My Lenovo 3000 C100 did not come with any Windows XP CD. Instead, the OS is embedded in the harddrive. I do not like this arrangement. First, it takes up precious space in the harddrive. Second, should the harddrive get useless, how do I upgrade?
And so with only 40GB (32 GB only with 8GB reserved by XP for Rapid Restore) my laptop quickly lost space. I bought an 80GB disk (the website says my laptop model can only accomodate up to 100GB and there was no such size in the market) and agonized whether I should install Mandriva or Ubuntu instead.
The decision to remain in XP was arrived at when I realized I would not be able to program in Matlab since my Matlab license is for Windows. Oh well, I can always dual boot. Scilab is fine but would need more improvements in image processing.
Fortunately, I found that it is possible to make a Windows Installer from such embedded OS. The original link seems no longer active. But here's a tip : In google, type How to Fresh Install Windows XP Without a Recovery CD. I thank profusely the one who figured this out.
