Lenovo -- doesnot ship with OS Disc's-- be careful

I bought Lenovo T61 laptop with 160GB HDD and 2 GB of RAM (single DIMM). To my surprise there was only 143GB of available space. I know OS (WinXP PRO) takes around may be 2GB. what happened to my remaining GB space.
I paid around $24 more to get WINXP PRO instead of VISTA (which is out of box). They did not ship the OS Discs. When I called the customer service/ tech support they said that they wont ship the OS Disc's.

This is very annoying to me.

I would suggest not to buy the lenovo laptop.

 

Hi new guy!

This is a common topic on this board. you can make the recovery disk you are talking about from your new computer.

you can also delete a hidden partition on your hard drive that has all that recovery information on it after making those disks. be careful though the hidden partition has some other features you may want.

I suggest using the search feature here to read several discussions on the topic. What the partition does. how to make disks. how to delete and merge the hidden partition. how to delete backups and recover lost hard disk space etc.

XP pro on a lenovo computer should take up more like 5-8 gig on your thinkpad due to all the thinkvantage software bundled with it. There are also guides on here how to clean install XP and reduce it back to the 2gig you are used to seeing.

I think you'll find the T61 to be a great machine once you get used to it and learn a few things

Enjoy!

 

That "missing space" on your hard drive is a partition containing your factory install.

 

Yep--this is common practice, if it was such a big deal, you should have confirmed first. Most laptop manufacturers do not included media. You can create a recovery disc if needed. As far as HDD space is concerned:

First of all, 1 advertised GB is not 1 real GB. Companies state that 1MB=1000Bytes. 1MB actually is 1024 bytes. This just scales up to GB giving you fewer GB than advertised. Also, recovery partition and Windows will take some space. You got what you paid for.

 

To answer your frustrations, There are probably no manufacturers left that actually ship with the OS Cds/DVDs or will ship after the fact. You can create your own recovery CD's after your initial startup. As for the real size of your HD space, formatting any drive will always reduce the total amount of usable space. The file system and structure actually take up space from the advertised GB count. In addition, the hidden partition for the recovery info and the OS installed on top of that will account for your lost storage space. You have not been robbed, you are just a bit misinformed as to what you have acquired.

 

I know it takes space for OS and other things, but using up 17GB for this purspose is not at all right in any sense.

 

Do the math. 160x1000^3/(1024^4)=149GB, and you also have about 5-6GB in the hidden service partition, so 143GB available in C: is right.

This happens to any laptop you buy. If you don't believe, just get a Dell or HP or Sony or whatever laptop you can get/borrow and look at it yourself.

 

^^^ just to simplify what vespoli just said... You can always count on REAL hard drive space being about 7% less than the advertised hard drive space.

So 160GB x .07 = 11.2GB ... 160GB - 11.2GB = 148.8GB If your hard drive was completely empty you would only have 148.8GB of space available.

This goes for any manufacturer and any hard drive.

ooops... I'll stop there. I see dickeywang has done some math also. Anyway, you get the point. As already stated you can make recovery disks and then delete the recovery partition to claim some more space if you'd like.

 

Wow! What happened to this board? I was more or less expecting the OP to be flamed due to him commenting on things which have been discussed many times in the past. His last statement about recommending people not to buy a Lenovo laptop because of the so-called missing OS discs, would in many cases make people put this newcomer to shame and "put him in his place".

But instead I see helpful people who in a pleasant manner inform the OP about what he is misinformed about. What a pleasant surprise in this day and age where many people (i.e. internet warriors and immature kids) tend to flame more than they help. Maybe I have just been exposed to too many negative and immature posts on NBR lately.

In any event, keep up the good work and help, people!

On a side note: Riaz, I suggest you surf through these boards and search on the topics which are related to your notebook. You will find a lot of useful information. As for your OS disc not being there, I do not find it a valid reason to recommend people not to buy a Lenovo laptop. After all, you do not buy a laptop because of the OEM OS disc. As for how to solve the issue, simply make a set of recovery discs as stated by others in this thread. Have fun.

 

Yeah, just to make sure the OS disk thing is clear. I think the only people that give out OS disks anymore are the places that are making custom built laptops. I'm pretty sure that btotech.com milestone.com gentechpc.com xoticpc.com are still shipping OS disks with their custom built laptops. Local PC shop probably include them as well. But the big name manufacturers don't... Sony, Lenovo, HP, Dell and so on. You're right JabbaJabba... what am I thinking...

DIE EVIL NEW PERSON!!!




Just kidding



.

 

then let me start the flaming...no im joking

but really riaz....dont buy lenovo because of this? maybe if you said something valid such as build quaility is worse than before..that is a legitimate reason..but this?

contact any other manufacturer and you'll see that is almost same across the board

 

I received an "Anytime Upgrade" disc with my CTO T61 that allowed me to reinstall Vista Home Premium after I formatted the hard drive (it's a long story involving me, my new laptop, and a failed Ubuntu install).

The serial key from the bottom of the lappy worked fine for the installation of Windows. Did others get this disc as well? It seems to have the full version of your OS on it -- or, at least it did for me.

 

The OP is talking XP. The anytime upgrade disk is a Vista installation disk.

 

I agree I think it is a scam.

But is a very common scam.

The Hard Disk issue is something that has been questioned since day 1, maybe one day someone will actually goto court and get it settled.

The OS disks is another story. When XP first debuted they would ship an XP installation disk. But this posed a problem. People were upgrading their PCs and using the XP disk to install XP. This should be perfectly legal, but Microsoft in its monopolistic practices sells the OS to the vendors (Lenovo, Dell, etc.... ), at a discounted price. But in turn the OS is limited to the exact configuration that the vendor ships. From a consumer prospective, if you buy a license to an OS, you should be able to use 1 copy one any system. But to achieve this Microsoft wants you to effectively pay double-triple the cost per license. So now, vendors don't ship OS disk, instead they ship crippled 'factory restore' options that contain an OS that is bound to a certain system.

It is a scam, but it is not Lenovo's scam, blame Microsoft if you wish to blame someone.

 

It isn't a scam in either form. The reality is that Lenovo sells you a machine which is licensed to run whatever version of Windows and THAT IS IT. They aren't giving you a license for Windows, they are licensing that hardware to run it. That is why buying an OEM or Retail version of Windows costs more - you're buying one copy, while mfr's are buying thousands upon thousands. Due to the low pricing that mfr's get, they are required by MS to apply that license to only that individual machine.

It's not a scam, it's business.

 

Depends on your defintion of a scam. I tend to think being force fed exactly what 1 or 2 large companies want you to have with no choice across any platforms, AND being forced to pay like it or not. I think that is a scam.

It is definitely not business, it is called monopoly, they are 2 very different things. Business in the daily talk involves companies that compete, monopoly involves a select few businesses controlling an entire market.

Don't think its a scam? Read the latest recommendation to the EU. I'll paraphrase it for you: Separate Systems from OS.

This relates directly to the original post as consumers tend to think when you 'buy' something it is yours to do with as you please, not how some company will dictate to you.