PatchySan's Guide to Clean Installing Windows 7 on the ThinkPad

Hearst you make the best guilds lol, even tho I can do it myself but its still nice to see such organized and visually appealing guild

 

Any opinions on if battery life is really worse with the clean install? I am running a factory image right now but I may do a clean install here pretty soon.

 

On my X230, battery life has been the same after the fresh install, and voltage at idle has been about the same as well.

 

I'm running a clean install on the least expensive ThinkPad, the E520. The battery life appears about the same, but the notebook is snappier and everything works. SmartAudio never worked from the factory, but with a clean install bingo, it works!

 

Are there any ThinkVantage tools absolutely worth installing? The only one I really use is Power Manager and even that seems useless from time to time. After my system goes into stand-by mode due to being idle a few times my computer completely ignores whichever power setting I choose so I'm thinking about abandoning that too now that my thresholds are already set.

 

It is hardly useless. It's the best tool for managing power on a ThinkPad. Make sure to create your own power profile with it and set all of the battery and AC settings to your liking.

As for suspend/resume, all bets are off. Most of the ThinkPads I've used in the T and W series aren't very good at sleep and resume.

 

Don't get me wrong I do think it's useful...when it works. After my computer enters system stand-by a few times (some arbitrary number of times), my computer inexplicably decides to ignore the power profile it was set on.

 

Maybe you didn't read my remark about the unpredictability of ThinkPads when using sleep/resume.

 

Ah, while it still isn't acceptable that this occurs I suppose I can find solace in that I'm not the only one with this problem or rather it might not be of my doing .

 

I apologize if this has already been addressed but I couldn't seem to find it on this thread.
I expect to receive my T430 within the next few weeks and can't seem to understand the benefits of a clean install. I do not plan on adding/modifying any of the hardware on my T430 (such as adding a SSD).
Can anybody point out their reasons as to why they perform a clean install of Windows 7 rather than just go with the factory image.
Thanks in advance.

 

So I have an academic version of Office 2010 installed. Am interested in doing a clean install on my T420, and was wondering if there's any equivalent of ABR for Office 2010.

 

You can try Advanced Tokens Manager which apparently can back up and restore your Office 2010 activation on the same system.

 

Is there any reason I should download active protection system or solution center?

 

If you have a SSD then there is no reason to have Active Protection System, it may come useful for those with standard hard drives though. I don't find the Solution Center to be all that useful personally so I would skip it to save resources.

 

If I still use my standard hdd in the ultrabay, should I use the protection system?

 

To be honest I have this setup with my T420 and I don't have the Active Protection System installed. I tend to carry my T420 around my house while switched on but my mechanical drive in the Ultrabay was fine including all HDD SMART checks too. Of course we're not talking as if you're vigourously shaking the system but within reasonable means of moving your system from one room to another for example it should be fine.

 

Hey Hearst a quick question. You have a special note about the fingerprint users to use Bios instead of UEFI mode. Can you elaborate a little more on this?


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Hi Hearst! I have 2 questions regarding the clean install i did recently with your valuable help:
1. My t420 had a win7 pro 64bit version, so i dowloaded the 64 bit win 7 iso, but in my program files there's a folder called Program Files(x86) wich i tought i was adressed for the 32 bit version, what's with that? my confusion only perhaps? This question is because i'am interested on installing that juicy looking dolby home theater v4 :B !
2. I haven't activated my win 7, i live in Mexico and sadly the phone that the automated phone system gives me doesn't work D: , do you think that if i call from México to the US phone i can get in trouble or something? I bought the t420 from outlet.lenovo.com with the help of an uncle who is a US resident...also maybe if you recall (maybe XD), before doing my clean install i tried to burn my lenovo recovery discs but they didn't work, i'am thinking on calling lenovo to see if they can provide me with a free set of recovery discs :B
Thanks for your kind help!

 

Is it better to get drivers from Lenovo or directly from individual device manufacturers? For example, Lenovo's Wireless LAN driver is a whopping 242MB (?!?!) while directly from Intel not only do you have the option of obtaining just the driver (8MB) but the driver and software together are only 50MB. The downside is the drivers from Intel are generic versions and "Each laptop computer original equipment manufacturer (OEM) may have altered the features, incorporated customizations, or made other changes to the software or software packaging they provide. The software provided has not been verified by your laptop manufacturer as to compatibility or other operation." Thoughts?

 

At the time people noted that the software which Lenovo use to authenticate fingerprints on the sensor refuses to work under UEFI mode leaving the function to be quite useless, yet it functions fine on the standard BIOS installation instead. I'm not 100% sure whether Lenovo had fixed the issue or not with their recent updates but on the safe side for those who depends on the fingerprint functionality will probably be better off staying with the tried and tested BIOS installation mode instead of UEFI.

This is normal, on 64 bit operating systems you have 2 Program Files directories - one for x86 (32 bit) and one for 64 bit. This is to allow certain legacy 32 bit applications which require this directory to install and work correctly on your 64 bit operating system so nothing to be worried about.

I don't see why you will be in trouble for phoning Microsoft in the US, but if you use the ABR route you don't need to phone Microsoft as you can simply restore the activation done by Lenovo before. As for the Recovery Discs Lenovo should be able to provide a replacement assuming you tried to make one but somehow it failed, just contact them and explain the situation and hopefully they can send you a new set of recovery discs.

I think Lenovo would have tweaked some settings to allow the adapter to compliment with their power management software. But from experience I have used the generic Intel drivers on my ThinkPad and found it to be more stable than the Lenovo ones, I'm not sure whether the power saving modes on the OEM drivers kept knocking off the connection randomly but I did notice stability improvements on my connection using the standard Intel drivers alone.

 

Thank you very much Hearst, i tried a few hours to get an answer from the Lenovo support phone (Mexico) but finally they're sending me the recovery discs!! 10 working days they will get here hopefully, so maybe in a few days i'll finally set my t420 as a dual boot(ubuntu &win7) and try it out :B, any recomendations of a gnu/linux OS insted of ubuntu ?

 

I have two questions regarding creating ThinkPad disk recovery:

1. Is there much advantage of creating the recovery media on USB instead of DVDs?
2. Will a 16GB USB drive be enough for this purpose because I know HP for example recommends a 32 GB flash drive?

 

Everyone like USB sticks for the speed on reuse. However, how often do you plan to use the factory recovery DVD set? I only use it if I decide to sell a machine. Then I use it to setup the drive and toss the DVD set in the box with the machine. Are you going to do that with a USB stick?

I like to make the DVD set and store them for later. I am not in the habit of storing a USB stick several years for this purpose.

 

This definitely makes sense and answers my question. I guess I am just gonna create the DVDs. Thanks.

 

For the fingerprint issue, is the issue that it won't work at all(POST and in the OS), or just POST? I'd like to use the fingerprint sensor within Windows 7, but I don't know the pros/cons of UEFI vs Legacy BIOS.

 

I have one last question regarding the recovery media creation. Does it matter if I have DVD-R and not +R?

 

My Lenovo ThinkPad Edge has both a 16 GB SSD and a 300 GB HDD. When I go through Hearsts clean install win 7 guide, when I get to the instructions of loading AMD SATA driver/partitions/installing win 7, I am a bit stumped.

In the screenshot, there is only disk0 - 30 GB unallocated space. However, I have two disks (disk0 - 16 GB unallocated space: my SSD) & (disk1 - 300 GB unallocated space: my HDD). I am planning to just have one partition on each disk.


Do I need to highlight and install my AMD SATA driver on each disk? (both disk0 and on disk1?)

Also, which disk should I install win 7 on (which would create System Reserved partition also on that disk)?


FYI, I do notice that if I were to try and use the 16 GB SSD, a message displays that recomends 23 GB available for installing the OS.

Thanks!

 

I would like this answered as well...just curious what are the advantages and disadvantages (if any) of doing a clean install.

Thank.

 

It will POST but the fingerprint function will not work at all (see info here). The benefits of UEFI is faster start up (around 2-3 seconds quicker than Legacy boot) but it does so at the expense of some compatibility. If you need to use the Fingerprint sensor then you should run under Legacy mode for it to work properly, you would be trading off the slightly faster boot times but in real terms it's not really that much.

The SATA driver is loaded on to the OS drive so you just need to do this once, not for each drive. But 16GB is quite small for installing Windows 7 if you look at the system requirements so you will need a slightly bigger capacity drive to be able to install the OS on. Don't forget you may also want to install applications on the faster drive so you should be looking at 64GB SSD as the bare minimum.

This article may be of interest to you. I think the benefit of the factory image is the slightly lower power consumption that some people have reported, but a clean installation will have slightly faster boot ups and lower amount of processes (RAM usage) compared to the stock image.

 

Hearst, first of all, let me thank you very much for your response to my question and for your overall guide!

Yes, I agree 16GB is quite small for the OS. That's how my ThinkPad Edge was shipped to me from the factory(16GB SSD & 300GB HDD). WHY, In your opinoin, would Lenovo build a system this way? What is the point? Looking at my invoice line items, I see my 16GB SSD is called a "Micro Hard Drive -- Hard Disk Driver Performance Booster". Can you take a stab at what purpose this was designed for out of the factory? And, what, if anything, I should be using it for now that I'm doing a clean install?

 

When shipped like that from the factory, the drive is configured to be used as cache. See some details here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/670305-x230-msata-cache-only.html

 

hi people

I ran into an annoying problem today. I did a clean install on my W520 on a SSD and everything went fine. Installed all drivers, windows updates etc etc.. Used ABR to backup my original Activation and restored it.

I initially had Win 7 Professional x64. I downloaded the same from Digital River, installed and restored my ABR activation. It showed that my windows was activated and I was quite happy with it.

And then, I suddenly see a popup saying my windows is NOT GENUINE. I don't have a COE sticker at the bottom of my laptop.

What do I do now? Why is my Windows not Genuine? How do I fix it? I'm really upset and frustrated about this

 

Look under your battery for the COA.

 

I recently freshly installed Windows 7 Professional 64-bit and my apps on T530 (the same exact apps and same SSD I used on other ThinkPads) but this time, I get a long lag time between the welcome screen and the appearance of my desktop. It happens most of the times I restart (A very few times, it does not happen). I tried formatting and reinstall of the same apps but I got the exact same thing. It makes me frustrated as it increases the starting time and makes me feel as if I am booting from an HDD. Any clue?

Update: Problem solved! I changed the computer network ID in System Properties from a network computer to a local home computer and no more delay for the desktop to appear after the Welcome screen!

 

Thank you very much. Didn't really notice the sticker there until you told me.

Anyway, looks like the genuine warning was just a one time issue. I was I think updating some drivers / windows update and it popped up. May be some service which was enforcing the license happened to crash at that time. Been operating full day today, no genuine warnings or anything. Seems back to normal.

from GT-N7000 via Tapatalk 2

 

Thank you very much for this guide! Very helpfully I used with my new W530.

 

I just got my W530 i the mail today, and I'm following your guide. Thank you, Hearst.

 

That 16GB SSD serves as a cache of frequently used applications -- hence the phrase "hard disk drive performance booster." Such a cache is managed by Intel Smart Response Technology. If you happen to go to BIOS and change the setting of that 16GB drive from Intel Smart Response to AHCI, it will become a regular drive for file storage.

A couple of years ago, Seagate introduced the Momentus XT Hybrid line of hard disk drives. Such a drive contains on its controller board between 4GB and 8GB solid-state cache. It's roughly the same concept as above, but the cache sits right within the disk drive itself.

If you do a clean Windows 7 install, I suppose you have 2 options. One, continue to use the HDD and rely on the 16GB SSD cache as Lenovo originally intended. Two, you can buy a larger SSD to replace the stock 16GB SSD, change its BIOS setting to AHCI, install Windows 7 on it, and designate it the boot drive. In the second scenario, the HDD becomes a storage drive.

 

Hey guys, on my W530, I did a clean install and now the Microphone mute button doesn't work. Any ideas? Does it only work in Solution Center or something?

 

^^^ Did you miss the Power Management Driver? (latest version 1.65.05.21, 06 Jul 2012)

 

Hearst - thank you very much for making this guide, saved me a lot of time in the process. Also, my startup time decreased by nearly 30%, so you'll be saving me a lot of time in the months to come!

Edit: For the rescue disc creation process, the boot disc need not necessarily be a CD; I used a DVD. So that's four DVDs in total. This is using version 4.50 of the lenovo rescue disc creation software

 

Worked like a charm. Thanks

 

Hi Hearst,
Thank very much for your helpful installation guide, it couldn't have been clearer. On my brand new W530, I was able to make a clean install of W7 pro (and switching language in the process).
I am into the tweaking part now thanks to the useful links you posted.
The thing I can't figure at the moment is how to get boot time around the 15sec you got from your benchmarking tests ?
My tweaking got me to 18sec boot time (18s to desktop in bootracer / desactived GUI) with around 60 services running. I unchecked most of the entries in the startup list , leaving only a handful of them (lenovo pm, MSE, realtek,synaptic). I used the "safe" list from BlackViper to disable services I don't need, I left the Windows Search feature though.
I am wondering if I am not reaching some kind of limit here since there won't be much left to disable/uncheck ?

my specs : W530 /3610 QM / 16Go 1600Mhz Vengeance / 256Go 830 Samsung / K2000M / FHD

 

I have a new X230 tablet that's great - and just ordered a Samsung 256gb 830 (7mm) drive.

Would it be best to do a clean install at this point? I have the Lenovo recovery discs on the way, but have done clean installs in the past. For some reason, I remember reading that a clean install has worse battery life than a factory image.

Any advice?

 

A possible solution is to install the ThinkVantage Power Manager and configure your settings for maximum battery life. Hard to tell if I have worse battery life or not when using that unless I turn on Turbo Boost. Then my battery dies very fast but games like Skyrim run in the low to mid 30fps range.

 

I did a clean install, with Lenovo's power manager w/my Samsung 830. My power consumption in watts is slightly less than the factory image on the regular hard drive, both at idle and in operation. The battery life is roughly the same or slightly better w/the SSD. That's on my new X230. YMMV and all that, but for me I definitely didn't take a battery life hit w/the fresh install. I'm running it super-stripped down, either.

 

The Intel RST drivers don't work with the X230 tablet. What should I use for the install?

Nevermind. I downloaded this .exe and extracted to a USB drive. Used that for the install. Worked fine.

Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver Windows 7 (64-bit), Vista (64-bit) and XP (64-bit) - ThinkPad

 

just finished doing a clean install on my crucial mSATA. ran the windows index scores and got a 1.0 for my graphics??

 

Try updating the graphic drivers to the latest ones and ensure the Power Options are set at maximum performance when you run the test. On newer systems you should get a graphics score of at least 5.0 or more.

 

Thanks for the quick reply Hearst. I will look into that. Also, when I was updating all the drivers, I wasn't able to update "Biometric coprocessor" because it said it couldn't find it in my DRIVERS folder. Any idea what it is and how I can update that driver? thanks

EDIT: btw, I went ahead and installed everything on the Lenovo System Update. Not sure if that's good or not? lol