Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 12:03:53 -0800 From: Dave Tweten <tweten@nas.nasa.gov> To: Jev <jev@ecad.org> Cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: thinkpad R40 freebsd preperation questions... Message-ID: <518.1068149033@gilmore.nas.nasa.gov>
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jev@ecad.org said: >I'm awaiting delivery of a IBM ThinkPad R40 2722, and I have a few >questions in preparation for installing FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE. >The unit is going to come with WinXP PRO pre-installed ... I've done this on three ThinkPad T23s with Win2k Pro installed, so your mileage may vary. >... I need to delete the main XP partition and create a new smaller >partition for XP. >I have only heard of people using partition magic to do this, can I do >this with fdisk, or other? The short answer is "Yes." I didn't want to buy a commercial partition munger to use just once, and no public domain package I could find would move the sectors Win2k had marked as fixed. The "hidden" recovery partition (which isn't hidden to FreeBSD fdisk) occupies the last sectors of the disk and the second entry in the "slice" table. That's a pain. The whole recovery partition idea is a pain. What do you do when you are recovering from a disk crash? Oh ... Here's what I did. 1. Call IBM support and tell them you need a real recovery CD. They'll send you one completely free of charge. 2. Blow away everything on the hard disk. 3. Use FreeBSD fdisk to create a Window$ partition (maybe two, if you want both NTFS and FAT32 -- see below), a FreeBSD partition, and a hibernation partition. See http://www.pc.ibm.com/qtechinfo/MIGR-4PESMK.html 4. Install the FreeBSD boot manager. 5. Install Windows from the recovery CD. It will respect the limits of its partition and won't insist upon putting the fixed sectors outside. 6. Install FreeBSD (and maybe the boot manager AGAIN, if Windows is being particularly monopoli$tic that day). 7. Run forcedos stndalhd.exe to prepare the hibernation partition. 8. Maybe install the FreeBSD boot manager again. You're done. >Does this [Windows] partition have to be FAT32 or can I use NTFS? Either will work. I'm told NTFS is easier under XP from IBM, but it was even possible under Win2k from IBM -- just a little hard. Be aware, though, that if you want to mount your Windows partition under FreeBSD, a FAT32 partition is both readable and writable, but an NTFS partition is only readable. One of my T23s had to protect Windows users from each other, so NTFS was a must. On that machine, I made both an NTFS partition and a FAT32 partition, so I could mount both under FreeBSD and be able to write onto Windows-readable disk from FreeBSD. >Has anyone had success with getting their reinstall CDs with out extra >charge from IBM? Me! Me! Good luck! -- M/S 258-5 |1024-bit PGP fingerprint:|tweten@nas.nasa.gov NASA Ames Research Center | 41 B0 89 0A 8F 94 6C 59| (650) 604-4416 Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000| 7C 80 10 20 25 C7 2F E6|FAX: (650) 604-4377 Not an official NASA position. You can't even be certain who sent this!
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