microsoft virtual pc and bios settings/partiton magic help..

[gery350]

hello gentleman,
i am installing virtual pc on my t30. when i try to install the ibm restore cd on the new virtual pc it seems to begin the operation but then i get an error. the error states "your bios is not compatible with this product recovery cd"

i am assuming there is a change i need to make in my bios for this to work. however when it comes to bios i dont like to assume anything. my current bios is 2.10 and the embedded controller is 1.07. if anyone could help that would be great.

thanks, gery

[Marin85]

I assume Virtual PC uses its own "virtual" BIOS. Since it´s pretty different from the ThinkPad BIOSes, it´s not compatible with the windows image from Lenovo (the setup program of the recovery CDs checks that it´s not a ThinkPad, which is actually true as the virtual system is not a ThinkPad one).

Cheers,

Marin

[gery350]

thanks for the reply.
this thing is driving me nuts. ive been up til 2 am for the last 4 nights trying to figure this out.
prior to the virtual pc attempt, i purchased partition magic/boot magic. heres my problem:
i follow the instructions on installing a new operating system. as far as i can understand a bootable partition has to be located within the first 8 gigs(1024 i believe). partition magic sets it up after the first partition(rendering it nonbootable). when i try to boot from it, it doesnt recognize it. i read something about the MBR needing to be changed so that it would recognize bootable partitions past the 8 gig mark. i am at the end of my rope with this. PLEASE PLEASE tell me what i need to do to get multiple bootable parttions using parttion magic since virtual pc wont work.


note: the additional supposedly bootable partitions had been set to active,primary.



if i run this mbr repair kit will it do the trick o r am i just asking for more trouble.........
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-62978

[Marin85]

Sorry, maybe I don´t fully understand what you are trying to accomplish. Correct me if I´m wrong, you want to create a second (bootable) partition where you can install the Lenovo factory image from those recovery CDs in some sort of dual-boot configuration with your primary system on the first partition, right? In this case, a few points to consider:
1. I believe the recovery CDs/DVDs simply install the factory image on the whole HD without considering any partitions (at least this was my experience with some recent recovery CD/DVD kits). So, if you want to dual-boot with the factory image on one of the partitions, you need to first install it, then repartition and then install the second OS, which would be, in my understanding, a great inconvenience for you as you would wipe out your main setup.
2. If there is nothing on that second partition, you cannot "boot" into it even if it´s bootable.

[gery350]

basicly what i want to do is be able to run multiple programs that conflict with each other on the same hard drive(by partitioning it into 4 primary bootsble partitions).ive searched on this forum and find that many people are running different OS on the same hard drive. what am i doing wrong?. my buddy does it on his t30 with virtual machine ware. i thought i could do it with partition magic since it states that you can have multiple bootable partitions. i cant get it to do that with boot magic. boot magic states that ther eis no OS system. i was thinking it was due to the position of the partition being out of the 8 gig range.
so i tried doing the virtualpc but i guess that wont work with the original ibm restore cd.

so pretty much i'm back to square one.

gery

[Marin85]

I think I got your point. Forgive me if I´m wrong, but I think there is some confusion here with partitions/programs/OSes. Now let´s see if that clarifies things a bit:

1. A "bootable" partition is basically useless without an OS installed on it because there is nothing to boot into.

2. To run a program you need first an OS installed, then you can run this program under/in/from this OS. The program is installed in and depends on /interacts with the OS. So, if two programs cannot be run under the same OS installation, you will have to create another OS installation (could be same OS type) for the other program (if you want to be able to run it).

3. Those folks with the multiple OSes are either running some VM software (like Virtual PC you were referring to) or have multi-boot configurations. VM is basically the idea to run an OS (guest OS) as a program inside an other OS (host OS). In such a case you can run those conflicting programs simultaneously by running the second one within the guest OS (first one is installed in the host OS). Multi-boot configuration is a configuration where you have multiple OSes installed (nothing virtual, all real). Upon boot you are presented with the option to choose the OS to boot into. In this case it is not possible to run two or more OSes simultaneously, which then applies to those conflicting programs.

Unfortunately, Partition Magic cannot do what you want to accomplish. It´s a piece of software that deals with your HD and its partitions. It can create bootable partition, but this only means that this partition is suitable for an OS to be installed on it. If you don´t install an OS on it, it basically remains free space waiting for data/OS. For a comparison, non-bootable partitions are for storing data such like videos or music or personal documents (but this doesn´t mean that you cannot store your data on a bootable partition, nor that you need to create additional partition to store your data there).

Hope this makes thing a bit clearer

Marin

[gery350]

thanks marin85. i appreciate your time and input.
the programs that conflict dont need to run simultaneously so i believe either setup would work(virtual or partition). since virtual isnt an option(unless i buy an xp disc) can you tell me what i need to do to make my partitions bootable. as far as i can see the bootmagic shows the partition upon bootup. however it tells me theres no os system. so how do i get the os system in the new partition.i have tried selecting the partition from boot magic and inserting the restore cd after. what this does is just restore the original partition. so thats where i am at.

thanks,
dim witt gery

[Marin85]

Unfortunately in both cases you need a "standard" XP installation media (not the XP recovery CDs from Lenovo/IBM), i.e. an XP disc., so you don´t have here many options

Actually, some time ago I was asking myself too how one could make Lenovo/IBM recovery CDs/DVDs work in a VM and I stumbled there on one "technical" problem that is in fact not even related to the BIOS/systemboard checker in the recovery program. I may indeed start a new thread on this as there seem to be other users as well interested in this matter.

Marin

[gery350]

thanks marin. ive been trying all day today to no avail. i guess ill have to bite the bullet and purchase an xp cd. here i was wondering what am i doing wrong. i read all about partitions and multiple os systems and this was drivind me crazy.

i appreciate your input.
thanks again, gery

[Marin85]

thanks marin. ive been trying all day today to no avail.

Gery, Partition Magic and other similar software can only create partitions and label them as "bootable", "primary", "active" etc. It cannot substitute or work around an actual OS installation. May I ask what are those conflicting programs? There might be indeed a simple solution to this compatibility problem rather than purchasing and installing another XP.

[gery350]

marin,
i program and diagnose network/computer systems on multiple vehicles(ford,gm,bmw, mercedes,honda,etc). these programs for the most part use the usb port to connect to the vehicle via an interphase device. when i have tried for example installing the ford program and the hyundai/kia program on the same drive it all goes out of whack. i'll double click the shortcut on my desktop, get the hourglass for about 5 seconds and thats it. as if i didnt click on it. a friend of mine is gonna lend me his xp and i believe i will go with the virtual pc rather then the partition magic. i may try both of them on different drives and see which one works out.

thanks again, gery

[Marin85]

I see, the compatibility issues are related to very specific software. I guess virtual PC would be more comfortable to use in case you have more than 2 programs conflicting.

Good luck and post back how it works

Marin

[RealBlackStuff]

Another option:
buy a bunch of small HDs (10-20GB should do). They should all be the same size if possible.
Also buy a bunch of Ultrabay 2000 2nd HD adapters, ca. $15.- each on eBay.
They are knockoffs, but should be good enough for your purpose.

Then use the T30 Restore CDs, and install that on one of these small hard disk, using the adapter in the Ultrabay. This won't need Windows activation.
When it's all up and running, take an image of that install, and store that e.g. on your PC, using a USB enclosure.
Acronis TrueImage is your best bet.
Now put the HD back in the adapter and in the laptop and install e.g. Ford programs on that HD and label it FORD.
Use the next small HD and restore the image from your PC onto it. Put the HD in another UB2000 andapter and install GM and label.
Do the same for other brands.
When you are done, all you need to do is swap the HD-adapter-with-HD for your car brand into the Ultrabay and boot from there.
Taking the image and restoring it, should take less than 5 minutes each, much quicker than installing Windows again and again.

Or another option again, try and get hold of a corporate version of XP, which you could then install multiple times on one large(r) hard disk. You'd have a boot-menu where you can choose which Windows (Ford, GM, Kia etc) you want to boot into.

Do these programs run under Windows 2000 also?

[gery350]

thanks marin and realblackstuff,
i got my hands on an xp cd and partition magic worked like a charm.

i know i'm running out of question tokens , however i have another question.

i can only have 4 primary partitions and bootmagic is using one of them. does that mean i can only have 3 bootable partitions with os systems or can bootmagic be converted to a logical partition and still work.

thanks, gery

[RealBlackStuff]

You don't need all primary partitions.
If you have say a 100GB HD, make one primary partition of 20GB, Then create an extended partition for the leftover 80GB.
In there you can create as many logical partitions as you have driveletters available (except A/B (floppy), C for main primary, assume D for your CD, leaves E-Z.

You also don't need Bootmagic, that's unnecessarily complicated. All partitions you create for XP (or W2K) are bootable, and will appear in your Windows startup bootmenu.

[gery350]

realblackstuff,
i assume i need primary partitions cause the programs i run conflict with each other.
i am going to remove bootmagic and let you know how the booting goes(crossing my fingers )

[RealBlackStuff]

If you install BMW on partition E, Ford on F, GM on G, etc., how could they affect each other?
They are all independent OSes with their own registry.
They only thing they share is the physical hard disk, not partitions or stuff from other partitions!

[gery350]

If you install BMW on partition E, Ford on F, GM on G, etc., how could they affect each other?
They are all independent OSes with their own registry.
They only thing they share is the physical hard disk, not partitions or stuff from other partitions!

exactly my reason for doing that. now its working perfect. i disabled bootmagic and rebooted a couple times. however, it always booted to the same partition and windows didnt give me an option of which partition to boot from. is there some type of configuration that need to be done?

thanks, gery

[RealBlackStuff]

Assuming that now you have several installs of Windows on different partitions, there's the c:\boot.ini file that will/should give you the boot menu.
http://www.thpc.info/how/editbootini.html

Here's a copy of mine:

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="G-Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINNT="F-Windows 2000 Pro" /fastdetect

My default is XP on rdisk(1) (is my second hard disk, partition 1. I have on it G,H,I,J)
Optional is W2K on rdisk(0) (is my first hard disk, partition 4. I have on it C,D,E,F)

The WINDOWS and WINNT are the names of the Windows directories on the different hard disks.
These directories can actually all have the same name.

[gery350]

thanks realblackstuff,

question:

will acronis true image make an exact copy of an existing hard drive to another hard drive.
for example if i have a hard drive in the t30 main HD slot and one in the ultrabay does it have the ability to make an exact functioning hard drive. i ask cause my friend already has a hard drive running multiple virtual machines and copying it would work better then trying to create one. not sure if true image can replicate a hard drive with multiple virtual machines.
thanks, gery

[RealBlackStuff]

Acronis TrueImage can take an image of either a whole disk or just a partition.
You can restore these onto another hard disk, or restore it over the original data.

That's how I make my T23 HDs. I have one fully installed Windows with all the UBM/Lenovo gear, updates and all.
Saved an image.
Next time I need to set up a fresh T23, I just restore that image onto a new hard disk (takes only a few minutes), pop it into the laptop, and off you go.

I have no experience with virtual machines, but if they are saved somewhere on the HD, they get included in the image.

[gery350]

thanks realblackstuff,
i am curious where does the image get saved on? external hard drive, cd,........?

thanks, gery

[RealBlackStuff]

In my case:
I use the connector from a 2.5" USB2.0 HD enclosure and attach the laptop HD to it.
The USB cable is attached to my PC, where the image is stored on one of the PC drives.

[kocoman]

Is there any way to bypass this check by editing some files?

"your bios is not compatible with this product recovery cd"

[RealBlackStuff]

You seem to be using the wrong Recovery CDs for your (which?) laptop.