[ltp] Rescue and Recovery data destroyer

[Vaclav Stepan]

So should the following be correct?

Goal: Dual boot XP and Linux and have an accesible R&R partition

Way a) Install the Linux bootloader to the /boot partition
       and give the partition a boot flag. (This way the MBR
       would be kept intact.)
Way b) Install GRUB to bootloader and use the configuration
       supplied below - that is set the partition to FAT 32
       before booting it and reset it to Compaq diagnostics
       before booting Linux.
Way c) http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-46088
       Get the same by hiding/unhiding the partition on-demand.

I am just in the middle of the factory-state-recovery process,
so I won't be able to test until completed. I only hope that 
that all the information applies to the R50e too (its three
at night here now ;-)).

Thanks for all the comments

Vaclav

On Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 09:16:12PM -0500, Jiang Qian wrote:
> Did you check out this link?
> http://sharadware.com/2005/07/11/suse-linux-winxp-access-ibm-on-the-thinkpad-t43/#comment-165
> Using it I can still boot rescue and recovery with GRUB installed on my 
> MBR. Just the access IBM button doesn't work anymore, but R&R shows up 
> as a bootable partition you can choose and boot from GRUB menu. The 
> trick seems to be setting the R&R partition from "compaq diagonistic" 
> to FAT. 
> 
> My understanding is that IBM set it to be so to mislead windows so that 
> XP doesn't mount the partition and therefore viruses or stupid users 
> won't mess up the backup. It's done by bios.
> 
> Here's the non-linux part of my GRUB configuration:
> 
> # on /dev/sda2
> title		IBM Rescue and Recovery
> root		(hd0,1)
> parttype	(hd0,1) 0x0b
> savedefault
> makeactive
> chainloader	+1
> 
> 
> # on /dev/sda1
> title		Microsoft Windows XP Professional
> root		(hd0,0)
> parttype	(hd0,1) 0x12
> savedefault
> makeactive
> chainloader	+1
> 
> Try this out! It involves non of the scary MBR manipulation. Just 
> several lines in the grub configuration files and you can always change 
> it back anytime.
> Jiang
> 
> On Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 02:14:19AM +0100, Vaclav Stepan wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I played a little with boot sector and the things around 
> > the hidden partition on an R50e. Although interesting,
> > it resulted in full data loss.
> > 
> > I just hope this may save somebody doing the same mistakes.
> > 
> > There were XP preinstalled and recovery partition at the
> > end. I wanted dual-boot with recovery partition kept intact.
> > This was fairly easy - I deleted the Windows partition, 
> > put there new ones - one big for Windows, one big for Linux,
> > one for shared data and let the R&R from the hidden 
> > partition recover the factory configuration (which left 
> > the Linux partition intact).
> > 
> > Everything in the archives said, that if you install boot-loader
> > into MBR, you won't be able to use the hidden partition any
> > more. Ok, I installed GRUB at the beginning of the Linux partition
> > and set up NT loader to do the dual-booting.
> > 
> > This had beed working great... ...except if I needed to switch
> > between the systems, I did a sw suspend in Linux (few seconds)
> > and then had to wait a minute or two for Windows to start.
> > That was annoying :-)
> > 
> > GRUB found two more bootable partitions - the Windows partition
> > and the R&R partition at the end of the disk. Wow. Shouldn't
> > it be possible to put GRUB to MBR and simply boot R&R that way?
> > 
> > I tried booting R&R using GRUB from the Linux partition.
> > It worked fine. I did a backup of MBR using dd (but just of the
> > first sector, which was the first mistake) and installed grub
> > to MBR using 'setup (hd0)' from the GRUB shell.
> > 
> > Well --- it didn't work. Although Windows and Linux were fine,
> > R&R fails with a mysterious error:
> > STOP c000021a {Fatal System Error}
> > The Session Manager Initialization process terminated unexpectedly.
> > 0xc000003a.
> > 
> > So the R&R tools check the MBR for some reason - possibly
> > there are some diagnostic data stored there?
> > I copied the original MBR back and found that now the machine
> > does not boot at all. Even better.
> > 
> > I thought - well, you did a backup using the fantastic R&R today,
> > it won't hurt to try the recovery procedure. Maybe this will
> > recover the MBR by the way too.
> > 
> > I started the R&R from CD and told it to do recovery from backup
> > from a CD/DVD. Fine - it asked whether I wan't to delete files
> > that were created or changed since the last backup before extracting
> > the backup data. I thought about it a moment and chose yes, as
> > it seemed reasonable - it shouldn't touch other partitions, should it?
> > 
> > Well - a PQI window appeared stating something like ,,deleting partition
> > and so on''. It weeped the partition table and I hold the power button
> > until off.
> > 
> > After reboot the partition table was damaged - just the first Windows
> > partition and R&R left there, both non-working.
> > 
> > I let testdisk find the partitions and repaired the partition table.
> > However, the Windows partition was unusable.
> > I restarted the recovery process (stating I do NOT want to delete
> > the changed files). It wonderfully recovered the Windows partition
> > (not the hidden one) and filled the rest of partition table with
> > pure garbage (disks up to H:, all unformatted). So the Linux partition
> > was lost and this time unrecoverably (partly overwritten) and the
> > R&R partition is not bootable. Fortunately, the shared-data partition
> > was left intact (although I had to rescue it using testdisk).
> > 
> > Has anybody succesfully and non-destructively used the Rescue
> > and Recovery for rescuing just one of the partitions from backup?
> > 
> > Uf. That's it.
> > 
> > Vaclav Stepan
> > -- 
> > The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
> > http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-thinkpad
> -- 
> The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
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