T61: XP SP2 Clean Install - Less Trivial than expected

I'm sure most people have installed XP more than once over the years. My T61 has given me the most trouble, so I thought I might let you guys know what has worked the best so far.

First I'll explain the issues I have encountered.
Install 1: I tried slipstreaming a copy of xpsp2 with all updates and every driver I thought I would need for the laptop, this worked okay, but did still not get past the AHCI/Compatible BIOS setting. This build also seemed to have ACPI issues as I couldn't reboot without fully powering down the laptop and I had no sound, even after installing UAA.

Install 2: I went with a non slipstreamed version of xpsp2, installed everything correct, I thought, and was just about complete. However, I had an extra PCI device that was not recognized. I'm going off memory here, but I think it was "ICH8M-E LPC Interface Controller - 2821". Anyways, that annoyed me and I tried a couple of fixes and ultimately ended up with ACPI issues _again_.

Install 3: I think I found the correct order, granted I see the error about my Turbo Memory, it's clean and working well so far.

Install order I went with:

Go to the bios, change the SATA from AHCI to Compatible, Install.

1) UAA High Def Audio Driver you'll need it for your modem and SoundMax

2) Chipset Drivers 8.3 - reboot

3) Storage Matrix Driver - Run the install.cmd file from the prepare directory, reboot and change the bios back to AHCI. Select no for the hardware wizard and install from a specific location, choose the main folder and it will select the 82801 HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller. Lenovo references 82801GBM, however, I've had no issues with the HEM selection. Reboot again.

4) 7.5 Driver for Intel Storage Matrix This installs a couple of extra utilities, you can remove them later if you like.

5) HotKey Driver - If you have bluetooth installed, you'll need this to use fn + F5 to enable it for the bluetooth installation.

The rest of the install is pretty cut and dry. I have zero thinkvantage software installed, besides the Hotkey utility. A quick rundown of the remaining items needed would be the Intel Ethernet driver, Bluetooth software, Audio software, ACPI power management, wireless card, and modem driver. Get them here.

If this helps anyone, great... I have never spent 8 hours installing XP before so if it saves anyone time, I've done my job.

 

Hey,

I am actually receiving my T61 tomorrow and am planning on re-installing XP SP2. I am a little confused. From your experience, it seems like a lot more is needed than the following guide I found..........

1. Attach a diskette drive to your computer.
2. Download Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver from the Web site and
extract the driver to C:\DRIVERS\WIN\IMSM and copy the driver to
a diskette.
3. To make sure that SATA AHCI is enabled, start the BIOS Setup
Utility menu.
4. Select Config.
5. Select Serial ATA (SATA).
6. Select AHCI.
7. Change the startup sequence of your computer. Following the
instructions on the Startup menu in the BIOS Setup Utility, set
the CD-ROM drive to start first.
8. Insert the CD for Windows XP into the CD or DVD drive, and restart
the computer.
9. To install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver first, press F6.
10. When prompted, select S for Specify Additional Device.
11. When prompted, insert the diskette that you created in step 2, and
press Enter.
12. - If your system has Intel(R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller
Select Intel(R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH8M-E/M),
and press Enter.
- If your system has Intel(R) 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller
Select Intel(R) 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH7M/DH),
and press Enter.
13. To continue the installation, press Enter again. Leave the
diskette in the drive until the next reboot; the software may
need to be copied from the diskette again when the files are
copied during setup.
14. Follow the instruction to complete the OS installation.

 

Yeah... that didn't work for me. I tried a slipstream and a driver disk. Just use the alternate method.

One more thing, the website references our controller as the GBM, but it's actually the HEM/HBM.

Hope that helps.

 

Doesn't the BIOS offer you an option to use the SATA drive like an IDE drive, thus negating the need for a RAID driver?

 

The first set of instructions were great, did the job for me. A few points that others may find useful:

- If you don't do the first BIOS change, Windows installation won't find the harddrive. That's how I found this page the first time
- Installed the "UAA High Def Audio Driver" doesn't actually install the driver. It installs the chipset driver and you'll need to install the audio software and point the hardware installation wizard to it otherwise it'll keep prompting on each reboot
- At the end, all I had was a single "Unknown Device" on the Intel(R) ICH8M-E LPC Interface Controller

Thanks skint80, you saved me a boatload of time.

 

Can you elaborate on that? I have the UAA installed and when I try to install the audio drivers I get a message that my hardware is not supported and it also says "if you uninstalled the drivers without rebooting, please reboot and try again"
Thanks!

 

Did you definitely install the UAA package before you tried to install Soundmax or the modem software?

 

absolutely. Most times I just follow the installation order you gave, so I do it first.
The strange thing is that my device manager doesn't show the device with the question mark. I think that most people get that before installing the soundmax drivers

 

I downgraded from vista to XP prof,, now I don't find the driver for Intel turbo memory for XP,, does anyone have any idea about this?

 

DOESN'T EXIST

 

I don't think there are any drivers under XP.

 

I am officially on my third install of XP on my T61. Luckily i found your post before i started. I am having the same problems you describe.

I have a few questions though. Did you install System Update or any of the Power Management features?

Thanks for the help.

 

BTW, does this also apply for T60's?

I got referred from my own thread to this one, about downgrading from Vista down to XP Prof.

I havent done it yet, but I'm worried about similar problems.

 

- At the end, all I had was a single "Unknown Device" on the Intel(R) ICH8M-E LPC Interface Controller

What does the "missing device" notice refer to? Which hardware part is not operating?

 

What happens if you get your T61 pre-installed with Windows XP Pro? I'm assuming it automatically doesn't come with the TurboMemory

 

I finaly finished re-installing my T61 with Windows XP. Thanks Skint80 for the helpfull guide. It worked like a charm.
Some issues that I've encountered during installation.
- I've started with installing the video drivers as the native one is hard to work with.
- At the end, I also had the "Unknown Device" warning. The only way I found how to solve it is by installing the ThinkVantage updater. It immediatly found a critical update to the intel chipset, which solved this issue.


Finished the installation with 45 running processes, compared to 85 when I got the machine from Lenovo.

Some questions to others:
- Did you find the biometric driver for the fingerprint reader? It is not listed in the T61 driver list and I don't want to install a driver that is intended for T60.

 

Did your T61 come with XP or was Vista installed?

Edit: Did you guys install the active hard drive protection also?

 

umm. xp doesn't work with ITM

 

True, it's supported only under Vista.

 

I'm trying to decide now if it's worth $30 to get a license for XP Pro but have no Vista license.

 

My T61 came with Vista installed. I will not use Vista before the first SP comes out and enough people install it.

I did install the active hard drive protection.

 

edit: nevermind

 

Downgrade Vista<:--:> WinXP sp2

1st. Compatibility Mode in the Bios for booting to cd and seeing the hard drive.
2nd. After install, use usb drive to copy the network driver you need, either the Intel or Broadcom Nic card. (Do this prior to format if you don't have another PC)
3rd. Install all Windows updates.
4th. Starting at the bottom and working my way up the Drivers/Software list, installed everything with XP listed. (needed or not)
5th. Intall the ThinkA System Update and run it.
6th. Using the links in other discussions here, found the HDA and the fingerprint software for the Sound Card, Modem and Biometric devices to clean up the last of the Unk Devs in the Device Manager.
7th. Run Windows updates again.

This worked poorly on the 1st one, 1.5 days of hit and miss, BUT it did work. The next 5 for coworkers with instructions didn't go so well. Luckily by the end of the day, I had figured out how to copy the HD on the duplicator, but at a rate of only 2 an hour instead of the normal 10 ever 8 minutes.

The above steps do work, but don't get ahead of yourself. If the driver/software doesn't work, mark it and come back later. The System Update from what we can determine, does NOT work until after you install the MS updates for .NET or one of the other 60 updates that you need after a fresh install.

Thank you everyone for helping on this.

 

Will Vista co-habitate and dual boot with XP? Are seperate partitions needed?

Reason I ask is that I ordered the 61p (not here yet of course) and I am absolutely sure that Vista won't run all my apps, so I'll clearly need to have XP installed, wondering if Vista will be worth having at all...and if so, can it dual boot or can I expect it to pitch a fit?

 

single "Unknown Device" on the Intel(R) ICH8M-E LPC Interface Controller

the tpm trusted model

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-58054

 

thanks for posting your findings. i was installing xp on a x61 and this saved me a lot of time.

 

My question is similar to MonsterMaxx. I have vista ultimate, and frstrated that many softwares are not compatible. So I need to install XP pro, but the keep the VISTA for later use, (since I paid big$$ for that). So can I install xp pro without disturbing that hidden drive with the vista in and other bootable stuff in it.
Thanks in advnace

 

Help..........
After the BIOS cahnge, when I reboot from the XP CD it go and stuck to the last line with [dr-dos] a:\>
I am ot very comp savvy, just folowing the steps. Please let me know if I am missing some step.
Thnaks

 

Hey guys, great thread! This shouldn't be this complicated should it. Anyways, I stumbled across this thread because I was running into the IBMTMSVC.EXE error message "cannot be read" and the Unknown Device. Well, it turns out they were related so this thread killed 2 birds w/one stone for me. The link maxsquared provided was my solution, but we'll be making an image following the guide posted by the original poster.

Thanks again!

 

Hey skint80,
or anybody can please give me little more details on the xp downgrade. After BIOS SATA change, when I install with XP CD, it stops at a: drive. Though I dont have a drive, there are some files in a: if I do dir. its not moving forward after that point .
Thanks in advance

 

I have installed xp and all is great except I can't get the wireless working, any suggestions.

 

Thanks skint80. Followed your guide to do a clean install of Windows XP on my X61. In addition, I installed ThinkVantage Power Manager software.

Have a question. Before Power Manager (or power management driver) loads, the screen is at full brightness. Is it possible to change this? That is, is it possible for the welcome screen or whatever to be at lowest brightness? Thanks!

 

Huge thanks for the install guide. Worked perfect on my new T61. Make sure you get the OEM version of Windows XP Pro. Mine activated fine and I've got about 31 processes running now instead of 76!

 

Holy thread revival batman!

 

SomeOne know how my System Update didnt work on XP, when I Open and after get the system Info, say tha I dont have enough space on disc

Someone know how to solve this problem...

thanks!

 

At least on my system I've had the following weird issue.
The driver suggest by the lenovo site for my system would not identify the wireless.
Carefully digging into the Device Manager showed this unidentified device:
Ethernet Device.
Under details I saw the
VEN_168C&DEV_1014&SUBSYS_058A1014

Apparently the driver Lenovo recommends supports only other revision numbers DEV_0023 and DEV_0024 and doesn't support 1014.

Carefully digging around the net I found this driver
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-52527
Which is officially not supported for the T61.

If you carefully read the comments on the driver you'll see that the changed features are "(New) Support for ThinkPad R61, T61.

Once I installed this driver everything worked perfectly, and I could finish installing everything via the update.

This has been a long evening.

 

Omg thanks man. Great guide

 

I have a T61p and I followed your guide to install xp and everything is working perfectly except I cannot control my onscreen brightness with fn+home. I tried reinstalling the hotkey utility, but that didn't work, I don't know how to fix it, any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

tzachp: I have the same issue with the Intel(R) ICH8M-E LPC Interface Controller - 2811 but running thinkpad update isn't fixing it.

Just posted a new topic on this but wanted to ref here since someone may have a solution:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=167223

thanks, other than this issue the downgrade was flawless.

 

Thanks for this guide.

I followed it to the letter on my brand new T61, but my USB ports don't work. Right after I installed XP Pro, I plugged in my USB key to transfer all the drivers, it is detected everything works fine I transfer. Then I install the UAA driver and the chipset driver.

But after I installed the chipset driver I had 7 new yellow question marks in my device manager, in the USB Controllers section. And now the USB ports don't recognize any kind of device I put in there...

What's strange is that I have 7 others controllers installed (Intel ICH8 Family....) and 7 question marks... Anyone can help me on this?

 

hokuem, take a look through my posting. the method described in there worked well for me:

The chipset drivers linked to in Skint80's instructions may not be correct for all T61s.

I was able to clean install XP on a previously (factory) installed vista machine by:

- installing XP as he describes

- install WiFi drivers (for net connectivity)

- installing windows updates

- installing .NET framework 2.0

- installing IBMs System Update utility (requires .NET framework, hence the installation above)

- let IBMs System Update identify what needs to be installed on your machine and automatically do it all for you

I then had to go back to Skint80's post and do the following:

- install the UAA High Def Audio Driver

- install the Audio and Modem drivers from the "get them here" location

- install the Storage Matrix Driver to re-enable AHCI

I have only one question mark on my devices list - "PCI Memory Controller" which I believe is the Vista Turbo Memory

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=167223

 

Just wanted to say thanks for putting this thread together, it was insanely helpful (and coincidentally, the #1 match on Google for "t61 xp sp2 clean install"!).

I'm surprised there aren't more people in this forum that needed this. Is everyone just using Vista these days?

 

mine came with XP Pro as well.

but hell, I have only the recovery CDs that the ThinkVantage software did ... so I guess I can't do a clean install ?!?!

after uninstalling a bunch of software, I ended up with 55 processes ..

we need to post pictures of the device manager, and the task manager on here. From the posted device manager I see that under Bluetooth I have only one - bluetooth Bus Enumerator ...

I don't have turbo memory

 

What do you use for the CD key?

Do you use the code on the sticker on the bottom of the laptop (mine came with XP Pro) or the CD key found with Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder?

 

you should probably use the one on the bottom of your laptop.

BTW, I figured my missing driver under Bluetooth - when I activate it, it pups up in Device manager, lol.

 

Thanks Skint80 for your great howto. I threw caution to the wind and tried it verbatim on my T61p (shipped Nov. 5), but had problems with the Intel 8.3 chipset driver (USB stopped working, USB Root Hubs showed in device manager with warnings. Also, biometric coprocessor didn't show up in device manager.) This worked for me:

1) Set SATA from AHCI to Compatible in BIOS.
2) Reformatted drive & reinstalled XP.
3) Installed Intel PRO/1000 LAN adapter drivers from USB thumbdrive.
4) Installed UAA High Def Audio Driver
5) Installed .NET Framework 2.0 (needed for next step).
6) Installed ThinkVantage System Update 3.10
7) Used System Update to install Intel Chipset driver 8.2. Rebooted.
8) Used System Update to install remaining recommended and optional drivers. Rebooted.
9) Used System Update to install selected utilities and applications. Rebooted.
10) Installed Fingerprint Software 5.6 for my fingerprint reader.
11) Followed steps 3 and 4 of your instructions to re-enable AHCI.

Worked great for me, with no "Unknown" or "Other" devices in device manager, and only 43 processes on startup (could easily get rid of some of these as well, by not installing some of the ThinkVantage utilities). System Update keeps a copies of all the installers inside its directory (\Program Files\Lenovo\System Update\session), so that's easy to copy to backup to reuse later, if you are so inclined.

I hope this helps T61p owners!

 

I have had several random crashes with vista on my brand new T61. Not only did the bloody thing crash but it would take forever to fix repairing itself. Eventually I gave up and thank god for this thread.

I followed the ACHI -> Compatible instruction and started installing XP Pro SP2. Damn XP would BSOD at the exact same spot (Saving settings). Happened twice. Then reopened it and reseated the new mem chips (ran memtest86 for a long time before this). No change, same crash, same place.

Suddenly, before I could decide to send this pos back to lenovo, I remembered some post in this forum indicating that the TPM could be misakenly probed as a HDD or some such which could lead to a crash. I disabled security in the BIOS and lo, all was well.

I am not sure if the Vista errors were also due to the TPM chip not installed correctly (seated), or defective chip or unstable drivers (I had turned it on in Vista when I got the laptop a few days ago.)

thanks to the OP and all the contributors for the tremendously useful info.

-vamsi

 

Sorry for bringing this from the dead. I am trying to do a fresh install on a T61 and have a problem even getting XP installed.

I have the Intel Matrix storage driver on floppy and a USB floppy drive connected to the laptop.

I boot off cd, press F6 for additional devices, eventually it comes up to the list of devices on the disk. I choose the AHCI (mobile) and that's fine, I choose the options from where to install XP and all that. After it starts to load the install files and it needs the drivers for the controller again and needs the disk the USB ports are not responsive. Acts like nothing is even plugged in, I've tried a couple of different USB floppy drives. I checked the BIOS and set USB to always on but can't find any other settings anywhere. I had this same problem with a Dell OptiPlex 755 and had to install an internal floppy drive that wasn't USB. How did you guys get around this? I looked to see if there was an internal floppy option for th eT61 and didn't see one. I'm about to chuck it out the window!! Please help.

 

You don't need a floppy drive to install anything. Please follow the guide in my signature for clean XP install.

 

hi, I am working on this notebook for the last week and this forum has been saving my butt, because I couldnt figure out what was going on until I found it, followed the examples set by everyone who donated here and go past the hardships.

However one small problem remains.

when I boot up and get to the control alt delete screen for my winxp, everything is frozen, the mouse, the keyboard every Fn key and all of that.
The only thing I can do is powercycle by holding down the power button.

anyone experience this on this t61 model, 7662-cto ?.

This is winXP sp2 all updates installed.
All the hardware is installed, no (?) Unidentified Hardware LEFT, its all set.
Turbo Memory is disabled, I also Disabled the ACHI and left it in Compatible mode just to see if it does the trick, not sure I will keep testing with different tweaks.
This model also does not have the biometric fingerprint reader.
Im attaching a screen print from Device Manager which shows the ACPI tab expanded.