thinkpad t400 partitions? need to dual boot with linux

Hi All,

Just got my first Thinkpad (T400), and I'm loving it. It has Vista business on it, and I want to setup a dual boot with Linux (which will be what I use).

The laptop came with a 160GB hard disk, and it has a strange partition.

1. 137GB C: drive
2. 10GB Lenovo Q: drive
3. 1.46GB SERVICEV003 S: drive

Since I want to install Linux, would you advise me to make a clean install of everything?

According to instructions given here -- http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=298467

Any help would be appreciated.

Many thanks

 

There is the lenovo boot partition and then the copy of the OS.

I would want the space, so I would make your recovery discs to wipe it. But you could always repartition the free space in Linux and install it.

The boot loader might get all funky though...

If you do wipe the whole thing I would install windows first and leave some unpartitioned space. Windows doesn't like installing when there is a linux partition there and some unallocated space or at least that's my experience.

 

Hi jaredy,

Thanks for your reply. I was thinking on similar lines -

1. make a backup of the content on the lenovo partition.
2. wipe the complete hard disk
3. install windows
4. install linux on the remainder of the hard disk

i wanted to know if there would be any issued if i do this - sorry for not being clear earlier

 

That's what I would do. The only issue you'd find is lost time as you have to manually load several Lenovo drivers and all your apps to get your clean Windows install to work right.

 

time is not so much of an issue. i prefer that i have linux running asap as that is what i use. dont have any apps/data on windows, so nothing to worry

thanks for the help

 

Understandable. Just make sure you install Windows first as it's much easier to make the Linux boot loader see Windows than to make a Windows boot loader see Linux.

 

There is a good description of dual-boot setup here:

http://vista.blorge.com/2007/11/03/how-to-dual-boot-vista-with-linux-adding-linux-on-vista-machine/

You can also configure the Vista bootloader to load Linux, but that's a bit more fiddley.

An alternative option would be virtual pc, which is free and doesn't require any re-partitioning. Download available here. If you do this, remove the Virtual Machine image directory from both your A/V scanner and the search indexer.

Or VmWare player...