[ltp] Asking help-- to install Linux(Redhat 7.3) on Thinkpad T30-2366-92J

[Seth Kulick]

On Wed, Oct 02, 2002 at 01:10:01PM +0200, Marcus Horstmann wrote:

> Hi Baojie,
> 
> this boot-floppy is NOT necessary, if you let it itstall the bootloader,
> which works with Windows XP. So just skip its creation.
> 
>    Marcus
> 

but then this runs into the whole issue of overwriting the MBR
contents with GRUB, losing access to the recovery parition, doesn't it?

When I asked about this myself a few weeks ago, it was suggested that
GRUB be installed on the first sector of the boot partition, and then
modify the Windows loader so that it has the option of loading GRUB as well. 
The former is just an option with the redhat install, of course, but 
modifying the windows loader seems a bit more tricky.  

(I just got my laptop a few days ago, and haven't installed Linux yet,
because I'm trying to resolve this issue.)

The Redhat installation directions just say: "This is recommended if you are 
already using another boot loader on your system. In this case, your other 
boot loader will take control first. You can then configure that boot loader 
to start GRUB (or LILO), which will then boot Red Hat Linux."

That's a little sparse on detail, but the information I've found on
doing this relates to using LILO, with the procedure being:

1. make a boot disk during the redhat installation
2. after the installation (installing LILO into the boot partition),
boot into the linux with the boot disk.
3. copy the boot image from the boot sector, with
dd if=/dev/hdan of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1 
where hdan is the location of /boot.
4. Put bootsect.lnx somewhere where it can be reached via Windows.  One
way to do this is to copy this to a dos floppy:
	mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt
        cp /bootsect.lnx /mnt
5. boot into windows (by just removing the disk and rebooting from the hard 
drive), and copy bootsect.lnx from the floppy to c:\
6. modify c:\boot.ini to include the line 
        c:\bootsect.lnx="Linux"
(step 6 requires changing the attributes to boot.ini to be not system, etc.)

(I'm assuming the bootsect.lnx="Linux" is correct whether LILO or Grub is
being used, since it's just grabbing the boot image.)

Well, this should be nice and relatively easy if I could use both a CD and 
floppy at the same time, but that's not possible with the T30, since both are
used in the UltraBay.  As Baojie pointed out, you can't make a boot disk 
during the redhat installation.  Now, if I can't make a boot floppy, then I 
won't be able to get back into Linux after the install is done, if I
put GRUB on the boot partition, and not in the MBR.  The Windows 
loader will still be in the  MBR, and so it'll just boot up into Windows.

However, I can probably boot up with the Redhat CD#1,
and go into rescue mode, and then hopefully be able to copy the 
boot image from the boot sector.  (and what is the advantage then of having
a boot floppy over just using the CD?)  I'm not quite sure of how all that
works, what exactly I need to mount, etc., but it looks like it's
possible. 

But even if I do that, I'll still need to put bootsect.lnx somewhere, and
it can't be to a floppy, since the CD drive will be in the Ultrabay 
(having used it to boot up Linux).  But there may be a way around that -
by making a FAT32 partition that can be used by both XP and Linux, I can
copy bootsect.lnx there, and then when I boot up in XP, just copy that
to C: and proceed as in steps 5,6 above.  Yes?  (Or maybe I can use
cdrecord to save it to a CD)

(What would happen if I used a boot floppy made during a RH 7.3 installation
on a different machine?  (say from my desktop, which has a dual boot with
Win98.)  If that's possible, then I would just be starting up Linux with 
the floppy drive installed, so life would be a bit easier.  I assume the
boot floppy has some machine-specific information, so this would not be a
good idea.)

There are a number of secondary questions, like once I use partition
magic to make a partition for Linux, and also for the FAT32, will the
Thinkpad "system recovery" program freak out because the partitions have
been changed?  Hopefully not, since I'm not changing the location of that
system recovery partition at all.  

I've also considered  using Bootmagic with Partition Magic 8.0 to get back
into Linux after installing GRUB into the /boot, but of course Bootmagic
also overwrites the MBR.  There does seem to be some facility for then
restoring the MBR to its prior state by disabling Bootmagic, so maybe
I can do that, but I'll rather try it without using that, just since it's
one less thing to deal with, and also just on general principles I should
be able to do this w/o resorting to that.

One other option I'm thinking about is saying forget it, just install
GRUB to the MBR and make life easy, and then if I ever do need to 
restore the system, use a "recovery repair disk", which they suggest making 
beforehand as an alternate way of accesing the product recovery program,
in case the usual way via bootup (hitting F11, I think) doesn't work.  
I'm not exactly sure what the the recovery repair disk does, but since if
you run it it tells you that your system can now run the recovery program
again (that is, boot up and hit F11), I suspect it just overwrites the MBR 
again with what was originally there.  

Or then of course there's probably the favored alternative, which is to
call IBM and complain about 2 1/2 GB being taken up on the hard drive
for no good reason, ask that they send the product recovery CDs, and then
wipe out that annoying hidden partition and be done with the whole matter.
I'm trying that option today.  It's bad enough that you're paying for
Windows as part of the T30 price, and you don't get the actual full CDs.  To
then have space taken up on your drive because they don't even want to
send the recovery CDs is really outrageous.  

Anyway, thanks to Baojie for also bringing this up, and thanks for any
help.

Seth




==========================================================================
Seth Kulick             "The hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting"
University of Pennsylvania                                 - Bob Dylan
skulick@linc.cis.upenn.edu  http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~skulick/home.html