Linux on HP Pavlion dv6137tx (dv6000t) [Issues with QuickPlay/MBR]

Hi everyone

I currently own a HP Pavilion dv6137tx notebook. I've been using Windows Vista Home Premium on it for some time, but I want to switch to Linux (being a long time Linux user on the desktop). The hard disk capacity is 120 GB which contains three partitions by default: the C drive (100 GB) which contains Windows, the D drive (HP's Recovery Partition) and 1 GB of unpartitioned space (which I understand is the storage point for QuickPlay).

One option is to completely format the hard disk, forget about quickplay altogether and install Linux. I guess the quickplay buttons will not work in Linux, but suppose something should go wrong I want to have the option to switch back to my Windows installation the way it is now (with quickplay working).

HP told me that if the recovery partition is deleted, it is possible to restore it using the DVDs but no such restore option is available for the quickplay software. They said I would have to ship the notebook to HP Support and they will reinstall the software. But then, I came across this thread ( http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7587_102-0.html?forumID=69&threadID=236544&start=0) and also a program to restore QuickPlay Boot on HP's website ( http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...cc=us&dlc=en&product=3308822&os=228&lang=en)).

My notebook shipped with XP Media Center, so the recovery DVDs restore the system to Media Center after which (if I want) I can always upgrade to Vista Home Premium.

Now, my question is this: if I screw up my Linux installation, can I use the recovery DVDs to restore the system to factory settings with XP Media Center and QuickPlay (possibly using the exe available from the link given above)? Does anyone here have any experience of restoring QuickPlay successfully themselves?

Any help, suggestions and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

Yes, the recovery DVD will be able to restore the system back to factory state. So, it will recover the Quickplay partition along with the recovery partition as well. Now, since you have a backup copy of the SWSetup folder you can also install Quicklaunch direct by using the installation folder called HPQPDP. Ofcourse you will have to partition the HDD manually and leave it as unallocated space for the installation to work.

 

Hi miner

Thanks for your reply. Are you absolutely sure that quickplay will be restored?

I'm a bit apprehensive about this because I spoke to a tech support staff member on the net and he told me quickplay cannot be restored unless the notebook is shipped to HP. I'm asking again just because if true, this would be irreversible.

Thanks again.

 

Yes, I have used the recovery discs lots of times and it will restore the Quickplay. Plus in Windows XP the SWSetup folder contains the installation files for Quickplay as well if you dont want to use the restore discs, so there are 2 options for you if you want to reinstall Quickplay. I have tried both methods and they will work fine.

Search the forums if you want more convincing. Many people have successfully reinstalled Quickplay.

 

Thanks. Well, I have the SWSETUP folder in vista too, but I've never tried reinstalling the quickplay. Will I have to use quickplay boot from the HP website link mentioned in my first post or will recovery dvds even install the quickplay boot feature?

 

Nah, thats okay...it'll take some time before I'm as adventurous with it as I can be with desktops

 

The XP recovery discs dont need any patches. They will restore the system back to factory state which means it will restore Quickplay/restore partitions back to the HDD. It will basically bring your system back to the way it was when you first booted.

The patch is only necessary if you alter any of the partitions after the install.

P.S - Have you tried booting into Quickplay with your current Vista setup?? AFAIK Quickplay 2 does not support Vista and is capable of running with XP only.

 

Quickplay works even with Vista, but the quickplay buttons do not give you a visual confirmation of whats happening: the volume controls affect the volume, but the bar/slider isn't shown; the Q and DVD buttons both launch Quick Play and not Media Center--which isn't mapped to them.

Apparently, Quickplay has not been ported to Windows Vista; the version that they have up on their website for download is not totally vista-compatible.

 

Okay, one more thing which I forgot to mention:

Assuming Linux works on the notebook, there are two options: first, I use only Linux and dedicate all the 120GB to Linux. This means I cannot use Quickplay, let alone the quickplay buttons. Second option is to repartition the 120 GB so that I can use Windows + Linux + QuickPlay.

If I take the second option, how do I get QuickPlay back once I have installed Windows and Linux? The only way to get a recovery partition back on the drive is to use the recovery dvds from scratch, but that won't help.

 

I think there needs to some clarification here...If Quickplay is being launched after you completely boot into Vista, then you are using Quickplay version 3 which is compatible with Vista but HP removed support for the bootable Quickplay with Vista which means when you press the quickplay button while the computer is turned off it just boots into Vista and then opens Quickplay from within Vista. The partition is not used at all and you dont have to worry about it while installing Linux.

The green volume up/down & mute buttons were a part of Windows XP Media center, Vista nor Quickplay had this feature.

 

Thanks again, please look at my second last post. This is the core of it:

 

As far as I know its one or the other. You can either have Windows + Quickplay or Windows + Linux. You can however still continue to use Quickplay from within Windows(boot into Windows and then launching Quickplay).

If you decide not to use Linux then you can restore Quickplay back by the methods I mentioned earlier.

 

Is it not possible to nondestructively partition my 100 GB windows partition, try Linux on it and then (if Linux doesn't work or if there's a problem) restore it back to the windows partition? This way, I don't have to delete quickplay.

Also, I read somewhere that QuickPlay writes to the MBR. Is this true??

Finally, when you say I can still use QuickPlay from windows, I guess you are referring to the QuickPlay installed in Windows as a software program. I suppose you mean that this will work even if the quickplay partition doesn't exist?

 

I havent tried it but you could possibly use the HP Quickplay restore package to restore the Quickplay MBR settings(yes it does write to the MBR). Ofcourse you would have to remove Grub(if you are using it) first, restore to the default MBR and then use HP's restore package. It might work but you would possibly be the first person to try it.

Yes, Quickplay in Windows is a separate program and does not depend on the partition.

 

It took me more than 6 hours to get to Vista from the recovery console (for some reason Vista doesn't upgrade from XP on my machine so I have to do a clean install of Vista after Recovery to XP ). So I was wondering if I could nondestructively repartition my windows partition and declare some of it for Linux, install Linux and check it out.

Then if I want to go back to Windows totally, all I need to do is to format the Linux partitions and add them to the main windows partition. I've never really done this without crashing Windows in the process. Any ideas about this option?

 

You could try using the built-in partitioner in Vista. Use the shrink feature and check if it can free up some space from your main partition. If this doesnt work then you will have to use GParted or any other partition utility. Ofcourse with these programs I dont know how compatible they are with Vista.

 

Thanks miner for your help. I will post back with my experiences. I haven't yet taken the plunge. I'm just doing my hw for now. I also came across a disappointed FC7 user whose using a dv6000 series laptop: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=158702&page=1&pp=15&highlight=fedora+dv6000.

I haven't tried the shrink option yet. I think I'll install Linux on the system, test it for some time and then reinstall Windows + Linux. Since QuickPlay is going to work from within Windows and I'm not so fond of using the QuickPlay boot feature, I don't mind that.

So far, it seems people have not been very successful in using Fedora on hp pavilions. Ubuntu seems to work better. So I guess I have to check that out too.

 

Okay, I tried three distros of Linux after totally wiping out Windows: Fedora 7, Gentoo 2006 and Ubuntu 7.04. While Ubuntu recognizes almost all my hardware out the box--especially the wireless adapter and the sound controller--Gentoo and Fedora don't recognize either. I have posted for help here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=137776.

PS--Using the Recovery DVDs, it is possible to restore QuickPlay with its boot feature (if you're using XP). I confirmed this for my own satisfaction. So, in principle, anyone who wants to play with Linux can take out everything after a careful backup and restore everything in case the Linux installation is undesirable. I am posting this here for anyone who lands up in a situation similar to mine with HP Pavilion laptops.

The only thing I haven't figured out is dual booting Windows XP Media Center Edition (or Vista) and Linux on my laptop. The reason is that XP is installed via the HP Recovery DVDs which give you no option to partition the hard drive before Windows is installed (as the generic windows installer would). This OEM installer creates three partitions by default: a 100 GB windows partition, a 10GB recovery partition and 1 GB quickplay partition (120 GB really is ~112GB as reported by Windows). Once Windows XP is installed, the only option is to remove the recovery partition and resize the windows partition and then install Linux on this free space. I don't know how to do that nondestructively--and I don't know how one can keep windows + linux + quickplay.

Anyway the whole problem is due to the OEM installer limiting your options....

 

Miner, I came across this: http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/about78184.html. Does it also mean that if I split my 120GB hdd (the single C: drive partition that contains vista) into two parts, one for windows and one for Linux, then the installer won't be able to detect or alter the newly created partition?

(So far, I've tried Fedora, Gentoo and Ubuntu without Windows. Now, I want to try a dual boot with Vista.)

 

I believe that article mentions not to partition the HDD using the partitioner built in to the setup of the linux distros. You might still be able to alter(shrink) the Windows partition using disk management in Vista.

 

What I meant to ask was whether the linux installer will detect the unpartitioned space created after resizing the windows vista partition. As I understand, this article says that partition tools of Linux won't be able to alter windows vista partitions. Anyway I think I'll try this out.

Also, suppose I shrink the volume from within Vista. Is this process reversible? That is, can I add unpartitioned space to the original partition from which the space was created?

 

It should. Just leave the space you shrunk as unpartitioned space and the installer should see the empty space and you can then create the swap and root partitions.

The process if everthing goes according to plan should be reversible. I have installed ubuntu in this fashion in my system with Vista before and there wasnt any problems. Just dont use the built in partitioners to shrink the Vista partition since you wont be able to boot into Vista after that.

 

So suppose I have unpartitioned space on my hard drive and I want to format it and add it back to my C drive. How do I do that in Vista?

 

The diskmanager should be capable of extending the partition as well.

 

Miner, I'm facing a strange problem with the volume shrink feature in Vista:Vista won't let me shrink the volume size to 80 GB from 120GB (~111GB). The screenshot linked to below shows the limit (3298 MB).

http://spinor.sitesled.com/shrink-volume.jpg

I have a 120 GB hdd and I want to split the C drive into two parts (without destroying the Vista installation on it) for Vista and Linux.

EDIT: I guess I have to disable System Restore for the shrink limit to increase?

 

Yeah, I have seen this happen with the Vista partitioner a couple of times. I dont know the reason but try de-fragmenting the drive along with disabling system restore and see if it helps.

If this doesn't work, then you will have to take a risk with third party partitioner managers.

P.S: You could probably save a lot of trouble by doing this since you have the express upgrade Vista DVD you can do a clean install and partition the HDD during Vista setup and linux installation should be a breeze. But you will have to spend some time doing backups of your data/programs.

 

Well, I tried Vista's own defragmenter and it ate up like 3 gigs

So, I tried an alternative defragmenter (AusLogic) and tried using the volume shrink utility again...in vain.

I do have the Vista Upgrade DVD but I installed Vista from it over XP (which was installed by the HP Recovery DVD) and so I have no freedom to alter partitions from the installer. This is the only way hardware devices work...on a clean install most of the stuff that came from HP doesn't work. Anyway.

But how much space would system restore (when disabled) release anyway?

 

depends on how many restore points you have. if you have installed lots of software/drivers, then there will be lots of restore points.

Looks like you will have to use gparted or any other partitioner. Vista really doesn't like other partitioner's to touch the active partition.

 

Okay I disabled system recovery, deleted old restore points, but the shrinker still shows 3298MB mad . How do I remove "snapshots" (aren't they the same as restore points)?

I am looking at gparted, but I wish it were possible to do this using the vista partitioner itself. It looks like Vista wants to eat up my whole 120GB drive...weird

EDIT: I tried this ( http://vistarewired.com/2007/04/07/...ws-vista-xp-when-disk-management-doesnt-work/) and diskpart gives the error "The specified shrink size is too large."

 

OK...searched around a bit to see if there are any other tools in Vista thats capable of shrinking the HDD. Seems like diskpart.exe seems to be recommended if the disk management doesn't work...I haven't tried this but if you are willing to try...
http://vistarewired.com/2007/04/07/...ws-vista-xp-when-disk-management-doesnt-work/

 

I just edited my post before seeing your reply.

I am downloading gparted...but why do you think this vista partitioning tool ain't working?

EDIT: While I will try gparted, this is what a user had to say about it (on that same website):

 

I would guess its something to do with the upgrade install from XP or in that users case a factory Vista install. On a clean install the shrink/expand seems to work without any issues.

 

Wow...if I didn't have to show this machine to HP for battery-related problems, I would have gone back to Linux without Windows. Now that I have backed up my data, I guess gparted is the only option remaining.

But just in case it doesn't work, any other ideas?

 

Okay, gparted doesn't work. It just hangs after displaying the following message (I've tried twice):

 

I was using a USB mouse at the time (possible cause of error, as stated here: http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?pid=3593). Anyway, I entered the parameters in gparted to resize the vista partition, but it gave an error saying that 0 out of 1 tasks were accomplished.

So even gparted won't work.

 

Hmm...At this point looks like your only options are to reinstall Vista and partition the HDD during the process. Even the upgrade version as far as I can remember should be capable of partitioning the HDD during setup.

If you are installing ubuntu then wubi might be an alternative solution...
http://wubi-installer.org/

 

Is there any cheat key combination that allows me to go to a text based partitioner in the windows vista installer? I am contemplating installing Fedora or something else, but for now I just want to be able to make two partitions on the drive--and afaik, the upgrade installer just lets me install vista on the c drive either via upgrade or not at all.

But there may be one option: I use the recovery dvds to restore my system to factory settings (XP) and remove the recovery and quickplay partitions. Then I somehow resize the windows partition from 111GB to 80GB. Then, I install Vista manually over the XP installation.

 

I think I'm going to give this a shot: according to this page ( http://geekswithblogs.net/lorint/archive/2006/12/07/100596.aspx) if you press Shift+F10 you can actually use diskpart to do partitioning. But as you said miner, it may still not work because of upgrading from XP to vista. But if I can get to XP and remove the recovery and quickplay partitions, I guess its easier to resize the main partition and install Vista on that, leaving unpartitioned space for linux. The bad part is that recovery back to XP takes about 2 hours

In case anyone has better ideas, please do let me know. At this point, I am looking for a durable third-party software that can shrink my Windows partition from 112GB to 80GB.

 

Hello again

I finally managed to use gparted. This is how I did it:

1. Boot from the gparted live cd.
2. At the command line (for some reason, the X window interface doesn't start on my machine automatically), type

The GUI based utility also doesn't work, as I stated in an earlier post on this thread.

Now, it appears that the resizing has taken place, but when I open Disk Management, I see only one partition called C and the capacity being shown is 111.79 GB. However, in Computer, the capacity of C drive is being shown as 74.5 GB.

As I understand, I should see the remaining space as unpartitioned space.

Also, now the shrink limit is 357 MB as shown by Vista. I am going to start a Fedora installer to see what actually happened to my drive

 

Miner, I am in Windows XP now (factory settings, full recovery from the HP Recovery DVDs...nothing else installed) and the webcamera doesn't work. It shows up as "USB Video Device" in both Control Panel (Device Manager) and in My Computer. If I try to access it, I get the error " Creation of video preview failed. Please check the device connection and make sure that the device is not being used by another application or user."

The webcam worked fine before I upgraded to Vista for the first time. I want to know what is wrong with the webcam. To get it to work in XP, I have to install webcam drivers for Vista. (This problem is separate from the disk resizing/partitioning, but I want to know whether anyone else on this forum is facing a similar problem with their inbuilt HP Pavilion Webcam, in windows XP).

 

With XP you can now shrink/expand the partition using gparted and then upgrade to Vista. Gparted & XP shouldnt have any issues. Even if gparted doesnt work then use the diskpart.exe utility.

This issue with the webcam is quite widespread, other than trying to reinstall the drivers and hope it works I dont know of any other solution for the web cam. Search the forum for webcam issues and there are plenty of threads in both Vista and XP. But since you are going to upgrade to Vista, I wouldnt bother trying to get it working in XP. Download the Vista webcam drivers from HP and use Quickplay to check the webcam.