I did it - formatted R60 with fresh WinXP

First I downloaded all drivers that seemed important from the lenovo website. I was unsure, but then I did it and formatted the harddisk on my R60 9461-DXG. I even deleted the recovery partition, knowing, that if i needed it later, i can order the recovery-cds from lenovo for free. Then i installed my onwn WinXP Prof. SP2 on it and loaded the drivers I had burned on a disc. My laptop now runs like 3x times faster than before, including loading times of OS, applications, etc. and I am finally rid of all those apps I dont needed. The system tray (bottom right) now shows only 2 icons (where before were like 10) and I have only 15 procedures running (where before were like 30).
Sounds like heaven - so wheres the glitch. Theres no really glitch, but I still couldnt find the driver for the firewire bus and for two other "unknown devices". But everything, incuding games, sounds, i mean everything runs fine. I can only recommend it to other users, but it would be even more fantastic if every single driver could be found easier.

does anyone know a list of all drivers a r60 laptop needs?
is there already something like this?
i will post a complete walkthrough as soon as i have found the last two drivers.

 

I want to do that too. How did you delete the recovery partition?

 

Lenovo provides you with an application which allows you to burn off the recovery discs. Since you've wiped the drive you can no longer do burn them off. They will not send you the discs for free. I believe they are $45.

 

just boot from the original windows xp cd, youll be able to delete and create partitions as you like before installing windows.

im not sure but i thought having read in a (german) forum about lenovo being sending those discs out to their customers for free - must have been a special offer or so, maybe only for swiss and german users, dunno. nevertheless, i do not need them, nor do i need the recovery partition...

i cannot understand how users seem to accept the slowlyness of their out-of-stock lenovo laptops when they can have them so much faster and cleaner by doing their own OS install. sure, a little bit of knowledge is needed, but with a good walkthrough it should be possible to anyone.

 

All of the drivers for your machine were located in the IBMTools folder. IBM used to send you the discs if you requested them for ther first 30 days, but they ended that policy quite some time ago, at least here in the US.

 

Eh...you didn't try to burn the recovery partition onto a DVD first? I like your enthusiasm, but this kinda feels like diving into the pool before filling it up with water.

 

maybe it is my adolescent attitude. i dont regret it, my system is at its best



yay!!

i can really only recommend this to anyone...

 

Wow your desktop would look much cleaner if you just put those firefox links into bookmarks