in his sig), this may have been discussed in his thread. Let us know how it works out for you.

 

Just wondering if anyone else has had any problems getting Readyboost to enable on Turbo Memory after doing a clean install.

I installed using Vista x64 and ever since have been unable to get readyboost, readydrive seems to be working fine, but after more restarts than i can count its still registered as disables in Turbo Memory Console, and the cache file doesn't appear in performance monitoring. All up to date with drivers etc.

Thanks for the guide thought, great work!

 

Okay, I've followed this guide and have a successful clean install of Vista 32-bit. I'm on step 4, and cannot install the RAID/AHCI Matrix Storage Manager driver. Nor can I switch to 'AHCI' mode without getting the dreaded BSOD when I boot.

I've switched the BIOS to 'compatability' mode. I've downloaded the iata78_enu.exe from the Intel site and followed the prompts to the end where I get a msg, "this driver not compatible with hardware on this machine" (or words to that effect). I do not have Turbo memory (not showing up in the hardware profile), so I am at loss as to what the problem is. I'd like to resolve it before I start updating all the other drivers.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance,
-g8

 

Follow-up to my previous post...

The exact words of the error msg I get when installing the Matrix Storage Manager driver are: "This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing this software."

Once again, any help is much appreciated.
-g8

 

Alright, I found the fix for the Matrix Storage Manager driver install here:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/10/23/stop-0x0000007b-inaccessable_boot_device-error-after-enable-ahci-mode-on-sata-drive-in-vista/

It's a simple registry fix. Thanks,
-g8

 

I believe I followed the guide, but when after I create the partitions, the Vista install starts copying files and I get:




"Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed."

 

This worked like a charm. Thanks.

 

It finally worked, I'm not sure why that error appeared in the first place since I was doing a clean install. Took 3 tries because the install still failed at different points. I didn't realize how much space Vista initially took since I split my 250GB drive and only gave the C partition 44GB, 25GB free now.

Anyway do I need any extra drivers for the Advance Mini-Dock?

Thanks for the guide!

 

Hi,

Thanks for the nice guide about clean installation.

I will be getting R61e with Japanese Vista Home Premium.

Is it possible to change from Japanese Vista to English Vista Home Premium?

Whether the Activation Key will work if I change it to English Vista Home Premium?

Thanks a lot
Sandy

 

I think i have downloaded all drivers/software this guide notes and i am about to begin installation. The only one i cannot find is the Roxio Suite that i had in the machine when i had Vista on it. Does anyone here who has followed this guide, installed it again ? And if yes, from what link ? I cannot find it on Lenovos' site...

 

The ABR activation software did not work. I used the instructions but with no resolve. The batch says that it removes the old files and copies over the new. Any ideas?

Vista Home Premium 32bit SP1.

 

I want to clean install Vista ultimate on my laptop (T61). The curent version has lot of crap. I am following the steps provided in this forum.
During the step 3, I am unable to find Vista Anytime Upgrade DVD. How can I make this dvd? the links provided are not working?
Anyone, could you please help me.
Thanks in advance
Venkat

 

@stallen,
thanks a lot! i learned many things in this review.

however i have a few questions..

you mentioned orev's ABR utility.. that backups the product key used by the manufacturer..

" When a you buy a new computer, either a laptop or desktop, you will notice a sticker applied (usually on the back or bottom) that has the license key for the version of Windows you paid for but that key has never been activated. There is another key code hidden in your laptop that was installed by the manufacturer. This keycode is pre-activated. This saves companies like Lenovo the hassle of activating every laptop they build and/or it saves the consumers and Microsoft the hassle of having to activate hundreds and thousands of computers everyday."

1. does this mean that if we both have laptops that came from the same manufacturer, in the same batch, we would get the same product key when we use orev's ABR utility?


2. and what if we both used the install disks from mydigitallife
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/08/windows-vista-free-direct-download-link/
then both used our backed up product keys that was used by the manufacturer, then both of us would have an activated vista install?


thanks in advance!

 

@objectref: before you do the clean install copy the swtools folder from the C: drive.

@mvenkat23: before doing the clean install, look at your C: drive. There should be a hidden folder called WAUUGRD, this is where the Vista install is. You will need to use a program called vlite to build the Vista install DVD from the WAUUGRD folder.

 

I already had, thankfully! I am ok now, the whole system rocks!

 

1) yes
2) yes

 

thanks orev!
now i think i fully understand it!
i am not afraid of reinstalling vista anymore
how i wish i have researched earlier about reinstalling vista.
now i know i just bought something thats pretty useless.. (recovery disks from hp)

 

Thanks phantomAI, but I could not loacte the folder WAUUGRD on my C drive. I tried all the possible folder options..I have done some R&D on this & this flder WAUUGRD might exsist on a SOny Laptop.
Can anyone suggest me how to get a recovery dvd for Lenovo T61..I can get recovery disks from Lenovo, but it includes all the crap s/w also aling with vista..
I am looking for only Vista DVD

Thanks,
Venkat

 

Download and burn the dvd yourself:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=240320

 

Sorry if this question might seems so stupid.

What are the difference between clean-install VS uninstall all unused program, included thinkvantage (Not sure if it is possible or not).

Thanks guys,

 

As stated before,when you "Uninstall" programs there always remain some traces of that application.this is the main reason.

 

Thanks for the Guide, reloaded my R61 8919-CTO with Vista Home Premuim worked as written.

 

Can I use this guide installing a different version of vista. I bought my laptop with home basic, but I have the Ultimate version already. Is it possible to do this or would it not work.