Can I use isolinux in the service partition?

[TomKroscavage]

I had made a recovery cd years ago that has bart-pe, puppy-linux and dos applications on it. It runs an isolinux menu at boot up to choose between the systems. I've copied this in the service partition of my T43 & X22 along with the DOS boot files in the root directory. For my needs DOS is the most important and the only os working right now. I boot into dos and run my recovery applications from a ram drive (insanely fast). What I need is a boot menu that does not alter the IBM master boot record.

[GomJabbar]

I can't answer your question directly, but I have tried the follow with success - at least as far as booting the service partition from GRUB. Currently though, I haven't bothered to keep this up to date with my latest Mandriva install.

GRUB and the Rescue & Recovery partition

[TomKroscavage]

Thanks, I was looking at grub and grub4dos. I couldn't tell if it would overwrite the mbr. I'll give it a try.

[TomKroscavage]

I'm not getting this grub thing. When they say grub for dos do they mean it is an console for making the boot.ini files or is it a dos command like dir & rem? I think it is a console, if so what files do I need and where do I put them? I have not run the grub4dos file for fear it will overwrite my MBR.

[GomJabbar]

I am not familiar with grub4dos, but I imagine it will replace the MBR. Looking briefly at the following page it looks like you could install grub4dos on a USB key and boot grub from that.
http://www.themudcrab.com/acronis_grub4dos.php

You can restore the R&R MBR with the Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette. Of course you need a USB floppy drive that the ThinkPad can boot from, such as the 05K9276.

Shopping results for IBM / LENOVO 05K9276 1.44MB FLOPPY DRIVE USB PORTABLE FOR THINKPAD

[TomKroscavage]

I have the Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette installed in the R&R with power menus for dos.

anyone know what grub files will boot?

[TomKroscavage]

I got it to work. I used grub4dos, but I don't know how I did it.

[The Solutor]

simply don't install any bootloader on the mbr, install it on the same partition of linux, then you have two choices

#1 Made that partition active and use the linux bootloader to choose the os

#2 install the vista/seven bootloader on the C partition (usually is already there), set the C partition as active, and add the linux entry with easy bcd.

Any other option will likely overwrite the original MBR or the BCD infos in the the S: partition, leading to an unavaliable F11 functionality.