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I have a somewhat old ThinkPad R40. I decided it's time to make a clean reinstall. I erased its partitions, formated a new one and installed Windows XP. I downloaded everything in Lenovo's site relevant for R40 Type 2682-1G2 and installed.

For some reason, all devices in the device manager (ethernet, wireless, vid controller, audio) are still marked with a yellow mark. None of the devices work. I did this twice and still no joy.

I asked someone, and he told me "click the blue Access IBM button and it will reinstall itself". This was true as the computer used to have a "hidden" partition with the base image where it could reinstall itself from, but unfortunately I deleted that partition as well.

How can I make the computer recognize the drivers I'm installing?

Can I get the base image of R40 from somewhere? (I couldn't find it in Lenovo's site)

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3 Answers

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When you run those installers, what it actually does is unpack the drivers in C:\DRIVERS (and some other directories, like C:\OSFIXES, C:\SWTOOLS and C:\SWSHARE, etc). However, the installers should proceed to actually install them. Are you sure that you went through the whole installation procedure?

Have you installed ThinkVantage System Update? That should be able to find all the latest drivers for you, but I am not sure if it relies on currently installed drivers to check version numbers against.

If you want to get CD images of the Recovery Discs, can ask on the unofficial ThinkPad Forums. I have an FTP server where I allow members to upload and download recovery disks for various models, but I am away on holiday (vacation) at the moment, so I cannot check if I have the R40 discs and make them available to you. I'll be back home in a week's time though.

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Indeed, Lenovo's drivers seem to be installed when you run them, but actually they only extract. As Jason404 suggests, you need to go to C:\Drivers and run them one by one. Do also notice Siim K's answer as well as it solved some of the problem too. – Jonathan Sep 10 '10 at 13:48
They should offer to autorun once extracted but depending on the state of the machine configuration this may not be working properly. – Shinrai Sep 10 '10 at 14:14
Some of the do and some don't, you really need to notice when you install each one of them. Baaad UEX design Lenovo! or should I say IBM?! – Jonathan Sep 10 '10 at 16:02
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Did you install only drivers from the Lenovo site or also the ThinkVantage software? Namely the "ThinkVantage System Update" - it should find the missing drivers and download/install them.

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That specific install causes the following error: "ThinkVantage System Update could not find a supported .NET Framework". Unfortunately I can't update my windows as I have no ethernet or wireless connectivity as the drivers are not recognized. Deadlock?! or perhaps I should install XP SP3 instead of SP2? – Jonathan Sep 10 '10 at 9:24
Probably you have access to another computer and an USB stick? You can download full .NET 3.5 framework package from Microsoft's site and then transfer it to the R40 and run it: download.microsoft.com/download/6/0/f/… – Siim K Sep 10 '10 at 10:12
Siim, you were right regarding the .NET 3.5 - it allowed me to install the ThinkVantage System Update. I first tried to install .Net 4 but it didn't help. The link you gave me did the trick. Wish I could accept both answers, but I can't, so I'll go with jason404's answer as he also got me aware of the location of the drivers. +1 anyway as you helped me a great deal. – Jonathan Sep 10 '10 at 13:47
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You can purchase the base image from Lenovo for around $50 (call support and tell them you want to buy product recovery CDs).

Alternately, are you using Service Pack 3? This machine may actually not support it due to age - try SP1 or SP2 and see if you have better luck.

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Thanks for the info regarding the base image from Lenovo. Regarding SP3 support - I installed SP3 and all seems fine (After I solved the issues I had using the answers above) – Jonathan Sep 10 '10 at 16:01
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