Factory Recovery Disks --> How big USB? What about SD? [ Edited ]

[Albert1234]

I just received a Thinkpad Edge and would like to create a factory recovery disk, just in case. Since there is no optical drive (and I don't have an external one) I would like to use a USB thumb drive. Does anyone know what size I should get? Is 8GB enough?

I have read a few reports of people not being able to boot off the thumb drive. Did Lenovo fix their tool or do I still have to do extra stuff like this:

Link

Does anyone know if I could use an SD memory card? I have an 8GB one sitting around. Lenovo's factory recovery disk creation tool does detect it. Has anyone tried booting off of it?

Thanks.

And I just have to say, as a person used to Dell and HP, I am very impressed so far with this Thinkpad Edge.

[topmahof Community Moderator]

i would still do the extra stuff.  it still has to be set up to boot and the extra stuff doesn't sound too difficult.  i remember doing it for an x41 and i had to do all kinds of extra stuff to get it to work.  those directions don't sound too bad. and no you can't boot from an sd card.  it's not set up to be listed in the bios for one thing. the sd slot doesn't come on until windows boots up. 

[johfo]

Ehhh-What!!??

Doesn't the lenovo application for creation of recovery disc on usb stick works automaticly.

I tried to create recovery media to a USB disc, but the application wanted to format the disc and that was not of my interest!

Plans to by a new USB memory stick today, but I can't find any information about required size.

Why can't there be an option to create the recovery media as an ISO file to transfer to another PC with a DVD burner!?

I'm not that impressed by the Lenovo so far after discovering this!

Cheers,

johfo

[topmahof Community Moderator]

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/Creating-x100e-recovery-media-on-USB-stick/ta-...

the disc or stick has to be formatted  or it won't boot.  the partition has to be created in windows and it has to be made active. so no, it's not automatic.  an 8 gig stick "should" be okay.  you don't want it too big or too small, and again there is not a lot of information on exactly what size stick to use.  in the past certain makes of sticks wouldn't work.  i don't know if that has changed. i did mine on a sandisk cruzer. 8 gig but that was quite awhile ago.  plus this has to be done right, coz if i'm not mistaken you can only do this once.  

[topmahof Community Moderator]

there are free programs out there where you can create an iso and save it to disc. imgburn is one that i know of and there are others.  what i do is i have external hard drives that i clone my main hard drive to. i format it in ntsf so it's bootable and then clone everything to it.  then every week i do backups to it.  if my hard drive fails or something corrupts my main drive, i just switch drives and get on with my life. and then get another drive and clone to it.  but that's just me. i just don't trust usb sticks as boot devices and i also don't trust self made recovery dvd's.  i've just seen too many things go wrong and then you have to depend on it and then it won't work.  

you can request the dvd's from lenovo. they will charge for it but it's not much.  and then you have factory made restore discs. just tell them that your recovery didn't work.  

[johfo]

OK...

Thanks for info.

Now I know I'm definitely not impressed by lenovo.

When there are a function...I just assume it to work right ahead. When I started it, without having a clue of required size of usb memory, it said nothing about that I had to do the stick bootable, or the required size.

I think it's a shame that I need to use 3:rd party programs to make an ISO file or fiddle around with discpart etc to create recovery media.

I solved it by removing an old DVD-burner from another stationary PC and connected through an IDE-to-USB interface, so I now have recovery discs.

But I think I will try Lenovos customer support by phone and just give some feedback. If a lot of customers complains and doesn't accept programs not suitable or in a "beta state" (that doesn't make a recovery media bootable) they must do something in the end...

[topmahof Community Moderator]

i agree with what you're saying. i always liked the idea of having the discs for all the stuff that was on the new computer just in case something went wrong. that doesn't happen anymore with any manufacturer.  now you have to make your own stuff and the instructions are a little sparce at best.  i'm glad you got your discs made.  i would rather have recovery on disc than on usb sticks.  i wouldn't mind seeing the instructions a little more complete, though, so by all means make the call.