Wait a minnit - You don't get boot AT ALL, from any device? That isn't a utility partition thing - boot comes from proper BIOS, or one wouldn't be able to load the utility partition... So if BIOS is not seeing ANY boot, it has to be your DVD drive, or boot order or something. OR the drive controller on the MB sh*t the bed.
Prove the portable DVD *BOOT capable* on another machine.
From what he was describing upthread, he can get it to boot, it performs the POST just fine, can get to some of the BIOS options, but after that... Lenovo Care software package doesn’t seem to allow anything to load an OS to the HD.
Possibly because of a missing UEFI partition as this HD was repartitioned and formatted NTFS on another machine.
Also, he tried the Mint disk on another machine and it worked.
We’re running low on options at this point. Means we’re either getting close to figuring it out and getting it to work, or figuring out that he has an expensive door stop.
One thing I tried: I have an old hard drive with W7 on it from a LT that crashed a while ago. I put that in the Lenovo and it tried to start Windows, went through the repair facilities and came up with an error. I think it can’t resolve the hardware conflicts. FYI