Ordering Recovery CDs
Information on getting Recovery CDs from IBM.
The information on this page is unofficial. It is gathered from personal experiences. It is here to raise your chances of success when you give it a try yourself.
Contents
About Recovery CDs
Recovery CDs enable you to reproduce the original software state on your ThinkPad. Until the beginning of 2001 IBM delivered recovery CDs with the ThinkPads, but starting with the A30/T23/X22 models ThinkPads have a Predesktop Area, which's purpose is to make Recovery CDs obsolete. However, this is flawed logic, since you will lose both the installed OS AND the Predesktop Area upon failure of the hard drive. Also, if you buy a drive upgrade the Predesktop Area will not be on the new drive. Furthermore, spyware and viruses are lately being designed to infiltrate recovery partitions, so if you restore the system from such, you will restore the invading malware along with it. For the time being, Recovery CDs are available on request.
Recovery CDs are localized, meaning that there are specific versions for each language. The language you will get depends on the language of the OS that was shipped with your ThinkPad. There's usually no way to get CDs in a different language from IBM.
How to get them
Creating Recovery CDs from the preinstalled O/S
In some ThinkPads IBM supplies a utility to create the recovery CDs. You'll find a utility called "Create Recovery Discs" in the "ACCESS IBM" folder of the Start Menu. To create the Recovery discs, you'll need a CD/DVD writer and blank media. The Product Recovery discs set consist of one Rescue and Recovery disc (size of 1 CD-R) and one or more Product recovery discs (size of 1 DVD-R).
From IBM
Should you fail to create a set of recovery discs before your harddrive fails, you may try to contact IBM service and request for a set. This can be done by eMail or phone. Support phone numbers are available online. They are officially called Recovery CD service parts. If you actually get them, or not, seems to be more a personal decision of the service person dealing with you than following fixed rules. Also it seems to depend on your country (see below).
They will usually expect you to tell them a good reason for your request (see below). As with every service request, you'll also have to provide your model and serial number to verify the warranty state. The warranty for your ThinkPad is usually quite long though (3 years in my case), and you can check online if your warranty is still in force. The model number is also used to determine which CDs you will get.
Orders placed during the first month after purchase have proven to be the most successful. Note some people needed to pay a $45.00 fee, plus shipping and tax, for the CDs, regardless of when ordering them. Again, this seems to depend on the mood of the service rep that handles your case.
Note that Recovery CDs are only available for Windows XP Professional for the X24, as per the Customer Service Center in Atlanta, GA. All other operating systems (Windows 2000, 98SE, OS/2, etc...) are no longer available. XP Home was apparently never available for the X24.
Good reasons to tell
- You replaced (or will be replacing) your hard drive.
- You installed Linux or some other OS and accidentally removed/destroyed the Predesktop Area.
What happens then
Once it's decided that you get the CDs, they usually get shipped very fast. Times from 16h to 3 days have been reported, 3 days being the time to expect. The shipping can even happen without prior confirmation of your request, so don't be worried if you hear nothing within this time.
A Dutch IBM customer reported next-day delivery of recovery CDs, on three different occasions. A customer in Belgium had to wait 8 days, so sometimes delivery is not that fast.
Country overview
Please put an entry for your country into this table if it's missing and you made a try to get the Recovery CDs.
| CDs received in | CDs were denied in |
|---|---|
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