[ltp] A31p BIOS upgrade and win2k

[David Grindrod]

  I have recently upgraded my BIOS on my A31p to the latest version  
(1.02 - 1GET30WW) following suggestions by IBM. After upgrading by 
downloading and running (as the IBM Update program did not work) 
everything seemed fine until I booted into Windows 2000 after booting 
into Linux. Windows would not boot no matter what I did and comes back 
with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE in the  blue screen of death. I have 
performed all the obvious things (booting from repair console and 
installing mbr etc.) to fix things but always get the same error. Linux 
runs fine  and luckily I can boot into this and try and fix the problem.

Although this is not directly relevant to Linux other users should bear 
this in mind when considering upgrading the BIOS. It may be just my 
machine but I think this is more fundamental problem.  If anyone has any 
suggestions on how to fix this without reformatting and re-installing I 
would appreciate it. Unfortunately I cannot ring IBM and ask them as 
they told me last week that since it is a dual boot machine then I have 
no software warranty (this was in the UK). I have paid for 3 year onsite 
warranty world wide but apparently this is only for hardware. I was told 
that as soon as I put another operating system on the box then they will 
not help with any software issues! Typical as the only thing that seems 
to work on my box at the moment is the other invalid operating system. I 
though IBM was supposed to support Linux! The only improvement of IBM 
over Dell is that IBM will not invalid your hardware warranty if you put 
Linux on their Laptops. With Dell all your warranty is lost.

I have done a search of the web and this error seems to means that 
windows 2000 driver cannot read the  controller anymore. Suggestions on 
a fix are very welcome.

Dave

PS I have somehow lost my boot set-up for my recovery partition (can 
someone send me a copy of the boot set-up  for the booting the IBM 
Recovery tools (i.e. boot.ini) I would appreciate it. 





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