Laptops, restoration partitions, and Linux boot software
At a local auction a while back, I picked up a nice IBM Thinkpad R51 cheap. I'd like to put Linux on it, and have it dual boot with XP. But Houston, we have an issue here. In case one fries the installed copy of XP, the R51 has a small emergency restore partition as the first partition on the hard drive. By selecting to boot in to this partition at start up, one can completely reinstall the R51 to exactly how it was the day it came out of the box new from the store. This is the only computer I own (out of 7 or 8 machines) that has a restore partition.
I've already taken the hard drive out of the laptop, made a backup image of the entire drive "just in case" using another PC, and then put the drive back in the laptop. This was done mainly because I have no CDs or DVDs to go with this laptop.
But even with that backup copy, I'd still like to know before I do anything...is installing Grub/Lilo going to trash that partition in such a way as to make it unusable in an emergency?
Edit: Okay, I should have done the Google search first! I see that I need to install Lilo to the 1st sector of the boot partition, and not to the MBR. But I'd still be interested in any comments from those of you who have done this on similar laptop setups.
I've already taken the hard drive out of the laptop, made a backup image of the entire drive "just in case" using another PC, and then put the drive back in the laptop. This was done mainly because I have no CDs or DVDs to go with this laptop.
But even with that backup copy, I'd still like to know before I do anything...is installing Grub/Lilo going to trash that partition in such a way as to make it unusable in an emergency?
Edit: Okay, I should have done the Google search first! I see that I need to install Lilo to the 1st sector of the boot partition, and not to the MBR. But I'd still be interested in any comments from those of you who have done this on similar laptop setups.
