Couple questions regarding hard drives

I see that the hard drive upgrades on the Lenovo site are pretty expensive so I was wondering if it's easy to purchase my own HDD and swap it out once I receive a Lenovo notebook? I don't mean easy from a technical standpoint cause it's easy to swap out hard drives....I mean is it easy to do this with Lenovo notebooks in the sense of putting the included OS on there? Obviously the OS is preinstalled on whatever hard drive you initially choose, so if I swap that out with another HDD how difficult is it to do a clean install? Are there recovery discs that can be used on a new HDD? Would an HDD swap void the warranty?

The reason I ask is because it's no problem to do this on some notebooks but a pain to do it on others so I just wanna know how Lenovo handles this. Thanks!

 

it should be simple. i don't recall anybody complaining about lenovo making it a pain to reinstall an os on a new hdd.

 

Actually, I'm very interested in this topic as well. I had the same question in mind, but I haven't even ordered my machine yet, so I never thought to ask.

 

For example, I know that older HP PCs won't even recognize their own recovery discs if you swap out the HDD because the recovery discs have to work with a small recovery partition on the original HDD.

So do Lenovo notebooks come with recovery discs? And can they be used without the original hard drive?

 

Yes, every computer comes with recovery disks with a clean install of Windows and their drivers...

So it should be simple to not only install the hardrive, but also the new OS as well...

As for warranties, I'm not sure. You may just want to call up Lenovo and see what they have to say...

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks you!

 

not every computer comes with recovery disks. most manufacturers are requiring you to burn your own copy when you recieve the computer. there should be some tab or program for it where your recovery files/section is.

 

I burned some recovery discs and was able to reinstall on a new HD in a T400.

 

The burning thing is news to me...how exactly do you go about doing that?

 

go to your start menu and choose "Create Recovery Media" then follow the instructions...took 3 dvds for my x200s

 

This is very easy. I did this. (got the cheap 80gb drive, and replaced is with a 320gb, 7200rpm).

All you need to do is create the recovery media (product recovery disc) when you first get your T400. The you put in the new hard drive, and do a factory restore, and viola, a brand new machine with a bigger hard drive.

 

Thank you guys!

 

It reinstalls with all the bloatware, though, right?

 

Yes, if you use a recovery disc, it will do a factory default recovery.

But if you have or could borrow a Windows disc, you could download all the drivers and patches from Lenovo's web site and do a clean install of Windows.

 

But then you'd need a legit Windows key since you wouldn't be able to use the one that came with your notebook right?

 

Mr President,
First point, swapping out the harddrive on the thinkpad does not void the warranty. Swapping out the harddrive is easy from both the installation and OS reinstall perspectives, in my view, just a little time consuming. Many manufacturers are not including the OS discs anymore, you make them yourself. Basically there is a hidden partition on the stock drive with your OS and drivers, apps etc that were given to you from day one. You use a program that comes on the machine to burn the contents of this hidden partition onto media(i.e which become your recovery discs). If you ever need to bring your machine back to "day 1 status", just pop in the discs and boot from them.

I myself swapped out my harddrive and did a real clean install of Vista, by obtaining the actual Vista media, not using the recovery discs. It went perfectly and I have no problems, but it was time consuming to read through all the readme files and the numerous reboots. Also getting Vista media can be a challenge if you don't know somebody who has them, but if you look enough you can buy them online.

 

Yes.........

 

No, thats the beauty of it. You use the key from your machine(your OEM preactivated key to be specific) to do the clean install. BTW- this is completely legal and legit. You have already bought the key from Lenovo, but just need to obtain the media. Check out for the specifics by reading Stallen's clean install guide

 

Thank you so much!

 

I actually did this today with my x200 Tablet (swapped a 160GB with a 320GB). I had some trouble using the recovery discs that I made. They took a really long time to make (>90 Minutes) and a really long time to try and use (>3 hours) and then failed midway through the process.

I ended up just putting both drives into my Desktop computer (SATA desktop and laptop drives use the same interface) and doing a drive to drive clone with SelfImage. This worked very well and was quite fast. I then resized the partition from within Vista, and started my long process (I am almost done now) of setting up a triple boot setup.

 

Neat! I didn't know you could do that.

I have XP disks (I bought it for one of my builds at home), and it'd be nice to be able to install that on my Thinkpad. I got a downgrade from Vista, I wonder if that will work with a regular XP install?

How did you find getting all the special drivers and apps for the Thinkpad compared to everything being preinstalled?

- Tim

 

I have a T61p and I found getting all the drivers very easy and straight forward, and I am running 64 bit Vista. I have zero problems with the clean install I did. I didn't however install any of the Thinkvantage apps except for the one to make the fingerprint reader work, so I can't comment on installing those. Just make sure that you read all the readme files for each driver and follows Stallen's instructions and you should be fine.