I had a serious problem with a virus On my Thinkpad T-40 and I
*thought* I was unable to run the restore from the "hidden" backup. (I
actually did get it to run...) It is really annoying that they save a
ton of money by not including restore CD's.

Anyhow, I called IBM Tech support and they sent me the set of restore
CD's. I think they would do that for you if you asked.

Then perhaps you could reformat the whole drive, and do the reinstall
from the CD's.

For what it's worth...

ken