Lenovo Support in Switzerland After End of Life

The Board Carries the Platform Identity

A system board replacement is normally a mechanical operation. On a machine using full-disk encryption or secure boot with keys sealed to the trusted platform module, it is not, because the module is bound to the board. Replace it and the software is presented with a different platform identity than the one the keys were sealed against.

The Symptom Looks Like Data Loss

The machine returns, posts normally, and the encrypted volumes decline to unlock. Everything about the presentation suggests the data is gone. In almost every case it is not — the volumes are intact and the automatic unseal has simply failed — but establishing that under pressure, in a maintenance window, with a regulated workload waiting, is an expensive way to learn it.

The Check Takes Ten Minutes

Before the board is removed: confirm that recovery keys exist, that they are current, and that they can be retrieved from somewhere other than the machine being worked on. All three conditions matter, and the third is the one most often wrong — escrow that lives on the same estate is no escrow at all when that estate is the thing under repair.

We Raise It at Quotation

A system board is not an ordinary commodity part on an encrypted estate, and the moment to discover that is when it is quoted rather than when it is fitted. ICD flags it with the quotation and supplies boards and components across ThinkSystem and System x generations past vendor support, tested and covered for one to three years.