How to reenable the F11 function (Product Recovery Program)

The Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette solves this problem.
But for those without a floppy drive, I've created a CD image (ISO) of the diskettes, using a PC with a floppy drive and MagicISO (here's a nice tutorial on how I did it).

Like the above link says:

Here are the download links (these ISOs were made at the 28th of January of 2007 - check if these really are the latest versions of the repair diskette):

Recovery repair CD for Windows 2000 and XP (rnr31_rrd.exe):
http://rapidshare.com/files/89450678/rnr31_rrd_fixed.iso
or
http://hotfile.com/dl/27467355/1a00ebf/rnr31_rrd_fixed.iso.html

Recovery repair CD for Windows Vista (rnr40_rrd.exe):
http://rapidshare.com/files/89450908/rnr40_rrd_fixed.iso
or
http://hotfile.com/dl/27467378/4775751/rnr40_rrd_fixed.iso.html



Now burn the ISO image to a CD (using Nero, MagicISO, etc.) and restart your computer with the CD in the drive.
Note: Install the Rescue and Recovery software, before restoring the partition.


When booting from the CD (I only tested with the Vista diskette. I assume the same dialogues will appear with the XP and 2000 one):

You'll probably get a "Write protect error writing drive A: Abort, Retry Fail?" error. Just enter "F" to choose the Fail option (this error will appear several times. Just keep pressing "F" every time it appears).

You'll eventually get to a screen where you should choose the option "Option 1: Repair the current master boot record." (press ENTER).
After a few more Fails, a message saying "repairing... writing new mbr..." should appear. After pressing Fail again, you'll get a message saying "File creation error".
Finally another screen will appear with two option: "Press ENTER and continue" and "Press ENTER and continue" (yes, both options have the same text). CHOOSE THE SECOND ONE! (I lost a bit of time here, because I kept choosing the first option).
You'll see a few more error messages (continue pressing "F") and finally a screen saying "The operation was completed successfully". Press ENTER.
You'll probably get a few more "Fails"... After reaching the DOS prompt ("A:\>"), you can turn off the computer.
Note: Remember to eject the CD, or you'll boot again from it.

Now, when you press the ThinkVantage button you'll have the F11 option or you'll be redirected to Rescue and Recovery.



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Edit: If the "Factory Restore" option has vanished from the pre-boot environment, follow the steps in this thread.

 

still doesn't work, and then I realized I haven't install Rescue and Recovery yet. I hope this was the cause.

 

Installing RnR solved the problem?

 

Yeah, now it's fully functioning again. Thank you for your help

 

good post +rep

 

This worked for me using Vista x64
I lost the blue thinkvantage button functionality on bootup when I did a clean install of vista x64.

I should note that for some reason the prompts to press "Retry, Abort, Fail" did NOT appear on my screen. There was a problem displaying the text or something.

I had 2 initial prompts asking to Retry/Abort/Fail when it couldn't write to A: - after that, the program started and asked me to press enter. After I press enter I had to blindly press "F" several times and then several more. Very strange...

But in the end, it worked! I know can boot into R&R.

Big thanks to the op for this - I hope that the boot CD you uploaded to rapidshare stays up.

My question is: why doesn't Lenovo have an ISO like this available for download instead of a stupid floppy disk program?! Most people don't have access to floppys anymore...

 

I ask myself the same question... Weird.
Even worse, their floppy image is a 16bit application. Vista is no longer compatible with those applications so, as far as I know, it's not possible to create the floppy in Vista. I had to use XP...

Let's hope Lenovo fixes this problem soon.

 

Apparently my T61 did not come with the option to reset to factory settings. I was planning on one of the soft reformats and de-selecting all the bloatware, but I don't have that option. Any advice? I got Lenovo to send me a CD which should let me do a reformat.

 

Can you enter the pre-desktop area by pressing the "thinkvantage" button during bootup?

 

Yes. It doesn't give me the option to reload factory settings. I may have deleted the Recovery part of Thinkvantage in my efforts to reduce the number of processes, but after reinstalling it, I still can't reset to factory.