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    T400 Recovery Disks used for plain XP install

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by caveatrob, Aug 30, 2010.

  1. caveatrob

    caveatrob Notebook Enthusiast

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    I got a Vista T400 with XP Downgrade with XP pre-installed. I created a recovery disk. I'm assuming it's XP?

    Is there any way to do a standard XP install from these disks and not a factory image??
     
    caveatrob, Aug 30, 2010
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  2. MidnightSun

    MidnightSun Emodicon

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    Not from those disks themselves, no. But, you can use the same product key to do a clean install of XP, provided you have a retail Windows XP installation disk (there are places to download this legally).
     
    MidnightSun, Aug 30, 2010
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  3. lead_org

    lead_org Purveyor of Truth

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    the XP retail discs installation (which is the one that you can download in various places on the net) can't be activated by the OEM key provided on the laptop. Only Vista and Win 7 can be activated by this method.
     
    lead_org, Aug 31, 2010
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  4. MidnightSun

    MidnightSun Emodicon

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    Oh really? In that case, thanks for the correction. There is no way to use the factory restore image to do a clean install, since it's just a disk image.
     
    MidnightSun, Aug 31, 2010
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  5. lead_org

    lead_org Purveyor of Truth

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    i have tried to do this many times, and there are articles about this. The only way is to get Microsoft give you another activation code, but they rarely do as they will ask you to contact the OEM laptop manufacturer about this issue.
     
    lead_org, Aug 31, 2010
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