thinkpad R40 freebsd preperation questions...

[Jev]

Rod Person wrote:

> On Thursday 06 November 2003 05:50 am, It was written:
> 
> 
>>I have only heard of people using partition magic to do this, can I do
>>this with fdisk, or other?
> 
> 
> Hello,

Hi :)

> 
> I have an R40. I used partition magic to resize the partition, by far the 
> easiest way to resize a partition. 

But, just for completeness, fdisk shouldn't have any problem deleting 
the partitions and creating new ones for a reinstall of XP, and a new 
install of FreeBSD? I think this is obvious, but I want to be sure the 
hidden tracks and slices won't complicate things :)

> 
> 
>>Does this partition have to be FAT32 or can I use NTFS?
> 
> 
> It's been sometime since I've done this about 8 month or something, but I 
> believe that I told partition magic that the new partition would be used for 
> linux, IMO it doesn't matter if it fat32, dos or ext2 since freebsd will 
> reformat the partition anyway.

Ah, I thought I read it at that the partition for XP would be formatted 
as FAT32, is our WinXP installed on a NTFS slice or other?


> 
> 
>>After I reinstall XP on the newly created partition, I install FreeBSD,
>>is it safe to install the freebsd boot manager just like one would on a
>>normal pc, or will this disrupt IBM's hidden recovery partitions or
>>other hidden things on the hard disk?
> 
> 
> If you install the freebsd boot manager the hidden partition will show in the 
> boot menu, mine was F3. Pressing F3 will not boot it.  The ACCESS IBM button 
> still works on boot to enable you to get into the bios and recovery menu.

I can live with that :)

>>One not so tech question (and, a XP question at that!! :), From what I
>>have read on this and other lists, Thinkpads don't ship with a
>>re-installation disk for XP, they have the "Recovery Partition" instead.
>>It is my understanding that If I request the re-installation disk from
>>IBM within the first 30 days I will get it free. Has anyone had success
>>with getting their reinstall CDs with out extra charge from IBM?
> 
> 
> It's true that you don't get a recovery cd. I didn't know you could get the cd 
> free within the first 30 days until I had the laptop for a few months. Also 
> the other software Lotus, DVD software etc is archived on the pc in a 
> directory called support. I ended up burning 3 CDs to keep the software on.
> I also removed the recovery partition, but you'll want to think about that, it 
> all depends on how much you use XP - I only use it to play Morrowind so all 
> the windows stuff isn't too important to me.


I think I will nuke the recovery slice if I get the cd, or If I can pull 
the bundled software off the recover slice and burn to CD as you have.

Thanks for your help,
-Jev


> 
> HTH
>