[ltp] Re: Linux on ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2nd Gen: which partitions to keep/backup?

[Nikos Alexandris]

Nikos:

>> Does anyone know if the "Lenovo_Recovery" partition the most/only 
>> important
>> one if the machince should be restored to "Factory Setup"?

Stefan:

> I don't bother keeping any Windows crap, but if you do, the easiest 
> is
> probably to keep a copy of the partition table, along with a copy of 
> all
> the "potential" partitions.  It's at most 23GB, so it's easy to keep 
> it
> around on some other drive somewhere.

I don't require Windows myself.  I do have, however, plans to play a 
bit and test some tools (under VirtualBox -- hopefully I can use therein 
W8.1).  I dd-ed the partitions described below and did a very clean 
install of Funtoo.  This machince rocks!


# Original partition scheme

   # sda1: ntfs, WINRE_DRV, ~1GB
   # sda2: fat32, SYSTEM_DRV, ~260MB
   # sda3: unknown, Microsoft Reserved Partition, ~128MB
   # sda4: ntfs, Windows8_OS, ~217GB
   # sda5: ntfs, Lenovo_Recovery, ~14GB
   # sda6: unknown, Basic data partition, ~7GB

# Keep'em
Get a large enough USB Flash drive (say 32GB) or external Hard Disk 
Drive

# plug in and check it's assigned device id, e.g. with dmesg
# mount it, e.g. under /mnt
cd /mnt
mkdir usb
mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb

# sda1
dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/mnt/usb/WINRE_DRV.dd

# sda2
dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/mnt/usb/SYSTEM_DRV.dd

# sda3
   Empty (?), not kept

# sda4
   Don't need this one.

# sda5
   Done through ThinkVantage under Microsoft Windows 8.1 # Attention: 
you have the option to erase this partition after the creation of a 
Recovery media. This will alter the numbering of the remaining 
partition(s), i.e. the "Basic_data_partition" will become sda5. Doing 
this via dd is, I guess, the same.

# sda6
dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/mnt/usb/Basic_data_partition.dd

Nikos