Stupid question, not really worth asking, but I'm stuck

I recently purchased a nearly-fully loaded W520 which I absolutely love. It's amazing. But, like any computer, it can get dropped, broken, or stolen. So I need a back-up.

That back-up will be my last Thinkpad, a five-year old R52. It can't do everything I need from it, but it will handle my word and powerpoint docs which I need for my job (I'm a professor).

One of reasons I upgraded is that the hard drive in my R52 went bad. I plan on replacing it with a new hard drive and freshly installing everything. Problem is, I don't have the Windows disks (XP Prof.). I can't get an image off the disk because about two years ago, I had the OS freshly installed, and as far as I can tell (and I've looked), there isn't an image.

You'd think that it'd be easy to find disks. But I can't. Microsoft doesn't (seem) to sell them. Lenovo didn't provide them. And everyone I've asked (and that's many people) doesn't have them.

So help me out, please. Where can I find an install disk?

Thanks so much.

(There is probably an obvious solution I haven't thought of...)

 

I don't really understand you dilemna. Do you want to preserve your files or do you want to wipe out your old hard drive on the R52 and re-install Windows XP professional?

If your objective is to preserve the files, you can just copy and paste all your powerpoints into an external hard disk/ USB drive. You can get a USB hard drive docking station to read the R52 hard drive directly if the R52 doesn't detect it.

If you want to do a Windows XP installation disk, I'm sure the computer support service at your university would have a copy available. As for legal means of downloading Win XP, I'm not sure if there is one, but for Windows 7 clean installation there is a really nice guide shown in this link. Hope this helps.

 

As a professor you can purchase Windows 7 Professional for $29.95 so I'd just put that on the R52, just make sure to get the 32-bit version. Before spending $29.95 I'd check with your technology department to see if they get a volume discount and have licenses available to faculty for free.

How educators and students can save on Microsoft software

That MSFT page should provide a guide of how to find if your school has a licensed deal and how to get your academic discount.

 

You can make your own xp installation cd from the windows that you have already installed. That is what i did when i was doing clen install on my laptop as the smart axes from lenovo did not want to send me one, even though i complained a lot that i have already paid for this os. Anways, either search for xp clean install and my nick in this forum, or wait untill i get home and hopefully dont forget to send you the link that i posted on here like some 3 years ago. Im posting this from my iphone so cant do much right now, lol

 

i would post a want to buy at marketplace of forum.lenovo.com, there should be some people whom can sell you the recovery media fairly cheaply.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...rs-even-if-you-dont-have-installation-cd.html