After 1 month of wait got my R50e Thinkpad.

[simms]

No, its a hidden partition for recovery.

 

[p9939068]

pardon my ignorance, but what does this mean exactly..? i dont wish to format my laptop first, for fear of the obvious..but xp home is really frustrating me..

can i just insert the winxp pro cd, boot up from cd, an proceed with the pre-installation format..? if not, what else should i do..?

 

[The Linuxator]

Originally posted by: p9939068
pardon my ignorance, but what does this mean exactly..? i dont wish to format my laptop first, for fear of the obvious..but xp home is really frustrating me..

can i just insert the winxp pro cd, boot up from cd, an proceed with the pre-installation format..? if not, what else should i do..?

You got it wrong, the hidden partitiom comes instead of recovery CD's and it's benefit is that if your system crashes you just acces the recovery partition on the spot without CDs and you do an automatic restoration.
If you don't care much about recovering the default apps and such , just format and install XP pro.
There is an app that burns the recovery CDs for you, it should be somehwere on your menu, burn them and then do a format or whatever.

 

[p9939068]

oh! i get it now. so the "hidden partition" will be formatted as well when i install xp pro right..?

last question: when you speak of the menu, which one is it? or do i have to get that app from ibm's homepage..?

Thanks for all the help by the way

 

[The Linuxator]

Originally posted by: p9939068
oh! i get it now. so the "hidden partition" will be formatted as well when i install xp pro right..?

last question: when you speak of the menu, which one is it? or do i have to get that app from ibm's homepage..?

Thanks for all the help by the way

Start menu

 

[deathwalker]

 

[i game with a gateway]

hey linuxator! i haven't posted here in awhile, how's your thinkpad doing? i reformated xp and regained gigs worth of space, after some trouble with the recovery program(s) and it's been doing good since
i am still considering the upgrade to my hdd, a 16mb cache 5400rpm drive, kinda like yours and was wondering if i should upgrade my ram first or go with the hdd. when you upgraded, which made more of a difference? thanks.

 

[The Linuxator]

Originally posted by: i game with a gateway
hey linuxator! i haven't posted here in awhile, how's your thinkpad doing? i reformated xp and regained gigs worth of space, after some trouble with the recovery program(s) and it's been doing good since
i am still considering the upgrade to my hdd, a 16mb cache 5400rpm drive, kinda like yours and was wondering if i should upgrade my ram first or go with the hdd. when you upgraded, which made more of a difference? thanks.

Nice to hear from you again, I am enjoying my R50e and I am very satesfied with it, but God you gotta hate that thick LCD cover , sometimes I have this urge to upgrade to a T43 just because of the cover (and to get me some composite material goodness )

Anyways, TBH, shortly after selling the stock DDR333 memory and buying a gig of Corsair DDR400 I thought my system will now run the memory at 400 MHZ, well I was wrong the Intel chipset isn't capable of anything past 333, but hey DDR400 CAS 2.5 costs the same as regular DDR333 so I don't see anything bad about that. So based on that, I see that you have 768 MB of RAM and that's quiet enough, and no memory upgrade is going to give you any speed boost of what so ever, so the conclusion is that it's much better for you to upgrade to a 5400 rpm 16 mb cache hdd from that 4200rpm 2 MB cache hdd, and if you have the extra dollars to shell out you will even notice an excellent boost in speed if you opt for a 7200rpm hdd, which I am considering doing ATM it is a worth while upgrade.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

This laptop has not touch pad correct? only the little eraser thing right?
I been looking into getting an IBM but i can't deal with the eraser thing, i need a touch pad.

 

[Ionizer86]

The R50e and R51e have no touchpad because they're the economy models. But then, neither do X's and really old T and R laptops.

 

[bREwIn dOdgEr dUDe]

i don't mind the NIB, but fer' better manueverability i got an M$ wireless notebook optical usb mini-mouse to use with my r50e and what a great great addition... it also kills the power of the mouse (battery savings) when you re-attach the usb-connector for storage underneath the mouse itself... plug-n-pray & no drivers... wal-mart for $29...

 

[j511180]

Does this notebook uses one of those annoying x-brite, opticlear, tru-brite (whatever they're called) glare-inducing screens? It seems most manufacturers use them nowadays...and they're difficult to use outdoors.

J511180 likes to work outdoors, weather permitting.

BTW, Newegg has these for $799 with free 512mb ram. <------ good deal, eh?

 

[bREwIn dOdgEr dUDe]

the R50e does not have the xbrite screen... the newegg deal is pretty good, someone mentioned a $100 rebate deep in this thread...