FW: [konu@ottawa.com: Re: [ltp] Partition Magic/Partition-It/Fips & Win XP]

[Meidinger,Christopher]

Hello Kristjan, Hello List,

I'm a bit confused what you guys are (were) trying to do, but here are some
ideas.

If you want to use the XP Preload rather than installing XP yourself, then
you will need a tool to change the partition size. My favorite way to do
this is to burn an image of the hard drive (I use ghost for imaging, but
drive image, hdcopy, whatever you like to use will work) and then change the
size of the partition when you copy the image back from CD to HDD. This way,
if lightnig strikes, and every program burns a drive once in a while, you're
safe.

So now you have a smaller XP Partition, and the IBM service partition. I see
no reason to delete the IBM service partition, because it is useful, and
only takes up a little over a gig. SO then you can use your favorite tool to
create all your linux partitions, and install linux.

Now, during the linux installation you have to choose a boot method. If you
want to use LILO or Gump in the MBR, save a copy of the original MBR from
IBM. The original MBR gives you the option to hit F11 at boot time, and
recover the machine. To save the MBR, hit F11 when the computer starts, and
navigate through the menus until you find the one that creates a boot disk
to restore the original MBR. If anyone needs this disk, mail me, i'd be
happy to send you a .img of it.

If you would prefer to keep the original MBR, either use GRUB/LILO, or use
the XP boot manager. Grub or Lilo will let you add the XP partition to the
boot list very easily. If you want to use the XP boot list, you need to copy
the first 512 bytes of your /boot partition (where GRUB is installed) to a
file, and boot from that in the XP file system. Don't forget to make a
bootdisk when you install linux, or you will not be able to boot it until
the following process is finished.

I stole this plan from http://www.coelacanth.com/~nick/t23/#ntbldr, so he
gets the credit for getting linux into the XP boot loader. Anyway, install
your Linux to boot from the first sectors of the boot partition, and do NOT
overwrite the MBR. Then do this: (Stolen material!)

       dd if=/dev/hda5 of=bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
       mcopy bootsect.lnx a:

Use that command to make your boot file, and put it in C:\. Then add this
line to your boot.ini:

      C:\BOOTSECT.LNX="Linux GRUB Boot"

Presto, you can boot Linux from the XP Boot manager.

If you install XP by hand when linux is already on the drive, you can decide
how you want to partition the disk at install time, and (assuming you have a
linux boot disk) set up your XP to boot linux as described above, so you
should experience almost no hassles. 

I hope this made sense, it's 6pm here in germany, and it's been a very very
long day. So just mail me if you have questions, and tell me if you think
this is complete bullshit.

mfG Chris Meidinger
DV-Support bei der Peguform GmbH
Tel. 07663 61 2600
EMail. c.meidinger@peguform.de
_______________________________ 

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Computer & Netzwerktechnik GmbH 

Bebelstrasse 17 
D-79108 Freiburg 
Telefon: +49 (0) 761 13095-0 
Telefax: +49 (0) 761 13095-50 

E-Mail: chris.meidinger@it-connect.de 
_______________________________  

-----Original Message-----
From: Kristjan Onu [mailto:konu@ottawa.com] 
Sent: Thursday, July 04, 2002 4:55 PM
To: Meidinger,Christopher
Subject: [konu@ottawa.com: Re: [ltp] Partition Magic/Partition-It/Fips & Win
XP]


This is the message I posted to the mailing list. My post may be a little
obscure out of context, but the long and short of it is that if you want to
have XP and Linux on the same hard drive, you need to (1) install XP first
onto the entire hard drive, (2) shrink the XP partition -- I think this can
only be done using a couple of commercial partitioning programs (3) install
Linux.

Please let the mailing list know if you find alternate ways to accomplish
the same thing.

Kristjan

----- Forwarded message from Kristjan Onu <konu@ottawa.com> -----

Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 19:14:23 -0500
From: Kristjan Onu <konu@ottawa.com>
To: linux-thinkpad@www.bm-soft.com
Subject: Re: [ltp] Partition Magic/Partition-It/Fips  & Win XP

It's not obvious to me how getting recovery CDs is a substitute for a second
HDD or partitioning software. With the recovery CDs I was sent for an A31p,
I could only reformat the _entire_ HDD and then install XP.

Is it possible to separate these two steps? Can the recovery CDs be used to
reformat only portions of the HDD? Using the CDs I received (IBM P/N 01R5301
and IBM P/N 01R5302) I didn't see how this could be done.

Kristjan

PS. With regards to partitioning software, is there free software that
allows resizing XP-type NTFS partitions? When I looked, I couldn't find
anything (and decided Paragon's Partition Manager was "best".)

D. Sen wrote (on Tue, Jul  2 at 18:48):
> Excellent. Just ordered the recovery CD for the T30.
> 
> Thanks for the second hard drive idea.
> 
> DS
> Rob Mayoff wrote:
> >+---------- On Jul 2, D. Sen said:
> >
> >>Getting a second Hard Drive is an excellent idea. (I have a 10 Gig 
> >>Hard drive from a TP600 from ages ago that I could use). Any idea 
> >>how I could copy over the hidden partition that contains the backup 
> >>preinstall data?
> >
> >
> >Not really.  I ordered the recovery CDs for my A30p from IBM, and 
> >they didn't charge me (not even for shipping).

----- End forwarded message -----

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