Multi-boot order issues with Thinkpad T500

[viochemist]

According to everything I find online, I shouldn't really be having a problem. However, I think the way Thinkpads come factory installed with an extra S: drive is messing with me somehow.

Problem: I have triple-booted Vista, Windows 7 RC, and Fedora 11 and can't change the boot order in the windows boot loader (WBL). Step 2, if possible, I'd like to just have a single boot loader instead of GRUB and WBL.

Situation: My T500 came pre-installed with Vista Ultimate (32bit). I created the restore CD/DVDs and recovered the space from the extra partition (I've forgotten what the letter was at this point). The S: (SERVICE003) drive is still present. Vista's partition manager wasn't able to shrink the drive to a point I was happy with, so I ran a GParted Live CD to do so and create 2 partition spaces for Windows 7 RC (64bit) and Fedora 11 (64bit) ... well, actually, just 1 NTFS formatted partition for Windows 7. I let Fedora 11 take the remaining free space. This all worked beautifully and I can boot into each just fine. The drive is set up as follows:

/dev/sda1 = SERVICE003
/dev/sda2 = WindowsVista
/dev/sda3 = Windows7
/dev/sda4 = Fedora
/dev/sda5 = boot
/dev/sda6 = lvm

When I start my computer, first comes GRUB with the option of Fedora or Windows. That I was able to easily change the default to windows. Then comes WBL where the default is Windows 7 and there's a 30 sec wait time. Online I've found that I should be able to go to Control Panel -> System and Maintenance -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Startup and Recovery Settings ... and in the top drop down, I SHOULD be able to choose my default OS, but there is nothing listed, although there appear to be 2-3 unselectable empty spaces. This is the same in 7 and Vista. The other alternative I found was to use MSCONFIG, but that also shows remarkably little. At this point, I began wondering if somehow the boot info was on the first partition, SERVICE003 and, when I double click that drive, I get the message

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Lenovo Boot Partition Information
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This partition is used by Windows to boot your system. Lenovo recommends that you do not make any changes to this partition. Removing or renaming this partition may cause the system to become unusable.
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which more or less confirmed my suspicion. However, while I was able to find some files that look to be related to boot management in the windows directory, I have no idea what I should/shouldn't do with them.

So, can anyone give me some suggestions? Am I missing something painfully obvious? And also, is there any way to only use GRUB or only use WBL? The instructions of come across to do that are considerably less straight forward and since I can't do something apparently simple like change the windows default OS, I figured I'd hold off until I got some answers from experts.

Thanks!

[DataCabbitKSW]

Really the only way you can get it to work is by chaining the boot loaders. Right now you are using the most common setup, where you have GRUB (or LiLo, or whatever other Linux BootLoader) chaining into BCD Loader (for Windows Vista and Windows 7). When you are in Windows 7 or Vista you can use BCDedit commands from an admin elevated command prompt. You can get what is essentially the manual on the use of it over on TechNet: http://tinyurl.com/832nco . Alternatively, you could try using EasyBCD (a free download out there on the net), and have it help you with the BCDedit crafting. However I can't guarantee that it won't then take over as primary bootloader (which you would then need to learn to chain into GRUB or to directly load your install of Fedora. You could give an ask over on the official Windows 7 RC Support Forum located here http://tinyurl.com/9fhdl5 . They could be more specific with how to get it set up as long as you give them as much information as they need.

[kiwipad]

viochemist
If you feel like re-installing your machine you can just use GRUB as a bootloader to avoid the 2-layer boot process and wait-times:

I have a couple of Windows versions along with one or two (or three ) other OS's. When I installed the second windows version I flagged the partition already containing the first as hidden (so the "new" Windows didn't see it at install - and which is why I suggested you may consider a re-install). Then when the Linux GRUB I allow to controll the boot was in place just edit the menu.lst file to hide/unhide the Windows partitions and chainload their own bootloaders. GRUB is set to boot to XP as default with a 3 second delay so if left to its own devices to boot, you're at the XP startup within a few seconds of hitting the power button.

There's a pretty good how-to with GRUB here http://opensuse.swerdna.org/suseboot.html - and I've seen one that describes the hide/unhide process much better than I probably just did which I'll look out

cheers!

[kiwipad]

as promised (threatened ?!), here is a good explanation of doing a "hidden" install of multiple windows + linux and controlling with GRUB : http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthre ... did=150551

the "s:\" drive you refer to, if that's the factory installed "recovery" partition then that is usually accessed from the BIOS rather than being normally visible to the installed OSs anyway ?

cheers!

IG

[viochemist]

I don't have time right now (at work) to try these suggestions, but in an admin prompt in W7 RC, if I type bcdedit i get:

The boot configuration data store could not be opened.
The system cannot find the file specified.

I think I tried EasyBCD a little bit ago and had a similar problem (?)

The S: drive isn't the restore. There was a Q: drive originally, and I created the restore disks almost immediately and gobbled that back up into the main drive. It could be there's still some hidden restore drive somewhere (I only see ~148 of 160 GB drive), but I doubt that's the issue. S: is some security feature which I don't know much of anything about and never use (as far as I know).

[viochemist]

EasyBCD Run in windows 7 ... I'll double check Vista

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Valid BCD Registry not Detected.
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EasyBCD has detected that your BCD boot data and MBR are either not from the latest version of Windows Vista, or don't yet exist.

If you'd like EasyBCD to correct these issues, press OK. This will modify the MBR and requires that you have Windows Vista installed on this machine. You can cancel at any time. Press 'No' to exit EasyBCD now.
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Yes No
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