T400 Factory Recovery Discs on CD-R info

I have a T400 with Vista Business 32 bit. I chose not to get the DVD burner (I have a desktop to burn videos). Of course, I outsmarted myself.

For my system, the Factory Recovery Discs took 12 CD-R discs. 8.4GB. I am estimating 3 DVDs would have done the trick. So, just so you all know.

btw I only had 12 when I started... I was sure hoping to see 'process complete' after the last one burned. Lucky me.

 

Wow yeah 12 disks and imagine the time you have to actually restore with the 12 disks.

I don't get why Lenovo doesn't add the DVD burner as a standard equipment in their Business line notebook. Instead there is a $50 premium to it. Maybe they should just add that into the price.

 

If you already have an internal DVD burner drive somewhere, get a cheap adapter for like 20 bucks and use the drive to burn the recovery media. That's what I did.

 

Wha?? I have a couple of internals laying around.. in old, dead laptops... what is this adaptor of which you speak?

 

I agree that making 12 CD-Rs can be a pain, but this might be probably the only time that you will use the drive's writing feature this much. I mean after I made my DVD recovery media, I haven't burned anything using the drive. I have used it to watch movies, but thats about it. I have a 4GB flash drive that I use to transfer files back and fourth between machines and don't use optical discs like I used to. Just something to keep in mind if someone is looking on shaving a few dollars off their order.

 

tony, I meant a internal 3.5" DVD burner drive, I'm unsure if an internal laptop drive could be used as an external USB drive.
If you have an external HDD you could use an enclosure and do a full image using Acronis True Image also.

 

Now I am doubly stupid. I got the lowest end 80GB drive with my T400 and my Hitachi 5K320 just arrived. I could have simply used the old 80GB as a way to recover..

Dang!