Rescue and Recovery with non-windows partitions

[dthsqd]

The first time I got this laptop, the recovery partition didn't work, and neither did the CD/DVD Rescue and Recovery set I made when I got this T60. When I couldn't reinstall Windows, I just installed Debian and I set up a fairly good system, even with hdaps hard drive protection .

I obtained the Rescue and Recovery CDs from Lenovo and I left a blank, formatted NTFS partition on my drive (about 30 GB, big enough for Windows XP). I was wondering if there is any way to install Windows XP + Thinkpad software on that partition, without creating the recovery partition and overwriting my partition table (destroying what I had there previously). It seems like rescue and recovery does not let you back up linux partitions, it only lets you back up files in FAT32 and NTFS partitions.

I kinda wish Rescue and Recovery was simple... leaving my partition table alone.

[Harryc]

As far as I know there is no way to do what you want to do. The recovery process will take over your HD and put a factory image on it.

[dthsqd]

Ok, I guess its time to install Windows, resize the partition and install debian again. I have everything backed up onto an external hard drive, except for some Linux user profile data.

FYI, don't resize windows partitions from the beginning, trim down from the end, and defragment before you do anything. I used gparted on my windows partition and it made Windows XP un-usable. It is ok since I had nothing on there, I wanted to test if I can resize the partition from the front to add a linux boot partition.