ThinkPad does not ship with a recovery CD or Windows CD with the computer, but provides an alternative and easier way to complete typical tasks associated with these CDs. The files and programs for these alternatives are on the hard drive, thus avoiding having to find a misplaced CD and the problems associated with using the wrong version of the CD.

If you have a CD-RW (or DVD-RW) drive installed, you can create a set of Product Recovery discs that contain the software required to back up and completely restore the contents of your hard drive. Recovery discs are especially useful if the hard drive needs to be replaced.

Note: The Microsoft(R) Windows(R) license only allows the creation of one set of Product Recovery discs, so it is important to store them in a safe place after creating the discs.

When using the Product Recovery CD, all data and partitions on the hard drive are deleted. Before preparing to restore, please confirm that the data that needs to be saved in all partitions on the hard disk has been backed up. The final result will be only one C: partition containing the original factory content.

To create a set of Products Recovery CD, please go to Start-->All Programs-->ThinkVantage-->Create Recovery Media.

1. Under the "Recovery Disc" menu, select "Create a set of Product Recovery discs now" (including a boot disc and a system disc), and click OK.

Note: The rescue media is media that can boot the pre-boot environment and does not include the operating system. This disk does not support DVD disks. Please pay attention to the notes on the menu.

2. The menu waiting for extracting files appears.

3. The "Select a recordable drive" menu will appear later. If the current computer is equipped with multiple optical drive devices, please select the device you want to use as the production media and click OK.

4. Then the prompt “Insert a blank disk or erasable disc” will appear.Please insert a blank CD and click OK.

5. Then the prompt "Preparing the original disk..." will appear. After a while, the prompt "Burning" will appear and the current progress will be displayed.

6. When the bootable disc is burned, a menu will appear. Please take out the disc and follow the prompts to label or mark it.

7. Then insert a blank CD disc or blank DVD disc (if the current computer is equipped with a DVD-RW drive).

Note: The next step is the process of burning the recovery disc of the operating system. According to the capacity of the current pre-installed operating system, if you use CD discs, about 6-7 discs are needed; if you use DVD discs , approximately 1-2 discs are needed.

8. Finally, it prompts that the file was burned successfully. Please take out the disc and label or mark it according to the instructions.

9. Click OK to confirm that the recovery disc creation has been completed.