installing windows 7 on a lenovo T510 without recovery disks

It took me long enough to figure out this out, and the search results were thin enough, that I think a blog post is worthwhile. I certainly would have liked to have had something like this.

Scenario

• Lenovo T510
• Lost the Lenovo recovery disks
• Needed to install Windows 7 64 bit from scratch

After a fruitless attempt to get Windows 7 and Debian Squeeze to cohabitate, I had simply given up and installed Debian Squeeze onto the box, blowing away Windows. Getting the trackpoint mouse to work reasonably well is another article entirely.  For various reasons, I needed to install Visual Studio to take a look at it's integration to Microsoft's new Azure platform (pretty neat, by the way) and so I had to get back to Win 7 64.  I lost the Lenovo recovery disks in our recent move, and so picked up a full copy of Windows 7 64 at best buy, and got down to installing.

Problem

As many of you may have found, Windows 7 weirdly doesn't recognize the T510's networking hardware.  So, after installing Win 7, you will need to install the Lenovo drivers from their helpful website here.  Of course, without the internet, this can be a challenge.  As I found out, even with the internet this is a challenge, because after downloading the Intel PRO/1000 Lan Adapter ethernet driver via my other computer, putting it on a USB stick, transferring it to the laptop and installing it, I got an error stating that I was missing the "Intel Networking" driver.  While pretty much sucks, who's bright idea was it to create an ethernet driver that needs another driver to run?  Especially one that doesn't seem to be available for download anywhere?  Whatever.  At this point, I was pretty well stuck, and just started randomly downloading things in the hope that I could get it to work. 

Among the things that didn't work were:

• running any other exe's in the PRO/1000 Lan Adapter install directory
• manually adding any .inf file via the My Computer >> Properties >> Device Manager
• getting windows to detect the ethernet device on it's own (btw Debian does this no problem)
• finding the elusive "Intel Networking" driver
• installing Lenovo's Thinkvantage Access Connections software

Solution

As it turns out, the winning combo was to get the following:

• Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AG/ 4965AGN
• Thinkvatage System Update

...which at the time I did this, were the following two files:

• 8aw212ww.exe
• systemupdate40-2011-02-18.exe

...both of which are available at the driver website listed above.  The first driver is the wireless WiFi driver, and for whatever reason, this has all the neccesary bits to get you connected to the internet.  Yes, the WiFi sets up easier than the Ethernet.  The second file is the automatic update installer, which just figures out what you don't have, what's current, and gives you the option of downloading whatever you like, including the ethernet driver.  From there, you are back up and running.

Hopefully this is of use to someone else who won't want to go through the hassle I did.