[TriLUG] New Thinkpad T23!

Tom Bryan tbryan at python.net
Wed Jan 1 02:41:13 EST 2003


I just bought an IBM T23 thinkpad.  It came with two primary partitions:
/dev/hda1  1   -  3744  Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2  3745 - 3876  Hidden Win95 FAT32 (LBA)

Windows2000 is installed on /dev/hda1.  The /dev/hda2 partition is apparently 
a special "recovery" partition with the compressed files for reinstalling the 
base system back on to /dev/hda1.  It looks like there's about 800MB of data 
in /dev/hda2.  

I need to keep the Windows partition.  I have some Windows software that 
should be able to shrink /dev/hda1 so that I can put an extended partition 
between /dev/hda1 and /dev/hda2.  That's where I plan to install Linux.  

Now, before I do that, I'd like to grab a copy of the partition table and the 
data from /dev/hda2.  That way, if I *really* screw things up, I could put 
the old partition table back in place, format the partitions, restore 
/dev/hda2, and enter recovery mode to restore the base Windows200 
installation.

I was thinking that I could somehow use dd (from knoppix or tomsrtbt) and 
stream the partition table and the /dev/hda2 data over my network to my 
workstation which has plenty of disk space.  Does that sound sane?  Is there 
an easier way?

---Tom




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