I have an IBM X20 Thinkpad, that I would like to give to a friend. 
Before doing so, I would like to erase all my data and restore the
computer to its original settings.  I had thought that IBM had
equipped its Thinkpads with an easy way to do this. Please provide me
with step by step instructions.

Hello,

Do you have a BOOT CD Disk & Restore?
MAKE SURE TO BACKUP YOUR DATA AND INFORMATION FIRST
If so:

1. Insert this CD

2. Turn on Thinkpad

3. If you see the message "Press any key to start from CD" DO IT!!!***

4. Follow the instructions, and select format disk e install a New Windows.

MAKE SURE TO BACKUP YOUR DATA AND INFORMATION FIRST

** Are you using XP?
** Does computer is setup to looking for CD to start? If not, you need
enable it, from start-up....

Good luck.

Leo

Based on my experience on my thinkpad...

there's a utitlity comes along with your thinkpad....

when u turn on your laptop....
in the first bootscreen

press your Access IBM button ( it should be on the top of your keyboard)

you'll end up in a new screen.....

choose UTILITY-->RESTORE TO FACTORY SETTING

just follow the instructin
 ( agree with the IBM's agreement and press "Y" when it warns you that
your data will be erased)

wait for..... 3 hours for my thinkpad

your IBM will be as clean as new

hope this will work out

If your looking for a restore procedure where its builtin on a another
partition of the hardrive like on the HP PCs, I have not seen it on
the IBMs, you would need the restore CDs. If you dont have the restore
CDs, you can use or buy any properly licensed Windows version and
install it. If you use WIN XP it will save you from downloading lot of
drivers as it will install many of them. Then when windows is up,
might be in low color if video driver wasn't one of the drivers
installed, goto device manager and see what drivers are marked yellow.
Those are the ones needed to be downloaded. Goto IBM.com to get the
drivers. Any further questions can be contacted at <a
href="http://www.j4ti.com">www.j4ti.com</a>

I would recommend actually installing Ubuntu or Mepis.  Theses are two
free and very easy to use Linux distrobutions that a new user to linux
can figure out pretty easily.

Not the answer you might be looking for but this is a freely offered comment :).

George Algozzini
http://www.ezzini.com