How to reenable the F11 function (Product Recovery Program)

The Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette solves this problem.
But for those without a floppy drive, I've created a CD image (ISO) of the diskettes, using a PC with a floppy drive and MagicISO ( here's a nice tutorial on how I did it).

Like the above link says:

Here are the download links (these ISOs were made at the 28th of January of 2007 - check if these really are the latest versions of the repair diskette):

Recovery repair CD for Windows 2000 and XP ( rnr31_rrd.exe):
http://rapidshare.com/files/89450678/rnr31_rrd_fixed.iso
or
http://hotfile.com/dl/27467355/1a00ebf/rnr31_rrd_fixed.iso.html

Recovery repair CD for Windows Vista ( rnr40_rrd.exe):
http://rapidshare.com/files/89450908/rnr40_rrd_fixed.iso
or
http://hotfile.com/dl/27467378/4775751/rnr40_rrd_fixed.iso.html



Now burn the ISO image to a CD (using Nero, MagicISO, etc.) and restart your computer with the CD in the drive.
Note: Install the Rescue and Recovery software, before restoring the partition.


When booting from the CD (I only tested with the Vista diskette. I assume the same dialogues will appear with the XP and 2000 one):

You'll probably get a "Write protect error writing drive A: Abort, Retry Fail?" error. Just enter "F" to choose the Fail option (this error will appear several times. Just keep pressing "F" every time it appears).

You'll eventually get to a screen where you should choose the option "Option 1: Repair the current master boot record." (press ENTER).
After a few more Fails, a message saying "repairing... writing new mbr..." should appear. After pressing Fail again, you'll get a message saying " File creation error".
Finally another screen will appear with two option: "Press ENTER and continue" and "Press ENTER and continue" (yes, both options have the same text). CHOOSE THE SECOND ONE! (I lost a bit of time here, because I kept choosing the first option).
You'll see a few more error messages (continue pressing "F") and finally a screen saying "The operation was completed successfully". Press ENTER.
You'll probably get a few more "Fails"... After reaching the DOS prompt ( "A:\>"), you can turn off the computer.
Note: Remember to eject the CD, or you'll boot again from it.

Now, when you press the ThinkVantage button you'll have the F11 option or you'll be redirected to Rescue and Recovery.



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Edit: If the "Factory Restore" option has vanished from the pre-boot environment, follow the steps in this thread.

 

still doesn't work, and then I realized I haven't install Rescue and Recovery yet. I hope this was the cause.

 

Installing RnR solved the problem?

 

Yeah, now it's fully functioning again. Thank you for your help

 

good post +rep

 

This worked for me using Vista x64
I lost the blue thinkvantage button functionality on bootup when I did a clean install of vista x64.

I should note that for some reason the prompts to press "Retry, Abort, Fail" did NOT appear on my screen. There was a problem displaying the text or something.

I had 2 initial prompts asking to Retry/Abort/Fail when it couldn't write to A: - after that, the program started and asked me to press enter. After I press enter I had to blindly press "F" several times and then several more. Very strange...

But in the end, it worked! I know can boot into R&R.

Big thanks to the op for this - I hope that the boot CD you uploaded to rapidshare stays up.

My question is: why doesn't Lenovo have an ISO like this available for download instead of a stupid floppy disk program?! Most people don't have access to floppys anymore...

 

I ask myself the same question... Weird.
Even worse, their floppy image is a 16bit application. Vista is no longer compatible with those applications so, as far as I know, it's not possible to create the floppy in Vista. I had to use XP...

Let's hope Lenovo fixes this problem soon.

 

Apparently my T61 did not come with the option to reset to factory settings. I was planning on one of the soft reformats and de-selecting all the bloatware, but I don't have that option. Any advice? I got Lenovo to send me a CD which should let me do a reformat.

 

Can you enter the pre-desktop area by pressing the "thinkvantage" button during bootup?

 

Yes. It doesn't give me the option to reload factory settings. I may have deleted the Recovery part of Thinkvantage in my efforts to reduce the number of processes, but after reinstalling it, I still can't reset to factory.

 

aI on the other hand tried to do a full factory restore and it said it wasn't possible. Now it will not let me boot into XP, instead it goes into PC DOS.

Lenovo is sending me the recovery CD for my T61p as i want to get a fresh image installed so then I can load my apps and the image that one for future use

 

Did you do a clean install of windows?

 

I entered in my pre-boot environment to see if I could help you and I noticed I don't have the "Reset to Factory" option anymore, either. But I used to... I have successfully restored to my factory settings before... This is weird.

I don't know if this happened after I installed the Vista SP1 patch for Rescue & Recovery (I installed it even though I don't hav the SP1 installed yet). Have you also installed this patch? Also, can anyone check if installing this patch somehow removes the "Restore to factory settings" option?

 

Hi. I have the Lenovo 3000 N200 laptop which has Windows Vista Home Premium pre-installed on it.
It worked great right up until I installed Ubuntu and it screwed up the Windows Vista parition. I took off Ubuntu and managed to restore my Windows Vista to a time before I installed Ubuntu. Now I want to restore it to the factory state so I can start again but the Rescue and Recovery was not working on F11. I found this thread and it seemed to help, but I still cannot get into Rescue and Recovery OR press the Lenovo care button. So, I cannot restore my Windows Vista. I would just use an OEM and re-install Vista from scratch but then I'd loose all the Lenovo products and drivers.
I hope somebody can help, I'm completely lost. Rescue and Recovery IS installed on my laptop, it doesn't look like it's damaged because it runs from Windows Vista but obviously doesn't give me many options as I'm running it as a program from inside Vista.
Thanks in advance!

 

You can't get to the "pre-boot" environment? But have you burned a CD and followed the steps written in the first post of this thread?

By the way, you can install Vsta again and maintain the Lenovo software even without restoring to factory state. Check this great tutorial.

 

I have followed all of the steps, nothing works. I hope there is something I can do to get back into the Rescue and Recovery so it'll restore to the factory state for me.

 

What do you mean by didn't work? Do you get to the "Abort, Retry, Fail" screen?

 

I go through the whole CD, right up until it says "The Operation was completed successfully". But when I boot, F11 does not go to Rescue and Recovery.

 

Have you installed the Rescue and Recovery software? You need to.

Download it here.

 

Of course I've installed that, it came with my computer (Lenovo) so it's there. I used to be able to boot into it using F11. I also can run it from Windows Vista when I'm on the actual system and this is what the program has:



And I cannot Restore from a backup as there are none.

EDIT: I think the reason I cannot restore to factory state is because when I originally installed Ubuntu Linux on a new partition it must have destroyed my hidden Lenovo partitions. So what I need to do is go through "stallen's" guide that you linked me to. I have one question from that drive though, at what time to I uninstall the Vista that is currently on my system, or do I just leave it and when I install the new Vista it'll go ontop of it?

 

Ok, so I cannot do that Restoring to factory state using that guide anymore because when I was recording the recovery media, it failed and you can only make one copy so I cannot progress further. So, what are the other options? I'm thinking use an OEM with the product key under my laptop and just install the needed drivers?

 

I've edited the first post. Try this:

 

You don't need to uninstall it. The new Vista will be installed on top of the old one.

You can ask Lenovo to send you recovery CDs. With their CDs, you'll be able to maintain the original Lenovo partition.

 

Since you're online, I thought I'd ask where to ask for them. I cannot find anything on their site, nothing for gettings these disks anyway.
Thanks for the help so far

 

Unfortunately, I don't know too. But I think you can call them and ask.

 

I just tried calling them, many times, and when I select for the Lenovo notebook 3000 series support "it doesn't recognize my choice". So, I've made a post in the Lenovo forums for some help, but I really need these disks.

 

You could try talking with an operator... I think it will be easier.

 

Well, I think what I'll have to do is call them in the US. I was told to and tell them my situation so hopefully this'll work.

 

I tried doing this (with Vista), but came across a problem.

After I got the "Write protect error writing drive A: Abort, Retry Fail?" message and hit F twice, I come to a screen saying "ThinkVantage Technologies Boot Manager Repair Program" and I hit Enter to continue. And thats it. Nothing else happens. The previous screen moves up a line (and keeps doing so if I hit another key), but nothing happens.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

 

Scratch that last post, I got the entire process to go though... but it still didn't fix anything.

When I start up my computer and hit the "ThinkVantage" button, I get to the "Startup Interrupt" menu and hit F11 to get into the Rescue and Recovery thing. However, after hitting F11, all I get is a screen telling me that "Windows Failed to Start."

Note that the Windows Failed to Start thing is happening to my computer before I went through this process. The reason I'm trying to get Rescue and Recovery to work is so I can at least save all the files on my hard drive since my last backup because it seems like I'm going to have to reinstall Vista (the problem with Vista, a "missing or corrupt" wdf01000.sys file isn't being solved with the repair function of the installation CD). So... yeah... any help would be greatly appreciated. I really don't want to lose everything. Any off the wall ideas would also be welcome at this stage (any way to "grab" the data from the hard drive at this point?).

 

Did you install the Rescue and Recovery software?

 

I've used it before, so I assumed it was already installed.

But if I still need to install it (or need to install it again), I can't imagine how I would do so. I can't access my OS, at all.

 

If you've used it, you probably have it installed. Don't know what might be happening... Entering the pre-boot environment, shouldn't pass by Windows...

 

Yeah, I'm at the point where I'm just going to buy one of those cables that lets you connect a (removed) laptop hard drive to another computer via a USB port.

I should probably start another topic on this, but does anyone have any experience doing that with ThinkPad notebooks? I assume that the hard drive can be removed, data taken off, and then the hard drive placed back into the laptop... right?

 

You shouls start a new topic. That way, your question will have more exposure.

 

Hi,

I tried phoning them in the US but didn't get through, neither did the UK. Any other ideas on how to contact them? I'm eager to get my laptop back to it's original state.

 

I'll assume you live in the UK. Try going to a Lenovo Authorised Warranty Service Provider or a Lenovo Premium Partner. I'm sure there are tons of those. Check this map:

http://customer.map24.com/lenovo/index.php?area=EUROPE&country=GB&metric=m&startfrom=true

For those that aren't in Europe, check this Service Provider page:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-44986&sitestyle=lenovo

 

I did a #nearly# clean install on my X61 in order to create a more stable OS. The thinkpad came with 32bit Vista and I reinstalled with x64 Vista. I installed all the software in the order given in the Stallen Clean Guide and left R&R 4.2 until last. My idea is that I want to have the option to boot into R&R should anything go wrong while on the road.

After having completed the above steps I have naturally lost access to the service R&R partition and presumed the R&R Repair Diskette would suffice to repair the MBR that Vista x64 will have overwritten.

First of all I do not have a floppy drive on the X61 so I created a bootable USB with just command.com and, on a desktop, copied the contents of the repair diskette to the USB drive, sparing the existing command.com. The program runs fine but only gives the option to repair, not replace, and at the end I still do not have access to the service partition. Pressing the Thinkvantage button just gives me the following options.

ESC - Normal Boot
F1 - Setup (BIOS)
F12 Boot options

I also tried using a CD with the ISO image provided. However that just leads to a continuously scrolling blue screen after the first ENTER prompt.

Any ideas?


X61 7673 2.4Ghz 2GB Vista Business x64 150GB HD

 

(Update to close my question)

1. I installed the patch for R&R Vista SP1.

2. Ran RnR from CD again, and each time I reached a blue scrolling screen and no prompt and no CD activity I pressed F for fail. I found out about this from the following link:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=58059&sid=e0c388148d7cde609f678fe878ef0761

After rebooting the F11 prompt appeared again, and by pressing it I successfully booted into the Service Partition R&R.
Before I could use the Thinkvantage button instead of F11, but times are tough, and life must go on.

 

The CD ISO will solve your problem. Unfortunately, most people don't read the entire post, before trying to repair the RnR function.

Follow the steps in the post, and keep pressing "F" when it is said:

 

Could this also work on a Gateway? It's also mising the F11 option after the post screen.

 

The above information is only relevant for Lenovo machines running Rescue and Recovery. You should check for other discussions concerning Gateway computers.

 

Yeah... I don't know if the MBR section of a Lenovo computer is equal to a Gateway's... Try asking that on this forum: Gateway and eMachines.

 

Help! I installed the ISO recommended here for the problem for Vista, which brought back my Rescue & Recovery functionality. However, my PC can no longer boot normally: Before Windows can start loading, I get the message, "A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart"

EDIT: I was successfully able to remove the changes done by this ISO file through bootrec.exe /fixmbr. This has brought me back to where I started - no way to get to the recovery console. Any ideas?

 

This happened to me yesterday after messing around with GParted.
Apparantely there's no solution other than fixmbr, fixboot, bootcfg

Just take a look at http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/19004/?o=60

I had to completely reinstall windows (desktop computer, not lenovo)

 

Hey andy, I am also trying to fix my F11
but now I am afraid to do so with this ISO
did you do anything wrong? on what computer did you do this?

i want to do it on a t400

 

Andy are you also trying to re-enable the F-11 in one of the new Thinkpads (T400, T500, W, etc..)?

When I made this ISO, the T61p was the latest notebook and this ISO works well with it. The error you are getting may be due to Lenovo making changes on the BIOS of the new Thinkpads... Not sure...

 

I tried this on a T60. I believe I followed all the steps correctly. Note: I never had to press F11 before the problem started - the blue ThinkVantage button brought me directly to Rescue & Recovery.

 

WOW THIS ACTUALLY WORKS!!!!

thnx arlab(or what ur actual name is)

sad part is I have 2 reinstall VISTA...

but now atleast i dont have 2 give my laptop 2 IBM.....

RnR is now up n running !!!!

Thnx a lot again!!!

Rahul !!!!

 

just signed on this forum 2 thnx arlab...

Keep up the good work !!!