[ltp] Thinkpad unable to boot after creating hibernation file

[Matthias Seeger]

Dear List,

I have a Thinkpad X30 with Windows 2000 on hda1 (FAT32) and SuSE Linux
9.0 on hda2 (ReiserFS).

In order to enable hibernation on Linux I tried to use the standalone
tool from IBM. However, it complained about insufficient space despite
the fact that about 7GB are free on hda1. Maybe it expects a
completely empty partition. (Uwe "linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org"
wrote about the same problem in Oct. 2002.)

Therefore I compiled tphdisk.c and created save2dsk.bin on /dev/hda1
directly from Linux. As the X30 has 1 GB of RAM, I made a 1.200 MB
save2dsk.bin file. If the hibernation file is a little bit bigger than
necessary, a graphical IBM screen appears during the hibernate and
resume process instead of the text-based Phoenix screen. Not important
but neat...

After rebooting, the Thinkpad comes only until the "Press Fx for y "
screen and some seconds later it reboots. Again and again. It is
possible to get into BIOS and as well into the boot-device choice
screen. Furthermore, it is not even possible to boot from the external
USB floppy drive.

I guess, the BIOS looks for a save2dsk.bin file so that it may enable
or disable the hibernation feature. (My former Fujitsu Lifebook
complained about a missing hibernation file during the startup.) In
case of existing hibernation data, the BIOS has to activate the resume
process. In my opinion, something seems to be wrong with the
save2dsk.bin which the BIOS cannot handle.

Therefore I disabled all power-saving features in the BIOS in the
hope, that it could prevent the BIOS from looking for a hibernation
file. (This was possible with the Lifebook.) But this did not change
anything, the X30 starts up again and again without regarding the
existing MBR.

Tonight I will put the entire hard disk into my desktop computer and
delete the ominous save2dsk.bin file. Of course, I would be happy
about any more simple idea.

There is an unused hda3 partition on the notebook which I could format
with FAT16 or FAT32 and offer to the IBM standalone utility. Then I
hope to be able to have a save2dsk.bin file which is more eager to
work.

I just wanted to share this experience and would appreciate any comment.

Best Regards
Matthias Seeger

-- 
Matthias Seeger
Kamishinden 3-6-12-410, 560-0085 Osaka, Japan
mailto:matthias.seeger@gol.com