Rescue & Recovery during boot with Linux/Windows

Hi!

I kept the original recovery drives on my W510 and burned the CDs. After that I installed Ubuntu 10.04. Now it seems the GRUB bootloader messed something up. I wanted to recovery my system without the CDs by pressing the blue ThinkVantage button during the boot process. This does not work. Is there any way to circumvent that behavior? I don't like to only rely on CDs but I also can't live without Linux (Wubi is not an option).

So is there any way to install Windows and Linux and still be able to recover from the HDD and use R&R?

Kind regards,
s_e

 

IIRC, Ubuntu overwrites the MBR(Master Boot Record) with the GRUB reference, so in order to fix the issue you need to map the MBR to the hidden partition again.
Not sure if there's a way to do it without using the recovery disks.
But, what's the problem with your setup right now?
Why do you need the R&R?

 

Thanks for asking but right now everything works fine. I was just curious to try out this feature (to the point before it starts recovering) and noticed that GRUB shows me 2 "Windows" partitions (one even called something with recovery) but they both boot into Windows 7 Pro. I just want to have a backup in case the CDs fail me. I don't mind keeping the recovery partitions. I have more than enough space.

 

Take a look at this... [SOLVED] Installing Slackware Linux/LILO but keeping things intact on Lenovo notebook

Basically what I did was use the latest beta of EasyBCD to modify Windows 7's boot manager and have that give me the option of booting either into Windows or into my Linux distro. With this, I had my Linux boot manager install to the Linux partition rather than the MBR.

 

Thanks I will check out if that works for me aswell.

Edit: So basicly you installed Windows and then your Linux distribution. Instead of installing GRUB/LILO to the MBR you just installed it somewhere else. After that you use EasyBCD to add your distribution to the Windows boot manager?

 

Actually, if you install Windows first and then Ubuntu (letting GRUB grab the MBR) - you should get the Recovery partition as one of the options in Bootloader (IIRC, you can even try and add it to Bootloader later from within Ubuntu). ThinkVantage won't work but you don't need it as long as GRUB is working fine.

 

Yes the recovery partition is added in GRUB but like you said F11 aka Rescue and Recovery is not working. I need this only when I am travelling around (without the 3 CDs) and something would happen to my Windows installation. Matlab is faster with Ubuntu anyways but there is some important Windows stuff I can't miss. This is my "lazy" emergency plan to just use R+R when Windows stops working.

 

Keep in mind that the when initialized, Recovery partition will overwrite the MBR again and in order to access the Ubuntu partition you'll have to boot from the installation CD/DVD/USB and follow a few simple steps to re-install GRUB.

 

Pretty much... Windows 7 was pre-loaded on my system and I wanted the F11/ThinkVantage option to remain intact even though I rarely use Windows. During the install of my distro, I was given the choice to install LILO to MBR, root partition, or don't install. I chose to have it installed to the root partition, essentially whatever partition was assigned / or root.

Because you're not changing anything in the MBR, you still get the F11 option and Windows. It's up to the Windows boot manager at this point to give you Windows or Linux. If you choose the former you get Windows like you normally would. If you choose the latter you'll get the GRUB/LILO menu, which from there if you choose Linux you'll get Linux and if you choose Windows you'll get thrown back into the Windows boot manager. Hopefully I did not confuse you, as it it pretty simple to implement!

 

If you choose the EasyBCD method you will only need to reinstall EasyBCD and configure it again. The only thing that gets wiped out when you initiate the Recovery partition with this method is Windows...

 

1. I just tried the easyBCD method. First installed Windows, then Ubuntu (put GRUB to sda3). In Windows added the Linux partition with easyBCD and rebooted. Works like a charm

2. Thanks for the R+R tips again, I completly forgot that I can also restore regular backups instead of factory defaults (those would wipe the Ubuntu partition aswell) to recover.

3. Happy that there is a well informed community out there for my problems ;-)

 

I'm also considering to install an Ubuntu on my thinkpad. and also worrying about the recovery patition. However, I'll need to add another hdd, so if I install systems on the different hdds, one in original ide slot and one in ultrabay caddy, will they affect each other? I think by select which one should boot first, I can avoid this problem, one hdd for windows and recovery, the other for ubuntu and whatever other systems. when I need, I just restart, select in bios and restart into the system, right?

 

If you install Ubuntu onto the other HDD, they should not have any effect on each other. While I have not done this with EasyBCD, supposedly you can have it boot off another drive so this would work well for your case. Just have Ubuntu install everything to that other drive, including GRUB.