Lenovo T60 - Help with Thinkvantage Rescue & Recovery

Hi,

I am new to these forums. VERY handy for finding info/support, especially as the Lenovo documentation and websites leaves a lot to be desired...

Gonna be a long one, including some ranting. Sorry... So, thanks in advance for reading and any help on offer!!!

Bought a brand new Lenovo T60 15" widescreen (1600x1050 screen), pre-installed with Vista Business. Messed around with it for a day or two, and now want to put the original "hidden partition disk image" back to start over. Clean start, so to say...

Read this thread: Worst Bloatware offenders http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1892044

But, things don't always not making sense...

My questions would be:

1. How do I confirm that I do have the pre-installed original "hidden partition disk image"? And that is it 100% as it should be? Quite new to Vista, so not exactly sure how to find the partition information to verify. Especially as this is supposed to be hidden from the OS.

2. How do I launch the Thinkvantage Rescue & Recovery process? I rebooted, and pressed the blue "Thinkvantage" button as some documentation says. Tried with F11, as other documentation says. Tried modifying the boot order and predesktop settings as yet more documentation says. No joy... In the end I made a rescue disk using the Thinkvantage tools on Vista, booted from that, and that kinda worked.

3. The above thread (and the rescue & recovery documentation) mentions a "full" or "partial" (choose programs) recovery once in the Rescue & Recovery app. HOW for the love of *** to I choose the "partial" option. It never gets there...

4. When I finally got round to a "full" restore, the PC sat there for about 3 hours doing nothing. The disk activity light wasn't flashing, leading me to believe there's no reformatting or copying happening. Eventually gave up and rebooted, and the "currently installed" version of Vista booked A-OK. So, what happened to the reformat, lose all data, copy that was supposed to happen?

Anyway, I am also in Switzerland, and could only get a German version. My German kinda sux. Know enough to help myself, but may not aways get the finer details of complex technical jargon in German (like the help in Rescue and Recovery).

Grrr...

Can anyone help with this please? Once I have done it once, I won't forget how. Just cant find enough detailed sequential step-for-step descriptions to figure out what I am missing...

Having said that, is a clean install better? If so, will a clean install work off the Upgrade Anywhere disc, as there is nothing other than the "hidden partition disk image" to work from? Can the proper Lenovo/Thinkvantage tools and drivers be installed after Vista completes to have the snazzy fingerprint security, etc features?

Regards.

Van

 

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1. 100% its on there, press the blue button during startup, and it should load vista for a little bit, then drop into the recovery area.

2. To make the first/only disc, you need to be inside of the main operating system, the recovery area is only for restoring.

3. The partial restore off of the "factory" restore option should still be there. I cant confirm this though, since my factory restore is from a Windows XP machine, not vista.

4. Out of the 3-4 thinkpads I have done restores on, it has been hit or miss. I had a Z60m that during the restore process always crashed in the same spot loading drivers. HD's can easily corrupt, so if you are having that problem you might want to ask for a copy of authentic Lenovo recovery discs to make sure all is good.

If you have the means through a Vista copy from school, or something of that nature, nothing beats a fresh install. Even stripping down a restore seems to leave bits and pieces in the background that never fully go away. Since I have copies of various things laying around from past machines that have been upgraded or replaced that I still hold the licenses to, I can do this. Having a school that gives you free software through a MSDN contract really helps though