Safe install

[Sayeh Ebrahimi]

Hello all,

Has anyone installed Debian on a Thinkpad without destroying the original Windows/Service partition, or the original master boot record needed to access the Rescue and Recovery?

Regards,

Sayeh <sayeh405@...>

[Aioanei Rares]

Sayeh Ebrahimi wrote:
> Hello all,
> Has anyone installed Debian on a Thinkpad without destroying the
> original Windows/Service partition, or the original master boot record
> needed to access the Rescue and Recovery?
> Regards,
> Sayeh <sayeh405@... <mailto:sayeh405@...>>
>
Well, boot a live/rescue CD/DVD and erase only the partitions you need
to erase, and when the installer asks where to put Grub, you direct it
towards the appropriate partition.


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[Amir H. Moin]

Sayeh Ebrahimi wrote:

Hello all,

Has anyone installed Debian on a Thinkpad without destroying the original Windows/Service partition, or the original master boot record needed to access the Rescue and Recovery?

Regards,

Sayeh <sayeh405@...>

Hello,
Haven't installed on Thinkpad specifically, but in general you should not experience any problem if you pay attention to these points:
1. It is much better to have M$ Win and then install Debian.
2. While installing do not trust the installer suggestion for automatic/guided install; and choose manual install option.
3. Finally, in the last step, the installer will ask you about GRUB boot loader. Just be careful and read the text in order to make sure whether it has detected your M$ Win OS or not; based on that guide, choose whether to install GRUB on the MBR of your first partition or not.

[Dirk Linnerkamp]

Hello Sayeh,

 No Thinkpad but I've installed Debian and Windows vista on the same HDD
of my HP Laptop. It is possible without destroying the original
"win-vista-recovery-partition" on the disk, if you have, as well as the
windows partition and its boot-section.. Before installing Debian *I let
windows* reduce the space of the windows-partition which originally
occupied the whole disk  and used the new free space for installing the
Debian System.

Be aware to to choose  "manual installation" of your deb. system, make
the partitioning of the free disk-space and finally let debian install
the grub bootloader in your master-boot-record of your drive. After
robooting, you'll have the choice between both operating systems to boot.

Best wishes Dirk
 
Sayeh Ebrahimi schrieb:
> Hello all,
> Has anyone installed Debian on a Thinkpad without destroying the
> original Windows/Service partition, or the original master boot record
> needed to access the Rescue and Recovery?
> Regards,
> Sayeh <sayeh405@... <mailto:sayeh405@...>>
>


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[Clive Menzies]

Sayeh Ebrahimi wrote:
> Hello all,
> Has anyone installed Debian on a Thinkpad without destroying the
> original Windows/Service partition, or the original master boot record
> needed to access the Rescue and Recovery?
> Regards,
> Sayeh <sayeh405@... <mailto:sayeh405@...>>
>
Hi Sayeh

I've got a X61 Tablet Thinkpad with Debian, Ubuntu and Vista (Ugh) on.  
The Think Vantage stuff option is available before grub does its thing
and I've had no problems with it.

YMMV

Regards

Clive


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[Sayeh Ebrahimi]

I had a hard time restoring an old T42 Thinkpad's master boot record after trying to install  Ubuntu on an external USB hard disk. The installer appeared so smart and gave proper warnings about Windows partitions on the first drive. It did properly install Ubuntu on the second drive, but couldn't resist saying hi to the first drive. I ended up with a computer that couldn't boot either Windows or Ubuntu. Strange enough, when I "physically" removed the first drive and reinstalled Ubuntu, everything worked fine and I could even use Ubuntu after reinstalling the first drive.

I guess either Debian installer, or newer laptops, or users in this mailing list are smarter! Anyway I feel safer now to try to install Debian on my new shining SL500 Thinkpad. Thanks to all who responded.

-- Sayeh

On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 10:31 PM, Clive Menzies <clive@...> wrote:

Sayeh Ebrahimi wrote:

Hello all,
Has anyone installed Debian on a Thinkpad without destroying the original Windows/Service partition, or the original master boot record needed to access the Rescue and Recovery?
Regards,

Sayeh <sayeh405@... <mailto:sayeh405@...>>

Hi Sayeh

I've got a X61 Tablet Thinkpad with Debian, Ubuntu and Vista (Ugh) on.  The Think Vantage stuff option is available before grub does its thing and I've had no problems with it.

YMMV

Regards

Clive

[Aioanei Rares]

Sayeh Ebrahimi wrote:

> I had a hard time restoring an old T42 Thinkpad's master boot record
> after trying to install  Ubuntu on an external USB hard disk. The
> installer appeared so smart and gave proper warnings about Windows
> partitions on the first drive. It did properly install Ubuntu on the
> second drive, but couldn't resist saying hi to the first drive. I
> ended up with a computer that couldn't boot either Windows or Ubuntu.
> Strange enough, when I "physically" removed the first drive and
> reinstalled Ubuntu, everything worked fine and I could even use Ubuntu
> after reinstalling the first drive.
> I guess either Debian installer, or newer laptops, or users in this
> mailing list are smarter! Anyway I feel safer now to try to install
> Debian on my new shining SL500 Thinkpad. Thanks to all who responded.
> -- Sayeh
>
> On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 10:31 PM, Clive Menzies
> <clive@... <mailto:clive@...>> wrote:
>
>     Sayeh Ebrahimi wrote:
>
>         Hello all,
>         Has anyone installed Debian on a Thinkpad without destroying
>         the original Windows/Service partition, or the original master
>         boot record needed to access the Rescue and Recovery?
>         Regards,
>         Sayeh <sayeh405@... <mailto:sayeh405@...>
>         <mailto:sayeh405@... <mailto:sayeh405@...>>>
>
>     Hi Sayeh
>
>     I've got a X61 Tablet Thinkpad with Debian, Ubuntu and Vista (Ugh)
>     on.  The Think Vantage stuff option is available before grub does
>     its thing and I've had no problems with it.
>
>     YMMV
>
>     Regards
>
>     Clive
>
>

Did you try expert install or...?


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[Sayeh Ebrahimi]

With the Ubuntu installer, no I didn't. I guess I should have. But given that I was installing on a second blank disk drive, I didn't mind whatever happened to that drive. I presumed that my second drive would have its own master boot record on which GRUB would be installed and the installer did properly recognize both drives with windows installed on the first drive. I admit that I made a stupid mistake; as Amir and Dirk suggested, I should have not trusted automatic installation and proceeded with manual.

But at the same time, I was wondering if GRUB is at all compatible with the way thinkpad's master boot record is set, so that Rescue and Recover (tm) can be called at boot time. Clive's experience suggests that GRUB can live peacefully with a thinkpad's master boot record factory settings, or maybe he didn't install GRUB on the master boot record?

-- Sayeh

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Aioanei Rares <debian.dev.list@...> wrote:

Did you try expert install or...?

[Dirk Linnerkamp]

Hi Sayeh et al,

Am Dienstag, den 29.09.2009, 10:45 +0330 schrieb Sayeh Ebrahimi:
> With the Ubuntu installer, no I didn't. I guess I should have. But
> given that I was installing on a second blank disk drive, I didn't
> mind whatever happened to that drive. I presumed that my second drive
> would have its own master boot record on which GRUB would be installed
> and the installer did properly recognize both drives with windows
> installed on the first drive. I admit that I made a stupid mistake; as
> Amir and Dirk suggested, I should have not trusted automatic
> installation and proceeded with manual.

I think GRUB did recognize both drives and also the windows OSon the
first..
.....the problem with automatic insatllation is, that they seldom fit
one's own needs, be it Ubuntu, open SUse, Windows even Debian, because
it always shows you a "default - mode" and this means "using the first
disk for installation" or something like that. At least this is my
experience. But even if you choose it, before the installation process
will start, the installer lets you know about what it intends to do and
how it would organize the partitions on your drive...but never mind..I
made a similar mistake often enough..

> But at the same time, I was wondering if GRUB is at all compatible
> with the way thinkpad's master boot record is set, so that Rescue and
> Recover (tm) can be called at boot time. Clive's experience suggests
> that GRUB can live peacefully with a thinkpad's master boot record
> factory settings, or maybe he didn't install GRUB on the master boot
> record?

....but what..? I didn't know that there is any different of the
master-boot-setting in a ThinkPad than in any other Notebook. Every hard
disk has a master-boot-record in its first sectors. And normally that's
the place where every OS, and surely windows, would set its boot
location, if you don't advise it otherwise...
.....or do you mean the ThinkPad's special "Hidden Partition Area" HPA?
However, that's not a master boot record, I thought, but only a
"Recovery Tool" to put the drive back into its originally condititon. So
i think GRUB did well, regarding its "automatic installation -mode"...

Best wishes
Dirk

>
> -- Sayeh
>
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Aioanei Rares
> <debian.dev.list@...> wrote:
>        
>        
>        
>         Did you try expert install or...?
>

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[Michael-352]

First of all, i've never tested it with Vista myself so i need to carefully restrict my statements to XP.

Both Windows and ThinkVantage have their own bootloader, and grub can boot that bootloader.
All you need is the chainloader command in grub.cfg (this is for grub2, but it's very similar for the legacy old grub).

In a Debian system, this file will be automaticly updated after every kernel install or update, and  there need to be a 'safe' way to preserve custom entries. This is /etc/grub/grub.d/40_custom file.

For example, to insert grub boot entries for Windows XP on partition sda1 and Thinkvantage on sda2, you would put this into 40_custom:

!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# /etc/grub.d/40_custom:
menuentry "Chainloader sda1" {
    set root=(hd0,1)
    # insmod fat
    # search --fs-uuid --set 0fa5641b-9105-4102-acf6-c68795e8bf62
    chainloader +1
}

menuentry "ThinVantage sda2" {
    set root=(hd0,2)
    # search --fs-uuid --set 0fa5641b-9105-4102-acf6-c68795e8bf62
    chainloader +1
}

Then run 'update-grub' (as root, or via sudo), it will update the 'real' config in /boot.

The fs-uuid directive should normally be not necessary, it is optional. The respective uuid of your specific partitions would be different of course. If you don't know what it's about just drop it :)

If you install grub into the MasterBootRecord (MBR) then of course the Windows code will be gone.
What you will see is that chainloading into Windows will launch the 'normal' Windows Boot menu.
However, stuff like hibernation and special boot keys will be affected.

Some 2 years ago a german guy on this list, Stefan Bellon, told me a way to boot into grub via the original Windows XP setup, which would preserve the original Masterbootrecord and thus keep Windows hibernation and blue Thinkvantage button working at startup (before any bootloader).

This works for XP, as far as i know Vista boots different, but probably can be setup in some analog way.

You would reinstall Windows MBR again (there should be some onboard M$ System Tool) and afterwards modify the Windows XP 'BOOT.INI' file to launch the grub code from the Windows harddisk.

You can copy that code in linux commandline with dd into a binary file, say 'bootgrub.bin' and put that on the Windows filesystem (just beneath the BOOT.INI). Since Linux has no good NTFS write support, you could for example put it on a memory stick for transfer, or use a Samba network or even just email.

An example BOOT.INI would look like that:
 
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=C:\bootgrub.bin
[operating systems]
C:\bootgrub.bin="Linux Grub"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP nogui" /fastdetect /bootlog /noguiboot /safeboot:network /sos

This setup was working with legacy grub, but i missed to prevent the package script from writing into the MBR when i mirgated to grub2. It didn't matter much to me, anyway, i think if the harddisk basically is ok, then i can launch ThinkVantage via grub quite as well, i just don't really need the button anymore. (And if the disk would not work, then also not ThinkVantage, so what. And there always are those pretty Recovery CDs). However, for this reason, i can't tell if it would work with grub2 exactly the same.

As a result, you will see the Windows boot menu, from where you can boot into Windows, or 'jump' to the linux grub bootmenu.

The used grub binary will read the grub.cfg configuration of the linux partition just as usual, and also that configuration will be kept updated via package managemant just as usual. However, you need to recognize that the bootgrub.bin code now is 'out of reach' for grub updates.

But, once it works, it works, so what. Most grub updates anyway would not modiy that bootcode anyway, especially with grub2 which is highly modular, and the modules are loaded dynamically from the linux /boot directory now. Most updates will go there, anyway.

If there would be a security fix just in that initial code, then you need to recreate the external binary file. But then, if you really need such a good security for your laptop, then you would do completely different things anyway, and in the end of that road it wouldn't matter how it gets booted, again, because the ultimate solution is to store any sensible information (like your complete home directory) on a small external encrypted device.

hth Micha

 


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[Robert Goley]

I recommend using the "GRUB For DOS" instead of the direct boot sector
loading.  Easier to setup and more configurable.  You simply load the
grl boot file in place of your bootgrub.bin file in the boot.ini
configuration.  Good for getting back into linux portion of a Windows
dual boot setup....

Robert

On 9/29/2009 5:10 PM, Michael wrote:

> First of all, i've never tested it with Vista myself so i need to carefully restrict my statements to XP.
>
> Both Windows and ThinkVantage have their own bootloader, and grub can boot that bootloader.
> All you need is the chainloader command in grub.cfg (this is for grub2, but it's very similar for the legacy old grub).
>
> In a Debian system, this file will be automaticly updated after every kernel install or update, and  there need to be a 'safe' way to preserve custom entries. This is /etc/grub/grub.d/40_custom file.
>
> For example, to insert grub boot entries for Windows XP on partition sda1 and Thinkvantage on sda2, you would put this into 40_custom:
>
> !/bin/sh
> exec tail -n +3 $0
> # /etc/grub.d/40_custom:
> menuentry "Chainloader sda1" {
>      set root=(hd0,1)
>      # insmod fat
>      # search --fs-uuid --set 0fa5641b-9105-4102-acf6-c68795e8bf62
>      chainloader +1
> }
>
> menuentry "ThinVantage sda2" {
>      set root=(hd0,2)
>      # search --fs-uuid --set 0fa5641b-9105-4102-acf6-c68795e8bf62
>      chainloader +1
> }
>
> Then run 'update-grub' (as root, or via sudo), it will update the 'real' config in /boot.
>
> The fs-uuid directive should normally be not necessary, it is optional. The respective uuid of your specific partitions would be different of course. If you don't know what it's about just drop it :)
>
> If you install grub into the MasterBootRecord (MBR) then of course the Windows code will be gone.
> What you will see is that chainloading into Windows will launch the 'normal' Windows Boot menu.
> However, stuff like hibernation and special boot keys will be affected.
>
> Some 2 years ago a german guy on this list, Stefan Bellon, told me a way to boot into grub via the original Windows XP setup, which would preserve the original Masterbootrecord and thus keep Windows hibernation and blue Thinkvantage button working at startup (before any bootloader).
>
> This works for XP, as far as i know Vista boots different, but probably can be setup in some analog way.
>
> You would reinstall Windows MBR again (there should be some onboard M$ System Tool) and afterwards modify the Windows XP 'BOOT.INI' file to launch the grub code from the Windows harddisk.
>
> You can copy that code in linux commandline with dd into a binary file, say 'bootgrub.bin' and put that on the Windows filesystem (just beneath the BOOT.INI). Since Linux has no good NTFS write support, you could for example put it on a memory stick for transfer, or use a Samba network or even just email.
>
> An example BOOT.INI would look like that:
>
> [boot loader]
> timeout=30
> default=C:\bootgrub.bin
> [operating systems]
> C:\bootgrub.bin="Linux Grub"
> multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP" /fastdetect
> multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP nogui" /fastdetect /bootlog /noguiboot /safeboot:network /sos
>
> This setup was working with legacy grub, but i missed to prevent the package script from writing into the MBR when i mirgated to grub2. It didn't matter much to me, anyway, i think if the harddisk basically is ok, then i can launch ThinkVantage via grub quite as well, i just don't really need the button anymore. (And if the disk would not work, then also not ThinkVantage, so what. And there always are those pretty Recovery CDs). However, for this reason, i can't tell if it would work with grub2 exactly the same.
>
> As a result, you will see the Windows boot menu, from where you can boot into Windows, or 'jump' to the linux grub bootmenu.
>
> The used grub binary will read the grub.cfg configuration of the linux partition just as usual, and also that configuration will be kept updated via package managemant just as usual. However, you need to recognize that the bootgrub.bin code now is 'out of reach' for grub updates.
>
> But, once it works, it works, so what. Most grub updates anyway would not modiy that bootcode anyway, especially with grub2 which is highly modular, and the modules are loaded dynamically from the linux /boot directory now. Most updates will go there, anyway.
>
> If there would be a security fix just in that initial code, then you need to recreate the external binary file. But then, if you really need such a good security for your laptop, then you would do completely different things anyway, and in the end of that road it wouldn't matter how it gets booted, again, because the ultimate solution is to store any sensible information (like your complete home directory) on a small external encrypted device.
>
> hth Micha
>
>
>
>
>    

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[Michael-352]

Robert:
> I recommend using the "GRUB For DOS"


Yes looks like another (and maybe easier) way.

Still, if you're mostly working from Linux, the most simple way is just to install grub and setup chainloaders (which is done at system install anyway). All you loos is the ThinkVantage button, no great deal IMHO.

As for hibernation, i need to clarify, it works just as usual: Grub chainloads to Windows and that just resumes. What i meant is that if you would rely on WinLogon to protect your Windows access, now there's grub with it's insecure edit and commandline escapes - which can be deactivated of course.

As i said, if you really need strong security, you wouldn't rely on either OS or BIOS side access protection, nor on any encryption, because anything can be cracked up to the point to remove the hard drive for professional analysis. You just would not store any sensitive information on such a laptop.


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[Robert Goley]

I was late to the long string of emails...  I was just discussing the
Boot from Windows first perspective.  I agree though.  Anything you have
physical access to is already insecure....

Robert

On 9/29/2009 6:40 PM, Michael wrote:

> Robert:
>    
>> I recommend using the "GRUB For DOS"
>>      
>
> Yes looks like another (and maybe easier) way.
>
> Still, if you're mostly working from Linux, the most simple way is just to install grub and setup chainloaders (which is done at system install anyway). All you loos is the ThinkVantage button, no great deal IMHO.
>
> As for hibernation, i need to clarify, it works just as usual: Grub chainloads to Windows and that just resumes. What i meant is that if you would rely on WinLogon to protect your Windows access, now there's grub with it's insecure edit and commandline escapes - which can be deactivated of course.
>
> As i said, if you really need strong security, you wouldn't rely on either OS or BIOS side access protection, nor on any encryption, because anything can be cracked up to the point to remove the hard drive for professional analysis. You just would not store any sensitive information on such a laptop.
>
>
>    

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