T42 successfully made multiboot WinXP-PRO and eCS-1.2
Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 3:20 am
Hi all,
Just want to let you know I successfully changed my new Thinkpad T42 from
a single 75GB Windows + 4GB recovery partition to a multiboot system with
Windows in a 12GB primary, IBM Bootmanager, eCS in a 1 GB logical,
several data partitions, and room for Linux
The Windows is the original (resized) Windows installation by IBM, so all the
goodies that come with it are still there. I may post a more extensive scenario
later on my website or on VOICE, but in short the steps I used where:
1) Make sure the system was NEVER booted before I got it, to prevent the
automatic conversion of FAT32 to NTFS which would make resizing more difficult.
2) Boot with a DFSee CDROM, and resize the FAT32 primary to the desired size,
I used 12 GB, which was just a little more than the minimum possible.
The NETT contents of the partition is just 4.6 GB, but is spread a bit over
the start of the partition.
3) Let the system boot normally, allowing it to convert that partition to NTFS
and initialize/ everything for normal use.
4) Using DFSee, add the IBM Bootmanager directly after Windows, and
add Windows to its menu, then test if it still boots correctly.
5) Create a logical HPFS of 1.1 GB and data partitions as desired, again
using DFSee and create the required LVM information as well.
6) Boot the eCS installation CDROM (1.2) and install eCS, I used Easy install
and let it install into the prepared logical. No real problems there ...
7) Format the other (HPFS/JFS) data partition for use by eCS and
copy data/applications over the network from my desktop machine
Hardware not supported (yet)
Out of the box all things work except the modem and the Intel 2200 wireless NIC.
Problems encountered:
Shortly after installing eCS 1.2 (probably caused/triggered by the install) the Windows
installation failed to boot, with a black screen and cursor in the upper-left corner .
I could not find a cause using DFSee diagnostic, checking BOOT.INI and
hidden-sectors offset and so on. Then used a regular Windows-XP PRO installation
CDROM to get to the recovery console, I used FIXBOOT as well as BOOTICFG
and that fixed the problem.
After a few days of use (both Windows and eCS) this problem came back ...
This time I made an image-dump of the Windows partition before fixing it, and
only used the FIXBOOT from the Windows Recovery Console. (which worked
Examining the differences before and after fixing I found that the 2nd sector of
the partition, directly after the bootsector had changed. This is the 1st sector of
the NTLDR file, which usually starts with a UNICODE signarture value of 'NTLDR'.
In this case that had changed to 'NTHDD' and about a hundred other bytes
had changed near that as well.
So this does NOT look like random damage by eCS, but rather Windows itself
deciding to change that and make itself unbootable. Perhaps it is caused by
eCS messing with hardware settings or whatever ...
Anyway, next time it happens I will try to restore just that one sector using
DFSee and see if that fixes it too.
Otherwise I am quite happy with the new T42, with 1GB of RAM and the 80GB disk,
it is more than 5 times faster than the A20p it replaced, and it is almost three times
faster than the Celeron-1200 desktop system that I use for daily work
It is also smaller (14 inch 1024x768) and lighter than the A20p was.
The 1GB memory is needed for SVISTA and VPC testing, as well as for Photoshop CS
under Windows, since the Laptop doubles as Photo-storage when I am on the road
with my digital SLR too ....
Regards, JvW
Just want to let you know I successfully changed my new Thinkpad T42 from
a single 75GB Windows + 4GB recovery partition to a multiboot system with
Windows in a 12GB primary, IBM Bootmanager, eCS in a 1 GB logical,
several data partitions, and room for Linux
The Windows is the original (resized) Windows installation by IBM, so all the
goodies that come with it are still there. I may post a more extensive scenario
later on my website or on VOICE, but in short the steps I used where:
1) Make sure the system was NEVER booted before I got it, to prevent the
automatic conversion of FAT32 to NTFS which would make resizing more difficult.
2) Boot with a DFSee CDROM, and resize the FAT32 primary to the desired size,
I used 12 GB, which was just a little more than the minimum possible.
The NETT contents of the partition is just 4.6 GB, but is spread a bit over
the start of the partition.
3) Let the system boot normally, allowing it to convert that partition to NTFS
and initialize/ everything for normal use.
4) Using DFSee, add the IBM Bootmanager directly after Windows, and
add Windows to its menu, then test if it still boots correctly.
5) Create a logical HPFS of 1.1 GB and data partitions as desired, again
using DFSee and create the required LVM information as well.
6) Boot the eCS installation CDROM (1.2) and install eCS, I used Easy install
and let it install into the prepared logical. No real problems there ...
7) Format the other (HPFS/JFS) data partition for use by eCS and
copy data/applications over the network from my desktop machine
Hardware not supported (yet)
Out of the box all things work except the modem and the Intel 2200 wireless NIC.
Problems encountered:
Shortly after installing eCS 1.2 (probably caused/triggered by the install) the Windows
installation failed to boot, with a black screen and cursor in the upper-left corner .
I could not find a cause using DFSee diagnostic, checking BOOT.INI and
hidden-sectors offset and so on. Then used a regular Windows-XP PRO installation
CDROM to get to the recovery console, I used FIXBOOT as well as BOOTICFG
and that fixed the problem.
After a few days of use (both Windows and eCS) this problem came back ...
This time I made an image-dump of the Windows partition before fixing it, and
only used the FIXBOOT from the Windows Recovery Console. (which worked
Examining the differences before and after fixing I found that the 2nd sector of
the partition, directly after the bootsector had changed. This is the 1st sector of
the NTLDR file, which usually starts with a UNICODE signarture value of 'NTLDR'.
In this case that had changed to 'NTHDD' and about a hundred other bytes
had changed near that as well.
So this does NOT look like random damage by eCS, but rather Windows itself
deciding to change that and make itself unbootable. Perhaps it is caused by
eCS messing with hardware settings or whatever ...
Anyway, next time it happens I will try to restore just that one sector using
DFSee and see if that fixes it too.
Otherwise I am quite happy with the new T42, with 1GB of RAM and the 80GB disk,
it is more than 5 times faster than the A20p it replaced, and it is almost three times
faster than the Celeron-1200 desktop system that I use for daily work
It is also smaller (14 inch 1024x768) and lighter than the A20p was.
The 1GB memory is needed for SVISTA and VPC testing, as well as for Photoshop CS
under Windows, since the Laptop doubles as Photo-storage when I am on the road
with my digital SLR too ....
Regards, JvW