Reinstall Win-7 PRO x64 OEM , no discs

[bawldiggle]

Drivers are proving to be a challenge

Lenovo includes a lot of (what I assume to be adware/features)
Edge e540 (ThinkPad) | Serial number: PF029W88 | model: 20C600BVAU
Drivers & Software: Edge E540 (ThinkPad) 20C600BVAU ... 139 drivers
With Operating System filtered to Windows 7 ... 62 drivers

Components filter is where I do not know what to filter/select for ?
- I don't want any of the Lenovo extras
- with DDG I started searching for "what is <component-name>" but a lot of useless results, including a lot sellers. (...and I use DDG as my search engine ?)

This 3rd party providor "DriverDR"
- is for e530 and not my e540
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E530 Drivers Download
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E530 Drivers Download and Update for Windows 10, 8, 7, XP and Vista
-- not e540 ?, does that matter ?

What would be essential drivers ?

 

[torchwood]

Hi Russell,

ONLY get your drivers from the Lenovo site
The MAJOR and FIRST one to update is the Chipset, REBOOT .
then your graphics card
remember MS will update drivers as well unless you turn that part OFF

Then depending on what you use in the system , ie Touchpad, camera, cardreader etc
(a number of components are unneccessary you allready have the MS ones ie Power/audio)

UNLESS you have a system stability problem LEAVE the Bios updates alone

note as you have an SSD its hardware drivers (firmware) can only be updated from the manufactueres site.
It will be worthwhile reading this tutorial
SSD Tweaks and Optimizations in Windows 7 - Windows 7 Help Forums

Roy

 

[Megahertz07]

From post #8

Normally the software that creates the recovery disks doesn't wipes the recovery partition. It puts a flag that says that the disks has already been created. If you remove the flag you'll be able to create them again.
If you have the Recovery partition (with or without the flag) you can launch the recovery from inside Windows or from BIOS.
Open Disk management, expand all columns and with the snipping tool take a snapshot and post here as an attachment.
Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[bawldiggle]

Hi Roy,
Its gone midnight here, way past my bed time
Just wanted to acknowledge your last post , thank you.

Russell

 

[Megahertz07]

Your Lenovo has a Win 8 COA, that means that it came with Win 8.
Someone used the downgrade option right to downgrade it to win 7 and sold to you. We don't know how he did it. Could be by cloning a win 7 Lenovo disk or by installing a Win 7 SLP on it and then activating.
Then you took it to the technician to reinstall Win 7. Once again, nobody knows how he did it.
Can be that you still have a Recovery Partition on your disk. And if you do, it can be Win 7 or Win 8, depending how was win 7 installed (first and second time).
Please post Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image - Windows 7 Help Forums