Hi there,

I have a company issued T420, and it has Win XP installed on it. I am thinking of getting the Intel mSata 310 drive and installing Win 7 on that drive, use the laptop as a dual-booter.

I have noticed that the laptop came with a Win 7 Professional OA license key. Here is the question: can I download a torrented version of untouched Win 7 Professional and activate it with the key that my laptop came with? Or, due to the OA designation of the Win 7 Professional license I have to buy recovery discs from Lenovo?

Any input sincerely appreciated, thanks!

you MIGHT be able to do as you suggest and it MIGHT work..
not sure what you mean by torrented version of win7 but if its warez or the like i'm not sure that i would do that..

the recovery discs would, IMO, be a better solution..

your IP manager might complain or there might be some other safeguard against such a thing..
i would inquire, discretely, about what happens when others who work for your company do such things..

i think others here will have a better or more helpful response..

welcome to the forum..

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the response. The Win 7 version I speak of is untouched (as in no activation, hacks or what have). As in, it is just a copy of a retail Win7 Pro installation DVD and requires the use of a legitimate license key. But I am looking into purchasing recovery discs if necessary.

It should work no problem.
My T410 has the COA for Win7Pro. It came with 32bit. I upgraded the ram to 8 gigs so i needed the Win 7 Pro 64bit cd.
I just googled Win7 Pro 64 bit ISO and i think one of the first links came up with the 64bit ISO. Its jut the ISO of the install CD.Not hacked or not warez or anything.You still need to put in and use your COA on your thinkpad.

Thank you. Now I cannot wait for my intel mSata to come in

By the way, does installing an mSata in a T420 require a the BIOS Supervisor password? I don't have it, and am not likely to get it.

P.S. I tried caddying an HDD in the optical drive slot, and no password was required... however, changing the boot order is an entirely different story I guess for that the BIOS password is required.

yeah, its a corporate machine and no IT manager is NOT goin to password protect the bios..

you might have a bit of a problem there..

yopu can always just swap the corporate drive for your own drive.. that should work without needing to go into the bios..

What happens when you hit F12 repeatedly at startup?

Hi! so at startup, I hit the blue thinkvantage button, and then hit F12 to change the boot order, temporarily. This is a cumbersom process, but oh well, I can live with it.

Unless I am mistaken, I am also unable to utilize the UEFI when I install the SSD due to not having the BIOS password.

You could have the bootloader on the normal drive and Windows on the mSata?

Found this on the Lenovo forums the other day:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/428068-legal-windows-7-download-links-just-like-vista-before.html

Not tried it my self yet, I have T520 on order and will probably do a clean Windows 7 install after I get it.

You should be-able to install Windows 7 to the mSATA and it should update the boot loader on the hard drive so you can choose which OS to start.

The product key you use determines what edition of Windows 7 you get.