T61 - Restore To Vista?

Hi ,
just got a T61 ( I think its a T61P , Not 15.4 , the smaller ;P)
and it had XPSP2 installed.

went on to the recovery (blue button and stuff) and found out it reinstalled XP SP2 And not vista (altho it has a vista key )

Suggestions?

 

If your system came with XP, then the blue button will restore to factory state, which in your case is XP. Did it ever have Vista installed on it?

 

it is possible to get the recovery disks for XP and install it on a thinkpad originally loaded with vista. With that in mind I would suggest using the model number and serial number and look it up on lenovos website to see what it was originally configured with. If it was originally vista, call tech support (not customer service) tell them you have no way of creating recovery disks (explain your situation). They should send you disks free, so you can put vista on you computer and be all nice and legal.

 

Well , its not my computer originally as i just got it from the company
i think it was pre-owned for 2 months by another worker from my company.

once i recived it , it was already connected to our domain with xpsp2 , i tried the recovery , and saw it recovers back to xpsp2 , is there a way to preload this recovery with vista or should i just format , install xp business and use the serial on the back?

 

Do you mean Vista business?

 

Yep , my bad .
Vista Buisness

 

Well, I guess you need to see if the computer originally came with business. Do the lookup on Lenovos site to see which version of Vista it came with. After that you have some options.

1. You can leave everything as is. Preload of XP with XP recovery partition.

2. You can get the recovery disks of vista for the machine you have by the method I described before and preload vista. This will completely wipe the drive and preload vista and give you a vista recovery partition, which of course will wipe out your xp recovery partition.

3. you can format your XP preload and leave the XP recovery partition intact, then clean install Vista on the main partition. This would be a real challenge since you do not have the product key you would need to do the clean install. I know you have the label on the bottom, but that key is not the one used to do the clean install, for more info about that read one of the clean install guides here (usually on the first page of threads). Clean installing is a little more challenging than recovery, or even installing from recovery disks, and you should completely read the guides for vista before doing anything.

My suggestion is to call for the recovery disks. They will ask you for the model number and serial number of the machine and send you the disks that are supposed to be used with your machine, if it is Vista, it will be the correct version that was originally ordered with the laptop, probably business since it is a company laptop, but that is not guaranteed.

If the recovery disks are for Vista, make sure your company can get all your network stuff to work with it before recovering with those disks because it will erase all partitions and operating systems that currently exist on the drive.

If you use the recovery disks they send you it will automatically install the product key and it will not be the one on the bottom of the computer. If you use this method you will then have the info you need to clean install without the need to activate windows, but you will have to format and start over again to clean install.

If you use your own vista disk and try to use the key on the bottom it may or may not work. I've heard three versions of this scenario.
1. Installed and activated online without issue.
2. Installed and would not activate, called Microsoft, talked to a rep and activated without a problem.
3. Installed and would not activate, called Microsoft, talked to a rep and they would not activate, citing an invalid key.

So it seems that that course would be activation lottery unless someone else has more recent info on the subject.

 

Worst case scenario i just ask my company for another key , we have loads of it =)

i rather do the preoload thing tho first

 

T61 7663-13G

This is the model i have