Strange, this is the first I've heard of problems with SP1. Perhaps you have a corrupt installer? I'd try a clean install of Vista RTM, and download SP1 again, and then install.

I wish I had decided to read blogs before, not after trying to updatea my x61t. will have to get my usb cdrom shipped out to me. too bad it won't boot off usb key! what a pain!!

Matt

I was going to suggest slipstreaming SP1 with a Vista disk but reading up it looks like it's not really possible due to SP1 updating the 'service layer' which is there to allow easy updates without disruption (i.e. reboots)! Oh the irony lol.

Guess Matt Sharpe's suggestion is best, i.e. do everything from a fresh install. You could do a Vista Easy Transfer to another machine then transfer back to save having to set up all of your email etc again.

That's a shame. I've had it running on my Samsung Q1P without a single problem for a few weeks now. This is the unfortunate reality with the Windows ecosystem: too may variables involved in terms of hardware, software, drivers, etc... We gain freedom as consumers to buy and install what we want, but you can start with two identical systems and eventually see non-identical results. :( Good luck getting it to work out; I suspect the fresh install is the best recourse at this point.

Side note pre-SP1:

At the Office, until 20:00 - running Windows Update and the ThinkVantage System Update last friday - just to download and Update while doing other things (like real work :) )

At home, 22:00 ... discovered that sound was gone ... :)

During the day, sound is "in mute mode", so ... I don't know when I lost sound - ThinkVantage system Update included ThinkPad modem, BIOS amoung other itens.



When SP1 arrives (via Windows Update in my case) ... what will happen ... ?


"Geeze should it really be this hard?" - couldn't agree more ...

This is kind of a random question, but have you been doing the SP1 installation while the tablet is in the mobile dock?

I ask because I have been having a similar issue (getting to the scrolling Vista boot screen and then system going black and completely hanging). I haven't been trying to install SP1, but this is a new occurence, that first cropped up after the latest set of Windows Updates and I'm guessing that update is also a part of SP1.

What I've found is if it restarts in the dock, it hangs, but then if you hard eject it from the dock (pull the bar without using the eject button) and just set it on your desk, it will suddenly come back to life (the cursor appears) and it finishes booting.

This problem doesn't occur at all if it is restarted when not in the dock. As such, it is some driver compatibility issue, but I have all the lastest ones from Lenovo and it seems to have been triggered by the lastest Windows Update cycle, so one of the updates must break or interfere with one of the drivers.

It's very strange, but your problem has the exact same symptoms, so I was wondering if the mobile dock was the cause of your problem as well.

Thanks for keeping us updated on your efforts and good luck.

My son tried it on his HP. Similar symptoms and eventually found out that a windows log file was turned off, so it errored at the end trying to write to the log ... I'll ask him for more info.

Did you uprgade the memory of your X61? Small incompatibilities between memory chips can lead to unexpected problems when more demanding OS is installed (just a wild guess)...

My brick is no longer a brick. A OEM Vista Bus DVD manged to recover it - by clicking "repair your computer" and then it rolled back a restore point or two. Booted right up after that; all seems to be well. Whew.

First -- The x61t will boot from a USB key. Make a bootable USB key (http://blog.offbeatmammal.com/post/2007/10/Bootable-USB-drive.aspx) and copy the contents of the Vista ISO onto the key and then at the start of the boot process hit the "F12" key. This may be particular to the Lenovo's BIOS. When that version of Vista comes up you can do error recovery. Of course, having a complete system back up is better. But when you've not done that...

I have 2 gigs of memory, and they were factory installed by Lenovo. I purchased mine very recently - perhaps the ones that work are older?

My event log didn't really show me anything of interest -- lots of failures (scary one: cant init page file on disk - corruption??). But there was nothing between the hang and the recovery.

It might be worth turning on boot logging for anyone that is already in this situation and see if that tells you about a driver that is hung (but it may be too late in the boot process at that point).

Matt, if this helps, I have the same exact problem trying to update my ATT Communications Software. In two plus years I have never had this kind of situation. Maybe it is something in a recent Windows update.