Thinkpads Forum

Many Recovery sets consist of more than one CD/DVD disks, or a collection of .cue/.bin and .iso files.
Is there any way to combine all of those into one single image/iso, which could then be installed onto a bootable USB key?

I do recall another user telling me that they managed to get this to work by copying all the recovery files from subsequent disks to the respective folder on the USB drive after making it a bootable version of disk 1. I don't recall if they had to edit any metadata files, but I believe it can be done.

RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 09, 2021 4:04 am

Many Recovery sets consist of more than one CD/DVD disks, or a collection of .cue/.bin and .iso files.
Is there any way to combine all of those into one single image/iso, which could then be installed onto a bootable USB key?

There is. I forget the names - I got it via Reboot.pro forums long back. It basically allows saving and loading ISOs from a bootable menu.

There's also some dedicated hardware variants of this - if keen i'll try to find them links for you.

PS: RBS - for you.. i will definitely look them up. Bit occupied but figured i'll atleast reply here before I lose track of this thread that popped up for me.

I've been using Ventoy to boot multiple ISO from single USB flash drive. Have not tried using a ThinkPad recovery set with it, but now I'm wondering if it would work. If so, it's would be very easy to set up.

The reason why I asked this, has just become moot (at least for me).
I was trying to install W7 from Lenovo Recovery sets onto my M900 Tiny, which has a Skylake CPU (i5-6600T).

I first tried to install from a CD/DVD set from a T460 (which has Skylake), but that install failed.
Apparently from Skylake CPU onward the W7 USB3.0 function is no longer supported!
The above is the set I wanted to combine, to then copy it all onto a bootable USB-key.

Next I tried a T450 W8.1 Lenovo Recovery using a USB-key.
This one installed, my guess is that it has proper/good enough USB3.0
However, Windows wouldn't activate, even with a W8 key in BIOS.

Digging through my CD/DVD pile, I found an official W7 Lenovo Recovery set for a T440/T440s.
Having nothing to lose, I figured, why not try this?
Lo and behold... it worked!
Right now it's doing the finishing of the install (will probably take a few hours).

Before I started this latter install, I compared the CD/DVD contents between T460 and T440: DAY and NIGHT difference!
Anyway, I'm happy right now and will report on the end-result later.

Update: it failed again, (no) thanks to Intel removing W7-USB3.0 support in the (Skylake and newer) CPU.

If such needs ever come up again:

https://easy2boot.xyz/

Easy 2 Boot.

I think he renamed it from E2B hence I was having trouble remembering the name and whether it was E2D or B etc.

There's also the hardware external hdd case of mine that allows ISO virtual load and booting - Made by iodd - i forget the model number. But must have for Geeks

Thanks for that link, I'll have a closer look at it next.

To finish my install-story: all those Recovery sets kept failing on the M900, because they couldn't get its USB3.0 ports to work for the (USB) keyboard and mouse!
So in the end I put the SSD in my T440p and installed W7 on it there, followed by the M900-specific USB3.0, LAN and Chipset drivers and transferred the SSD into the M900.
Result? It's finally purring away, yeay!

RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 14, 2021 10:11 am

Thanks for that link, I'll have a closer look at it next.

To finish my install-story: all those Recovery sets kept failing on the M900, because they couldn't get its USB3.0 ports to work for the (USB) keyboard and mouse!
So in the end I put the SSD in my T440p and installed W7 on it there, followed by the M900-specific USB3.0, LAN and Chipset drivers and transferred the SSD into the M900.
Result? It's finally purring away, yeay!

Ha ha! Brilliant. The things we do for them machines to breath life into them. This is something I've seen better managed by Win 8 onwards, but I saw Win 7 usually go cuckoo with Chipset / Driver issues.

I am guessing you planned for that i.e. There were not much hardware / driver differences or some related overlaps?

Nope, the only M900 problem was its Skylake CPU that doesn't play ball any longer with 'native' W7-USB.