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Buying an ebay Thinkpad without HD but has COA: procedures?
Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2011 2:01 pm
by GarageBoy
Just making sure I can do this
If I pick up an ebay Thinkpad, sans OS and HD, but with COA sticker, I'll need to buy a HD/SSD, drop it in the caddy, drop the whole thing in, call up Lenovo, order recovery CDs and put that in and I'm done?
Thanks!
Re: Buying an ebay Thinkpad without HD but has COA: procedures?
Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2011 2:16 pm
by RealBlackStuff
Depending on how old your 'new' Thinkpad will be, Lenovo might not sell any more Recovery CDs for your wanted model.
But put an ad in the Marketplace Forum (WTB = want to buy), specifying for what model and what OS.
Using official recovery CDs (or copies thereof) you don't need the COA of the laptop, those CDs have a built-in volume license.
Re: Buying an ebay Thinkpad without HD but has COA: procedures?
Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2011 6:42 pm
by Neil
Or, if you can borrow an OEM (OEM only, not retail, VL, etc.) XP disc, you can install a plain vanilla OS using the license key on the bottom. But, you will have to activate the OEM with Microsoft, and you don't have to with Recovery discs.
Re: Buying an ebay Thinkpad without HD but has COA: procedures?
Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2011 7:36 am
by GarageBoy
Thanks
I'm considering an X61 of some sort
Re: Buying an ebay Thinkpad without HD but has COA: procedures?
Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2011 10:01 am
by emtee3511
Have you seen this?
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=94938
It's a pretty good deal considering the recent upgrades/new battery, etc. and seller's drop in original asking price
Re: Buying an ebay Thinkpad without HD but has COA: procedures?
Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2011 5:05 pm
by bill bolton
RealBlackStuff wrote:Using official recovery CDs (or copies thereof) you don't need the COA of the laptop, those CDs have a built-in volume license.
A Microsoft VLK licence
requires that a genuine Microsoft COA with a unique key is attached to the device to be legal
Re: Buying an ebay Thinkpad without HD but has COA: procedures?
Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2011 5:43 pm
by jdrou
bill bolton wrote:
A Microsoft VLK licence
requires that a genuine Microsoft COA with a unique key is attached to the device to be legal
Yes but I think his point was that you don't need to
enter the key with a recovery disk.
And technically it isn't a VLK but a pre-activated OEM key (still legally requires a CoA sticker).
Re: Buying an ebay Thinkpad without HD but has COA: procedures?
Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:07 pm
by bill bolton
jdrou wrote:And technically it isn't a VLK but a pre-activated OEM key (still legally requires a CoA sticker).
There is no such thing as a
pre-activated OEM key. The factory image key used by Lenovo is a VLK associated with a SLIC (System Licensed Internal Code) in the BIOS...... all systems from the factory have the same key.
Cheers,
Bill
Re: Buying an ebay Thinkpad without HD but has COA: procedures?
Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 9:32 pm
by jdrou
Yes all systems from the same vendor use the same key but it is still an OEM key; if you extract the key from a pre-installed XP system (using keyfinder etc.) you can use that key to install from a generic OEM CD. Volume license keys do not work on OEM CDs or vice versa.
Re: Buying an ebay Thinkpad without HD but has COA: procedures?
Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 3:14 am
by bill bolton
jdrou wrote:pre-installed XP system
The target Thinkpad was nominated as an x61, which implies Vista. What you describe is simply wrong for Vista and Win 7.
Cheers,
Bill B.
Re: Buying an ebay Thinkpad without HD but has COA: procedures?
Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:07 pm
by jdrou
bill bolton wrote:
The target Thinkpad was nominated as an x61, which implies Vista. What you describe is simply wrong for Vista and Win 7.
My X61 CTO came with XP but yes Vista/7 use a somewhat different system. I'm fairly certain that Vista/7 OEM SLP keys are still not volume license keys even though just like the XP OEM SLP keys they are used across all systems from the same vendor.