[ltp] recovery partition useful? (was Re: Installed Grub...)

[Igor V. Rafienko]

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on Jan 19, 2007, 11:20, Paul Fox wrote:

[ ... ]

> so, show of hands -- has anyone successfully restored their machine
> using the ibm recovery partition on (any) thinkpad?


Multiple times (T43, 2669-based). The rescue process is roughly:

* reboot from an R&R DVD, follow the instructions.

* it will mangle the MBR, the partition table and roll out windows on the
   first partition. The first partition would also occupy the entire
   drive. This step takes a lot of time (a couple of hours).

* once windows is done, I restore the partition table (to what it used
   to be before; this is done from a liveCD), resize the windows partition
   to what it used to be with ntfsresize, repartition the drive and reboot
   into linux to check that everything is still working.

   There is a slight problem here -- technically, there is no guarantee
   that windows will not spread far and wide on that primary partition that
   spans the entire hard drive right after R&R has finished changing the
   partition table. However, I have not had any problems with that actually
   happening (but then, again, I reboot from a liveCD to
   restore the partition table immediately after R&R is finished with
   restoring the laptop to the factory state). The worst case scenario is
   the R&R restore process overwriting the linux installation.

* then, again, I reboot into windows and start applying security fixes,
   patches, installing software (from firefox and f-secure to sequoiaview).
   That takes quite a while as well.

Done.

I performed this process 3 times (once to test that it was in fact=20
possible, right after I bought my tp, once because of overzealous grub=20
experimentation and once because I managed to ruin the windows=20
installation beyond repair :)). The results in each case were similar: my=
=20
gentoo installation was left intact and the windows looked just as virgin=
=20
as the day I unpacked this baby.


> have you done so after installing linux, which presumably shoved the=20
> existing partitions and boot records around somewhat?


Basically, it helps to know what the partition table is before letting R&R=
=20
restore have a whack at it. Restoring to the "factory state" means just=20
that and the partition table will be restored to its factory state (at=20
least on my t43).

I am yet unsure as to what to do with the R&R partition. It's pretty=20
useless in case of the hdd failure and I do have R&R DVDs (two copies,=20
actually). But I am a bit concerned that R&R recovery (should I need it=20
the fourth time for some reason) will happily overwrite the last 4GB of=20
the harddrive and place the R&R partition there overwriting whatever was=20
there before.





ivr
--=20
hvilket betyder at sprogdefinitionen tillader overs=E6tteren at g=F8re
hvadsomhelst med den, inklusive overs=E6tte den til kode der f=E5r sm=E5
nisser til at danse rundt om sk=E6rmen og r=E5be ukvemsord ad programm=F8re=
n.
 =09=09-- Henning Makholm om "undefined behaviour"
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