Lenovo 3000 n200 optical drive problems

[Nigel Henry]

On Wednesday 10 December 2008 01:37, squareyes wrote:
> Hi all,
> does anyone on this list a fully functional Lenovo 3000 n200 laptop?
> Mine has never had a properly working optical drive. Will install
> operating systems then doesn't exist in either Win XP or Ubuntu.
> Been in touch with Lenovo techs a number of times, different answers
> each time.
> 1.Update bios
> 2.Install Win XP drivers (Don't seem to be any)
> 3.Sent me a new drive same problems (Sent it back)
> 4.My fault as original image not still on machine, sent me Recovery CD's
> Won't recover, Vista gets to welcome page then shuts down in a loop.
> 5. Sent machine to Lenovo, was told nothing wrong with it, but at last
> optical drive working. Shrunk Vista and installed Ubuntu 8.04, optical
> drive now gone again, in both Vista and Ubuntu.
> 6. Rang Lenovo and was told optical drive will only work with Vista even
> though they have for sale WinXP recovery CD's
> As this is NOT mentioned at point of sale if indeed it is correct,
> doesn't this breach anti trust laws?
>
> Would be very interested to hear if anyone has one of these machines
> working correctly, and if so,
> just how did they get it working, or should we  avoid this machine?
> Lenovo forums seem to have numerous optical
> drive problems listed.
> Don't really want Vista, but will keep it if it means I can get Ubuntu
> running successfully.
>
> Many thanks in advance.
> Take Care
> Winton

Hi Winton.

I've replied to you a few times when you last asked about the optical drive 
problem.

On the face of it, it looks like Lenovo has done some sort of deal with 
Microsoft, where the the only distro that will work on this machine is MS 
Vista.

Assuming that you still have Vista installed, and is in the state that it was 
when Lenovo returned the machine to you, with the optical drive working. How 
about installing Ubuntu using Wubi.

I've never tried this, as I don't have a windows install, but try googling 
Wubi.

The first hit I got was the one below.

http://wubi-installer.org/

You hopefully will have some success with this. At the same time I think that 
it's obscene that the only distro you can use on the Lenovo 3000 n200 is 
Windows Vista.

Just trying to help.

Nigel.