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

The hardware has to be detected in order for this to be in your list. With that said, you should reinstall driver using the procedure mentioned by Stallen.

 

Alright, reinstall solved the problem... thanks!

 

How can I request "Anytime upgrade DVD" from lenovo? I called and asked the dvd, they requested the product or item number for the item. Please let me know if anyone requested and received it from lenovo. Thanks.

 

I think you can request it if you screw something up during your backup process?

But otherwise I bought one from CompUSA and it arrived 9 days later I ordered, and 8 days for shipping.

It was really weird though...broken tracking link, no tracking number, there was an order number but it wouldn't even work on the CompUSA site, their customer service e-mail only reflects back the sent message([email protected]), and their phone number was listed as 1-800-***-****. Yeah it seemed really sketchy at first =/

 

I'm confused at the step where you open the Start Menu and type "Recovery Media." The only thing that shows up is a program called "Create Recovery Media," and when I run it a window pops up that reads, "This program can only be run by an administrator," when I am the administrator.
I'm also worried that I won't be able to use the blue button again, because I value it very much.

 

My X60s had an Windows XP. 2 Month ago, I installed a Windows Vista Ultimate from my friend's CD but it seems like the version that I have is RC1, so it won't take any updates from Microsoft.
Can I use this procedure to upgrade my current windows vista to get a right version with a good activation key?

 

That's fine. Just right click "Create Recovery Media" and choose "Run as Administrator" to run the application.

If you choose to do so, you can still use the Thinkvantage button to access the thinkvantage utilities and software while the OS is booted as long as you have the Thinkvantage Productivity Center utility reinstalled . After the clean install though, you will no longer be able to access Rescue and Recovery through the Thinkvantage button before the OS boots (that's where the recovery media comes in). You'll have to make the call on how important it is to you before you go ahead with the clean install.

You originally purchased the notebook with XP. Then you did a clean install of Vista Utlitmate using a friend's copy, correct? If this is correct, then i believe you can no longer backup the OEM key code found in the factory install, which will only work for XP anyways, using the ABR utility (someone correct me if i'm wrong-stallen, orev). I'm not sure what you mean by "upgrade" your version of vista, BUT, this guide is used only for the version of vista which you already own the activation keycode for when you purchase the notebook from the manufacturer.

 

No, you will need to purchase a license for Vista that gives you the right to download updates. Otherwise, it is a pirate copy.

 

Will any type of Vista Ultimate install DVD work?

I reordered my notebook and added on the vista ultimate since it was only like $60 bucks...I'm sure it will ship with the 32bit version.

I have a legal MS store copy of Vista Ultimate sitting at home that U have used with bootcamp with my mac on and off. Once I recieve my T61p, I plan to not use bootcamp any longer.

Can I use my MS store copy of vista ultimate with the t61p's ultimate cd key?

In the past, an OEM XP cd key, for example, does not work with retail install cds and visa versa...is this still an issue with the vista media?

 

It sounds like you will now have 2 Vista licenses. There is no reason to use the retail license on the new laptop, as both retail and oem versions are the same. You can just use the oem license that you get with the notebook, and use your retail version for something else.

As far as the discs go, they are all identical. There are only 2 Vista discs in existence (as of today), a 32bit and a 64bit. The version you install (premium, ultimate) only depends on the serial number you type in. So the disc you have from retail is identical to the anytime upgrade dvd.

 

I will have 2 licenses yes. I am wondering if I can use the retail DVD media (the actual disc) with an OEM key (the one coming with the notebook). If you are right then I should be good to go

This would save me from having to get the anytime upgrade disc.

 

Thanks for the answer. Actually, I haven't been able to access Rescue and Recovery since I installed Vista Business, so that doesn't really matter to me. However, I don't know how to make sure the Productivity Center is reinstalled, so can someone help me do that? Thanks.

 

First, did you reinstall this Thinkvantage Productivity Center utility after you installed Vista Business?

The read me states:

Use that to check if you have it installed.

Everything you're asking for is located on the driver matrix page(s).

To note, if you want the functionality of the Thinkvantage button while in the OS, just like how it came from the factory, you will need to install the other Thinkvantage utilities as well.

 

Whaaat? I didn't do anything after installing Vista, except for Lenovo Update 3.01.

 

Did you just randomly install stuff on your computer using the Lenovo System Update, or did you pick and choose the software by checking and unchecking the check boxes? If you picked and choose, you should know what's already installed on your system. If not, open up systems update again and check the install history. It should be called something like History or Install History. Then you can check that list to see if you have already installed it. Other then that, and the info i provided for you prior, i dont know how else i can help you. Good luck.

 

Thanks a bunch for your help, hypertrophy.

 

Don't forget to read the "Frequently Asked Questions" at the bottom of the guide. I updated those a few days ago. It answers questions like this and many more

 

Where is the Matrix Storage Manager Driver for the X60 Series?
Never mind, actually; I found it.

 

About the Ultranav Driver/Utility;
Since I own an X60, it only has a trackpoint pointing device. So I downloaded the TrackPoint Driver instead of the Ultranav one. Do I also need a substitute for the UltraNav utility, then, or am I fine with just the driver? If not, then can someone tell me where to find this substitute?

 

I think I figured out why the bluetooth driver didn't install. When I did my clean install, I noticed the power to bluetooth is off. After extracting the bluetooth application onto the desktop, I enabled the bluetooth power by using Fn + F5. Vista immediately found it and started looking for the drivers directly.

 

Some people, myself included, were not able to activate (turn on) the internal bluetooth switch by simply pressing FN+F5 without first installing Access Connections.

 

About the Ultranav Driver/Utility;
Since I own an X60, it only has a trackpoint pointing device. So I downloaded the TrackPoint Driver instead of the Ultranav one. Do I also need a substitute for the UltraNav utility, then, or am I fine with just the driver? If not, then can someone tell me where to find this substitute?

 

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-67064#mouse

According to the page above, just download one driver- this one.

 

I was just finishing up another clean install on a different laptop when I read your post. Good timing! Fn+F5 worked this time. I honestly can't remember if I had the hotkey driver and system interface drivers installed the first time... maybe that is why I couldn't turn on BT to install the driver. Anyway, you saved me some time (this time) of installing Access Connenctions to get the job done. Thanks.

Also, I would make sure to still manually install the bluetooth driver. I think Vista just installed a generic driver right after I turned BT on.

Yeah, I'm not totally sure what to make of it. I guess the bottom line is to just save the bluetooth driver until everything else is installed. Try to use FN + F5 to turn it on, if that doesn't work then Access Connections will.

 

Hmm...I was reading this over since I have a T61p on the way and I want to do a clean install when it arrives. In Zaz's Thinkpad sticky at the top of the page he says:

However in your guide it says they should come with the CDs. Which one is correct?
Tim

 

You won't get any recovery CDs. You can make the recovery CDs yourself. Some people are getting recovery CDs from Lenovo by calling tech support (not customer service) and telling them they got an error and were unable to burn the recovery CDs.

I was stating the you might get an Anytime Upgrade CD with your laptop. However, I don't think they are sending those out anymore. You can buy it for $5 (link in my guide).

There is a different between recovery CDs and the Anytime Upgrade DVD. You can't do a clean install with recovery CDs. All those will do is restore the factory install.

 

Thanks Stallen, great guide.

Just finished a clean install on my T61p, and it feels much quicker and snappier now. I used a Vista Home Premium upgrade-from-XP disc to install Vista Ultimate, the ABR utility worked a treat.

I found that the 2nd link you gave to the driver matrix was easier to understand than the 1st link to the Lenovo Support & Drivers page, FWIW.

When I installed there was no option to delete the OEM partition, as only the original Vista partition showed up in the drive options box.
Once the new installation was complete, although I was able to delete the OEM partition itself using diskpart, I still couldn't resize the new Vista partition to take advantage of the extra space.
In the end I used a GParted LiveCD to do this job - beware though it ran for 6hours!!!!

 

Has anyone tried finding out a fix for the blue thinkpad button not working pre-windows boot?

 

Haven't heard anyone mention reinstallation of InterVideo WinDVD player? There's apparently no download option (on the download page it says: "This package can not be installed without InterVideo WinDVD already installed in the system"). Does Vista Ultim. have a good DVD player in it?

 

I ran the ABR utility, but the command screen reads that there is no activation certificate found. I guess the Express Upgrade Disk doesn't work, then?

 

Can you provide a screenshot of that? The ABR utility has nothing to do with the installation disk. All the ABR utility does is back up activation before the clean install. A good way to verify that it has done it's job is to look and see that it has a txt file. If you open this file it should have a key code inside. If there is no key code it didn't work. Then check to see that it has a cert file.

Then after doing a clean install the ABR utility will restore the activation. So you see, the ABR utility isn't really involved in the actual Vista installation process.

I suggest running the ABR utility to back-up. Verify that the two files came across and that the text file has a key code. Then obtain one of the install disks mentioned in the frequently asked questions at the bottom of the guide.

 

I'm glad you got it worked out.

If you find the answer to this please post it for me to add to the guide. I'm actually not sure what all the blue thinkvantage button does. Isn't it just for doing a recovery from the hidden partition? I guess I just prefer to use one of the other methods of back-up and restore as mentioned in the guide's freq asked questions.

Yes, Ultimate has an entire media center. It's pretty cool. When you insert a DVD you'll get a couple options as to how and what program you would like to use. I have InterVideo WinDVD (the full version) on my desktop. I don't miss it. The one that comes with the laptop is a "lite" version anyway. I'd say if you are not satisfied with Ultimate's media center then WinDVD "lite" won't cut it for you either. If that is the case then might as well buy the full version.

Those with Business edition will miss the WinDVD because Vista Business doesn't have a dvd player built-in (I'm quite certain of this). However there are many free options out there... google.

 

I agree. You must have an XP certificate on your system. Somehow the Express Upgrade Disk allows an upgrade to Vista on a system with an XP certificate.

I might still be able to help. I'll send you a PM. I will refer back to this screenshot in the PM:

 

@tchtypist

It would be a good idea to remove the attached image from your post above. Someone besides yourself might try to activate their Vista OS with your key.

 

Does the ABR only work with OEM Vista? I get the same error concerning the backup cert file.

 

Possibly. I'll have to ask Orev.

Basically what I told tchtypist is he could try downloading the OEM cert file from here: http://oembios.net/ (download the named lenovo.oemcert.100036.xrm-ms ).

extract the file with winrar -> then rename the OEM cert file to look exactly the same as my screenshot. Make sure you are able to view file extensions on your pc so it is exactly the same. Then add the file to the ABR utility. Then you can try that. No guarantees... make sure you can recover/restore back to the previous just in case it doesn't activate.

Also have a look at post #76

 

I was curious about it, because I have moved my OS a number of times due to motherboard replacements and then buying the T61p. I have had to call MS the last two times I installed Ultimate. I am not worried though, because it is a legit copy and MS better not give me any trouble. It would be nice if I could do subsequent installs without having to get in touch with big brother at the end. I will install Vista 64 this week after my new HD comes in, so I may have to call them again.

 

I just edited post #236 (2 up).

The file to be downloaded is called "lenovo.oemcert.100036.xrm-ms". this is the file that can be renamed to match the one in the screenshot I provided of the ABR folder.

Again, I don't know that this works. You should be prepared to restore if it doesn't activate.

As for anyone else reading this. You shouldn't be concerned with running into issues with the ABR utility if you are using it with an OEM factory install and using an anytime upgrade, retail, or OEM disk.

 

Thanks for the tip, and I will report my results on this if no one beats me to it.

 

I opted not to get a dvd burner, which seems dumb now. Can I still back up the system on cd-rs instead of dvds?


also, would a vista ultimate upgrade disc be suitable to perform the install, instead of the anytime upgrade disc?

 

My T61 performs the way it shoudl now, after doing the fresh install and getting rid of all the extra junk. Before the clean install my IE would take about 5 secs to come on but now its like a second so that definitely helped. But now im thinking there are some really useful thinkpad utilities that I will need or might need, like security solutions (TPA), restore and recovery and the convenience of being able to use the thinkvantage button.

Im also missing the power manager utility, but especially the security solutions so I hope it wont mess up my T61's performance too much. But I do want to say thank you Stallen for the excellent clean install guide because it really helped!!

 

Yes, you can back-up to CDs. I think it takes about 10 Cds.

I've never heard of a vista ultimate upgrade disk. The anytime upgrade disk, retail install disk, and OEM install disk all contain every version of Vista.

 

Does this work if the original OS on the notebook is Vista Home Premium, but then I use a Vista Ultimate disk for the clean install?

From reading the guide, I take it that every Windows Vista install disk has all versions of Windows Vista, so which version is installed is based upon which key is used to activate it. Thus, I would guess that by following this guide, I would end up clean installing Home Premium and not Ultimate.

Does this make sense?

Thanks!

 

From my understanding, this works no matter the disk you use, because you have to choose the version of Windows that came with the laptop. All of the Vista versions are on most disks excluding the Express Upgrade type. If Home Premium is what you have then you have choose to reinstall it for the ABR to work. I may be wrong here but I think that is how it works. As for your Ultimate license, when you install using it you will likely have to call MS to activate. I have twice and it went smoothly each time. Those in the know may be able to provide more insight...

 

That is correct. During install you will select the version of Vista that you currently have on your system... the one you paid for. Then after installation ABR will reactivate using the corresponding keycode (viewable in the .txt file).

 

Nice guide! I appreciate your effort!

I got a quick question here. Say I do like the ThinkVantage software bundle, is there anyway to back it up so I can install it after the clean install?

 

Hello, this guide was pretty helpful to me. Some other information that may be of assistance to others:

I received my machine friday before labor day weekend and wanted to do a clean install but didn't have the vista CD, didn't want to wait for a CD to arrive in the mail, and there's no nearby place to buy one.

On my particular machine there was a hidden directory, c:\WAUUPGRD. You've probably figured out what it is and might be wondering why it wasn't named WAU or WAUPGRD. Anyway yeah, it's the vista installation on the hard drive.

I didn't really see much need to back up the existing install. If something went wrong i guess i'd have to beg lenovo for help. Here are roughly the steps i took:

1. Put the new machine on a network with my old machine.
2. Copied C:\SWTOOLS and C:\WAUUPGRD to my old machine.
3. Used ABR as described, in my case i did that over the network too.
4. Removed the hidden partition.
5. Ran setup.exe from WAUUPGRD on the network. In hindsight i probably could have run it directly from the new machine.
6. Continued with install as in this guide.

It turns out you can't format the hard drive when installing vista like this; you can only do that when booting from CD. So my disk still had two partitions, and i was left with a bunch of directories full of stuff. It's not ideal for me to have two partitions, but i guess that's my price for impatience. I ended up making the small partition a normal partition and putting my page file on it; i'm not going to worry about it any more.

I deleted almost all of the other stuff that was in C:\. The SWTOOLS directory had some stuff i used to re-install, as one or two of them looked more up to date than the lenovo web site.

 

I believe all programs and utilities from the factory install can be found in the C:\SWTOOLS folder. If not, all of the thinkvantage utilities are downloadable from the support and drivers and/or matrix page.

Thank for sharing your experience. If it is somehow possible to make an iso image from the c:\WAUUPGRD file so it can be burned to a bootable disk, I would add that to the guide. If you discover a way to do that let me know.

 

Thanks for all the info Stallen.

One more question. After deleting the recovery partition, how can we merge the HD back into 1 solid partition. Even after deleting recovery partition, it still shows a disc 0 6gb partition. Thanks

 

nevermind...i was following playmakers instructions and he has another way to delete the hidden partition via

1. Press WINDOWS + R to open Run window
2. Type "diskpart" and press ENTER
3. Type "list disk" in command prompt and press ENTER
4. Select the main disk (usually the largest one). For example, if your main disk is disk 0, type "select disk 0"
5. Once the disk is selected, type "list partition" and press ENTER
6. Recovery paritition will be around 4000MB to about 7000MB, usually labeled "partition 1"
7. Type "select partition 1" and press ENTER
8. Type "delete partition override" and press ENTER

Doing it this way erases that hidden partition, however, it does not merge it back into 1 larger HD...I want all of my 160gb! lol..i don' want it dividied up into seperate partitions...so I follow your way..and delete hidden and then delete main and do a complete reformat, right? Thanks