T41 Pre-desktop Area problem

[slane]

Hi,

I've been trying to install Ubuntu alongside Win XP on my T41 but have had a few issues. I guess the main issue is with the pre-desktop area. After i had installed Ubuntu and tried to boot I got an Error 18 from GRUB. I believe this to be because the pre-desktop area is on normal mode.

Now the problem with this is that I'm for some reason not allowed to change the setting for this from BIOS. I'm just told to contact the System Supervisor or something. How do I acces this?

[GomJabbar]

Apparantly someone set the supervisor password. Without the supervisor password, there is nothing you can do to change the security level. The only thing is, I thought you couldn't even enter the BIOS without the supervisor password. However, since I have never set the supervisor password on any of my ThinkPads I could be mistaken.

[slane]

So basically you're saying that I'm not going to be able to install Linux and keep my old XP installation? Or is there another way to do all this?

[carbon_unit]

Apparantly someone set the supervisor password. Without the supervisor password, there is nothing you can do to change the security level. The only thing is, I thought you couldn't even enter the BIOS without the supervisor password. However, since I have never set the supervisor password on any of my ThinkPads I could be mistaken.

When you try to enter the bios that has a supervisor password you are prompted for the password, if you just press enter you get into the bios at user level(assuming there is no user password). Many things are not changable in user mode.

So basically you're saying that I'm not going to be able to install Linux and keep my old XP installation? Or is there another way to do all this?

Try to install using lilo as the bootloader instead of grub.
I don't think lilo has this problem.
Try running an expert install (type expert at the boot prompt). It should let you choose which Boot loader you want to install.