# IBM Thinkpad --- A few questions

## deadaim

I'm going to receive the laptop in about 2 weeks and I have a few questions about the IBM thinkpad and how to partition it.  I'm getting a 60gb harddrive and my goal is to have 15gb Windows XP and the rest for Linux.

1.  Is there anyway to stop Windows XP from converting the harddrive to NTFS on the first boot?  If it does change the harddrive to NTFS, will this affect the installation of Linux?

2.  I'm assuming when I receive the laptop, there will only be a partition of Windows.  How do I resize the partition?  A link to where I can find the software would be appreciated.

3.  In the IBM thinkpad, there is a hidden partition where all the recovery tools are.  I know that BIOS is the reason it is hiding it.  Where in BIOS would I set it to unhide it.  Once I unhide it, is it safe to put in the gentoo 1.4 cd and fdisk and then erase that partition completely?  Is there an easier way to do this?  My goal here is to have the recovery cd's that I can ask IBM to send me and have those few GBs free for my using.

4.  Once I have the Windows partition down to 15gb and the hidden parition deleted, I will only have 1 parition (the windows partition).  If I follow the installation guide and add 3 more partitions (boot partition, swap partition, and root partition), there is no need to have any extended partitions, right?

5.  Let's say I keep the hidden partition.  That would mean I would have 2 partitions.  Adding the 3 partitions for the boot, swap, and root partitions would give me 5 partitions.  I know that is a "no-no" and I would need an extended partition.  Is this correct?

I know these are a lot of questions, but I want my thinkpad experience to be perfect.  :Very Happy: 

Thanks for all your help.

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## steveb

 *deadaim wrote:*   

> I'm going to receive the laptop in about 2 weeks and I have a few questions about the IBM thinkpad and how to partition it.  I'm getting a 60gb harddrive and my goal is to have 15gb Windows XP and the rest for Linux.

 no problem. this is easy possible.

 *deadaim wrote:*   

> 1.  Is there anyway to stop Windows XP from converting the harddrive to NTFS on the first boot?  If it does change the harddrive to NTFS, will this affect the installation of Linux?

 i don't know why the partition will be convertet to ntfs? however... you can use something like knoppix to boot the notebook, before you boot into winxp and then tar all the data to an samba or nfs share.

the transformation to ntfs will not disturb linux at all.

 *deadaim wrote:*   

> 2.  I'm assuming when I receive the laptop, there will only be a partition of Windows.  How do I resize the partition?  A link to where I can find the software would be appreciated.

 if it is an thinkpad of the new generation, then you will have 2 partitions! one with winxp and the other with the rescue system. ibm stopped to deliver the rescue cd and now they put everything on the drive.

to resize the partitions you would need something like partition magic or another tool wich can handle the resizing of ntfs.

 *deadaim wrote:*   

> 3.  In the IBM thinkpad, there is a hidden partition where all the recovery tools are.  I know that BIOS is the reason it is hiding it.  Where in BIOS would I set it to unhide it.  Once I unhide it, is it safe to put in the gentoo 1.4 cd and fdisk and then erase that partition completely?  Is there an easier way to do this?  My goal here is to have the recovery cd's that I can ask IBM to send me and have those few GBs free for my using.

 it is not the bios wich is hiding the partition. you can hide any partition if you want and you can unhide it as well. the linux tools (fdisk or cdisk or grub or or or) can unhide that partition. i personaly would not delete the partition until you don't have the cd's from ibm. but after that, you can easy delete this partition and use the space.

 *deadaim wrote:*   

> 4.  Once I have the Windows partition down to 15gb and the hidden parition deleted, I will only have 1 parition (the windows partition).  If I follow the installation guide and add 3 more partitions (boot partition, swap partition, and root partition), there is no need to have any extended partitions, right?

 correct.

 *deadaim wrote:*   

> 5.  Let's say I keep the hidden partition.  That would mean I would have 2 partitions.  Adding the 3 partitions for the boot, swap, and root partitions would give me 5 partitions.  I know that is a "no-no" and I would need an extended partition.  Is this correct?

 yes. this is correct.

 *deadaim wrote:*   

> I know these are a lot of questions, but I want my thinkpad experience to be perfect.  

 thinkpad + gentoo + this forum = BEST EXPERIENCE  :Wink: 

 *deadaim wrote:*   

> Thanks for all your help.

 no problem

cheers

SteveB

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## deadaim

Thanks for the reply!

One more question.

Is there anyway to have Windows XP on a FAT32 partition instead of an NTFS partition?  How would I go about doing this?

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## steveb

 *deadaim wrote:*   

> Thanks for the reply!
> 
> One more question.
> 
> Is there anyway to have Windows XP on a FAT32 partition instead of an NTFS partition?  How would I go about doing this?

 i know, that windows xp has tools to convert from fat/fat32 to ntfs. but i don't know if you can convert back.

but partition magic has the posibillity to do that.

cheers

SteveB

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## deadaim

Again, thanks for your input.

I've been reading around, and do you know if IBM gives first time buyers a discount or anyother discounts?

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## steveb

 *deadaim wrote:*   

> Again, thanks for your input.
> 
> I've been reading around, and do you know if IBM gives first time buyers a discount or anyother discounts?

 i am not aware of any discount for fist time buyers. but i know that ibm does support students. if you are one, then check out how to get discount. or if you know any student, then kindly ask him if he is willing to buy in his name an thinkpad for you.

if you would be from switzerland, then i would point you to http://www.studentenrabatt.ch/ or i would sell it to you for the same price i have as reseller. but you are not from switzerland ;(

cheers

SteveB

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## deadaim

Well, I am a student at the University of Florida, but I can't find anywhere on http://www.ibm.com where they state they give discounts for students.  Maybe it's something I'm not seeing.  :Confused: 

Perhaps somebody can point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

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## cesar

I used to have an IBM T30.  I did not know much about disk partitioning, so this is what I did,

1- Using Partition Magic, I resized the W2K partition to about 10 Gb (the disk was 40).  I deleted the hidden partition.

2- Deleted the rest 30GB (selected no format type or empty space)

3- Inserted the RH disk and asked it to use available space followed the instructions on installation (then RH would make the partition table similar to the one I would use in Gentoo keeping Windows untouched and making the swap, root, and boot partitions automatically)

4- Installed Gentoo.

I know this was not the way to do it, but back then I did not know much about it and was afraid of messing up with my disk.

About the hidden partition, I deleted it and asked IBM to send me the recovery disks instead (I bought the machine in Japan and they did not give me the CDs unless I requested (buy) them  :Sad: )

You're using NTFS, so if you want to share files, probably you should create an intermediate FAT32 partition to read and write from and to WXP and LINUX (kind of a bridge in between the two).

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## cesar

This will be probably helpful

http://www.linux-laptop.net/ibm.html

Good luck   :Very Happy: 

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## deadaim

Thanks for all the links!

I was looking into the discounts that IBM offers and it seems that it does not any promotion for the specific laptop I'm looking at.  Just to let you guys know, its a Thinkpad R50 1.7ghz.  They only have promotions on Thinkpad R50 1.4ghz laptops and others that don't interest me.

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## snowmoon

ntfsresize-1.9 + qtparted are a complete freeware Partition magic replacement and it works wonders.  I have used it quite a number of times recently to resize down ntfs partitions.  It can deal with fragmentation and other windows nasties too.  The knoppix disk has qtparted, but I needed to download the static ntfsresize binary and run it before attempting to resize in order to get the partitions small enough.

I personally would leave the recovery partition alone and just create one large extended partition to cut up into linux peices.

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## Paradigmbreak

Just a Thinkpad related point-

If you call the support number and can navigate yourself through the phone tree (takes about three minutes), you can get to a tech who will send you a copy of the reinstall disks no questions asked.  They sent mine overnight for free. (this assumes youa re on warrranty of some type).  I would order them no matter what. It was really no hassle and given the number of special drivers and utilities my t41 has, it saves a lot of time.

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## Hauser

Is it feasible to tar everything of XP on a ntfs partition, put it somewhere else, then after converting the ntfs partition into vfat, untar the XP back onto it?  :Question: 

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## allucid

you can convert fat to ntfs but i am pretty sure you cannot convert ntfs back to fat.

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## Hauser

I meant reformatting the partition as vfat after tarring and backing up everything, and then untar them back onto it.

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## steveb

 *allucid wrote:*   

> you can convert fat to ntfs but i am pretty sure you cannot convert ntfs back to fat.

 this is not 100% true. partition magic can do that. the only side effect is, that you loose some security information, since they can not be convertet to fat. and you loose ntfs streams (if you used them. most ppl even don't know they exist). and you can not have other features you find in ntfs (for example: links), convertet to fat.

but normal data on the ntfs partition can be converted to fat16 or fat32.

cheers

SteveB

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