Will my E430 reovery info work on new hard drive for my crashed e420?

I dropped my Lenovo E420 and killed the HDD,I dont have a copy of windows 7 or a recovery disk. I did order a refurbished Lenovo E430 and its coming this week...question..can I make a copy of my E430 and put that on a new HDD to get my E420 running again?
If I can,what files do I need to copy? I am not a techie,so any simple answers would be appreciated or links on what to do. I really liked my E420 and would love to get it running again if possible.

Also,I did do several backups of my E420,is there a chance I would already have the files needed for the new HDD? (I did find the license key for windows under my battery)

Thanks for any help
Deb

 

if youve got your licence key then you can download windows 7 from > http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-digitalriver-windows-7-sp1-13-languages.html

 

Thanks for the link !!! So all I need to do is download the windows 7 to a CD,fire up my laptop with a new HDD in it and load the windows 7 CDs ?? Sounds pretty easy. After I get that installed,do I run the backup I have to get my settings etc back?

Sorry for all the questions,just dont want to hose this up.
Thanks again !!
Deb

 

You'll also have to reactivate Windows, use the key on the sticker that is somewhere on the E430, you could always backup the activation using something like ABR Beta or token restore.

 

I would not recommend doing what you're thinking about doing. There's a better faster way.

Use a working online computer and
1. Download the windows 7 sp1 iso from the link given above
2. Go here to get the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool
3. Find yourself a spare usb flash drive of at least 4GB for the next step, back up your data from the usb flash drive because it will be formatted
4. Finally, follow the steps Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool tells you when creating your bootable windows 7 sp1 usb flash drive, after the tool creates the bootable drive check My Computer and open the drive just to see if it worked (don't run the installation, "X" out), remove the usb flash drive from this computer


The end result should be a bootable windows 7 usb flash drive that can be used to reinstall fresh copies of windows 7 sp1 (forget about DVDs ).
1. Install your new HDD into your E420
2. Instert the bootable usb into the E420, power it ON, press ENTER and choose to boot from the bootable usb flash drive
3. Install windows, you can find guides online for this process but its easy, just follow the prompts and get a guide, i dont feel like explaining this too lazy


Again, use a working online computer and save these next few Lenovo downloads to a usb flash drive as were going to use them to get your E420 up and running
1. Go to Lenovo's ThinkPad E420 Drivers and Support page here and select Windows 7 as your operating system
2. Next, download the following drivers; Networking: LAN (Ethernet) and Networking: Wireless LAN (I counted 5 different possible drivers/wifi cards, try one after the other to find your exact one or simply connect your computer with an Ethernet cable to the internet via a router after installing the Ethernet driver).
3. Next, download this software package; ThinkVantage Technology ThinkVantage System Update 5.02 for Windows 7 32/64 bit
4. Once you've save these drivers/software to your usb flash drive, go ahead and installed them onto your E420 (assuming that by this point you've already installed windows 7 successfully and are now at the desktop


Finally after successfully installing the Ethernet/wifi driver and the ThinkVantage System Update, run and let the Lenovo ThinkVantage System Update tool find, download and installed all the necessary Lenovo software and drivers recommended and required for your E420. This is a semi-automatic process so you will have to follow the easy prompts when asked. Its easy. After this is done, run Windows Updates whenever you have time like overnight. You can put your programs back on there too. I dont mess around with Windows Backup, I just save all my things on hard drives so that I can have access to them and not some compressed archives that I cant use on any computer. Some do things differently. I beleive you can restore all your files now from that backup you made, not too sure on that one.

So to summarize, you'll need these 3 things:
1. Windows 7 Installation disk
2. Ethernet/wireless internet connection
3. ThinkVantage System Update

 

Thanks so much for the very detailed info !!! I had no idea this would be so labor intensive.Looks like I need to get a HDD ordered and pick up a 4gig USB drive and let the fun begin Once I get everything I need to start this process I'm sure I will be back here with more questions. Looking forward to this new challenge,thanks for the all the links and step by step instructions. This was very much appreciated.
Thanks, Deb

 

Here's a good place to start: http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/642274-hearsts-guide-clean-installing-windows-7-thinkpad.html

 

No problem, anytime. I know this because I've done it several times with my E425. It is time consuming and may take a day or two to complete everything (I got it down to about 2-3 hours max, depending on internet connection speed) but I have found this to be the fastest way to get my (ThinkPad) system back up and running with the least amount of effort. Lenovo ThinkVantage System update downloads the remaining drivers and software for ThinkPad systems so that really makes things pretty easy.

 

You guys are great and what a wealth of information you have posted here !! Thank you so much.
Once I get the new computer set up I can work on the dead one,sure hope I can do it !! So far I'm not liking the E430 at all,wonder if I can return it,really liked my E420 way better