Clean install Vista untimate on T61p *need help!!*

hey, i am new to this forums as some of you guys will notice and first off i can't seem to find the search button beside for the search that is on top which searches through the entire website for me i am not able to find one so i might be asking a question that has been asked arleady, and if so i am very sorry!

anyways, i bought my T61p with vista basic knowing that i was going to downgrade to xp but what i did not know was that turbo memory cannot be used with xp ( i know it is my fault for not doing research before buying a laptop) so now i have basic and i just updated it to Ultimate and here is all the problems start...

when i put in the CD to Ulitmate i could not upgrade?!(whats the point in having something that tells me i COULD upgrade but i cannot use it) so i would have to do a clean install. so i chose that and it says there was a previous windows already and it will help me back up windows old. so i do that and the installition starts.starts expanding files but after first restart maybe at like 27% or so in expanding files, i got an error saying some files is missing and i had to redo the whole installation and restarted. while booting up there was a screen for maybe no more than 5seconds that said which windows do you want to boot and there was 2 windows vista, i didn't touch it and assumed it was the windows i was trying to install. but instead it reverted me back to my basic. I quickly went on google with my PC and searched this up and not surprised i am not the only one with this problem and from what i read, i shouldn't stall through windows but from a restart and boot from disc so i restarted and booted from disk, again i did the windows old that they asked but to my surprise this time it took like 5seconds and i installed windows ultimate with no restarts at expandingfiles and such so i guess it was all good until it restarted i guess because it had to and i saw 3 windows vista there now instead of 2 i ignored it and just left it to choose the first one and windows started up. when i am in windows i notice that none of my IBM buttons work,the think vantage button does NOT work, the volume buttons dont work, the fn button don't work and my graphic card is not detected and such, i downaded the thinkavntage ssytem update and it is updating as i type this so i will see how this goes,,,for people that have reformated that T61ps or just IBM laptops in general am i able to get all the IBM software i used to have back? becuase some of their programs were really useful and assume that i get all my drivers and my graphic card working agian why do i have 3 vistas? is my Laptop triple booted? and how would i get rid of the 2 other windows vista? any help would be really appreciated.
thnakyous all in advance!
cheers!

 

I haven't done a clean install yet, as I am waiting for my hardrive to come in but I will be following the guides below. They are excellent. Stallen's guide is specific to the T61 and Orev's guide is for all machines in general. And yes, you can get the IBM software and drivers back, they can be downloaded. Check out these detailed guides. I am sure there are others, but these are pretty popular on this board. Hope it helps.

Stallen's Guide
Orev's Guide

 

i am just about to go off to sleep it is currently 3:30am and something has happened, which i bet was done by me reformating. i will read the 2 guides tmr when i wake up but more urgent i tried turing off my laptop first time it said shutting down then my screen went black but my everythin was still running, like the lights under the screen, my wifi was still on i can still hear my hd running and i thought o maybe it is taking some time so i waited for 10minutes or so and i still wasn't turning off then all of a sudden it starts up agian, as if it restarted or something??! no idea and now its taking a long LONG time to start up my laptop, maybe i screwed up installing my turbo memory or something? before when i had the factory setting and windows vista basic, the loading bar would go lke 7-10times and i would be in windows and everyting would load wihtin 20seconds but now i counted and the bar thing went 29times and after that getting into windows i had to wait an additional 1-2minutes for it to load somehting i guess? so after that i tried to shut it down and it didnt goto black screen this time but the shutting down stayed on for around 10minutes at first i thought it was update but usually whne it updates doens't it say that it is updating or osmething? so i jsut forcefully shutdown my lpaopt and rebooted it to see if anything, but again with the ultra slow startup and now im on typing my problem out. i will shut down my laptop and go to sleep now.. maybe i will follow the guides and reformat my machine agian or something.. this is getting annoying.

 

Stream of consciousness.

Impossible to read, especially at 3AM.

 

yea, I wanted to help, but just couldn't follow after the 1st sentence. so, hopefully someone else has more patience than me and will help you out.

 

Yeah I had no idea what was going on after the second sentence.

 

haha, sorry guys maybe i was sleepy and frustrated about my laptop since it was late last night okay well i shall recap what has happened.

1) tried turning off laptop, went to black screen with everything still running like literally you cna hear the hdd and my wireless light was still blinking after 10mins. i went to brush my teeth came back and suddenly see it restart. from the black screen it went to the lenovo start up thing that says thinkpad.

2) takes a really long time to start up with turbo memory? where it loads vista the moving bars, i counted 29 last night while before when i had basic it was no more than 7-10. after load up and gone into windows takes an additional 1-2mins for everything to load.

3) after it rebooted itself, it took a good long 5-7minutes stuck at the shutting down screen until i finally gave up and pressed the power button myself.

4) started it up agian again, 30bars this time! but this time it turned off by itself in say less than roughly around 1minute.

--this morning.
i woke up and powered on my laptop the loading vista bars i counted only 13 and after getting into windows everything loaded within 20seconds. How come sometimes it takes my laptop to load forever while somtimes it is so much faster?

--another question

after my reformat, i did not know of the guides. after the IBM/lenovo start screen i get this boot sequence thing? i have no idea what it is becuase it goes by too fast, it is like hwne you boot up a pc and it checks your memory and stuff at the beginning simmilar to that but alot faster and the only thing i can make out was boot.ini or something close to that

--3rd question.

when the welcome screen appears after loading, where i have to swipe my finger or type in my password, the screen has these like black fuzzy lines across my screen for 1-2secs as if my display was broken or something? i did not use to have that and i don't think that is normal either?

thank you all for reading, and hopefully helping too