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T60 Configuration

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This is a long story, of the absolute nightmare I have had with this lemon. I wish I could send it back!

I got my new Lenovo T60 from MySQL.

My goal of course is to put Linux on this and I’ve chosen the latest Ubuntu 6.10 switching from Fedora Core 5 on my present personal laptop.

Some initial investigation from the supplied media provided some surprises. Of a 80GB Drive only 69GB available. There is second partition of 5+GB which I later find out to be the IBM Recovery Area as they don’t provided and CD’s of sofware. So the specs say an 80GB drive, but it’s actually only 74.53GB via gpartd. In addition the installation of Windows XP Pro has so much other crap it takes a few mins to fully boot up.

So here is what I did to make this mahine usable.

Backup

As I haven’t installed anything, the only think to backup is the Recovery Media so I can restore to defaults if necessary. You can do this with:

  • Start | Programs | ThinkVantage | Create Recovery Media
  • Select Recovery Discs
  • You will need 1 CD + 1 DVD

NOTE: Don’t loose these, you can’t select these options again to make another copy. This should be done regardless as soon as you get the machine, because if your hard drive crashes you loose it all.

My next step was to install Ubuntu. I plan to reinstall Windows.
Resize via Ubuntu to 20GB

Reconfigure SATA Drive

When I ran the XP Pro Installation CD I received the following error.

Setup did not find any hard drives installed in your computer.
Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct.
This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program.

In order to reinstall XP via CD you need to reconfigure the Bios to detect your hard drive appropiately. These can be achieved by:

  • Power on
  • ThinkVantage Button
  • F1 for Bios setup
  • Select Config
  • Select Serial ATA (SATA)
  • Change value (F5) to Compatibility
  • F10 – Save and Exit
  • Yes – Save Configuration and Exit

Windows Installation

The following software then had to be installed.

  • Windows XP Pro
  • Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2
  • Office 2003
  • Office 2003 Service Pack 2

Following default Windows XP Installation most devices were not found. The Lenovo website lists 100s of software updates for the T60 so I decided the simpliest solution was to use the provided ThinkAdvantage System Update, but that also took a number of steps.

This will then enable wired Internet Access (for some reason, the download of the Wireless didn’t help as there was no Other Device that match the wireless device.

ThinkVantage System Update. Follow instructions, I had to install Microsoft .NET Framework as stated. In true and typical form, I had to restart my machine two times (when will Windoze actually get this right).

Disk Crash

Install that hung

two times, I booted both the keyboard and mouse would not work.

Called Lenovo Technical Support
“The protocols are not the same. I need to call Microsoft Support”.