re instating F11

[James]

Hi, can anyone help ?

I have a Thinkpad on which I installed Suse Linux, dualbooting with Win2k using Grub as the bootloader.
The menu in Grub lists Linux as option 1, Windows(win2000) as option 2, it also lists Windows(the recovery partition) as option 3.

I would like to reset the machine back to factory state, by using the F11 key at boot up to reinstall the win2000 partition, however with loading linux and using grub, the f11 option no longer is available.
selecting option 3 does not start the recovery.
Any ideas on how to re-instate it ?.

Appreciated, thanks, Jim

[pierre]

You can order the recovery CDs from IBM. If your ThinkPad still is under warranty, you should get them for free. FYI, I ordered a set last Thursday, and got them the next day by UPS (from UK to Switzerland).

Greetings,
--Pierre

[pouakai]

You can also use your bootloader to boot to that partion.
E.G. my boot loader is GRUB and I use the following entry in grub.conf to boot the recovery partion:

# to access the IBM recovery partition
title IBM recovery
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

(hd0,1) will be dependant on how you partitioned when you installed SuSE
cool trick with grub is command line completion like bash, thus at the grub command prompt you can enter 'cat (hd0,1)/ibm' then press tab and if you see 'ibmwork' you know your in the right partition!

A useful thing to have on hand at these times is a grub boot disk - they are easy enough to make, or I can make an image available if needed.

I'm sure you could boot with LILO as well (man lilo for deatils)

: )

Point to note: IBM recovery only seems to fully install if the rest of the disk is empty. i.e. if recovery sees another partion it installs windows but none of the IBM stuff (drivers, utils, dvd player etc.) -> backup your linux install before proceeding and then remove it from the disk