Arch Linux

nandushines

Member

Registered: 2010-10-29

Posts: 5

Arch linux install on thinkpad X201 win 7 pre-installed

Hi arch forums,

I recently got a Lenovo Thinkpad X201 (core i7).
I have two partitions on my hard drive. P0 = Win 7, 426 GB. P1 = Lenovo Win 7 recovery partition, 3.6 GB.
For reasons twisted and salt-laced, I have to keep the pre-installed Win 7 with the recovery partition intact. :-(
Is it possible without much partition and cloning trickery to install arch? Please guide me how.

Thank you very much.

Cerales

Member

Registered: 2011-01-04

Posts: 32

Re: Arch linux install on thinkpad X201 win 7 pre-installed

You should be able to resize the 426GB NTFS partition to free up some space, and then use that to install ARCH. I believe you'll have to repair the Windows 7 installation if that happens, though. Usually you do that just by inserting the Windows disk and using its repair function; I don't know how that works if you have a recovery partition instead of a disk, but you can probably just boot into that and repair. Try booting into it before you mess around with the system to see what features it has.

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop. When I bought it initially I deleted the pre-installed Windows 7 but left the recovery partition intact, then re-installed Windows 7 on a new partition half the size, and put Debian on the other half. It worked fine, but I got sick of wasting space on Windows so I wiped the entire drive, installed Arch and haven't looked back.

nandushines

Member

Registered: 2010-10-29

Posts: 5

Re: Arch linux install on thinkpad X201 win 7 pre-installed

Thank you Cerales.

I now installed an advanced partitioning tool (Minitool PM) to see how my HDD is configured.
I actually have three partitions. P0 = 1.17 GB (boot, Lenovo name: SYSTEM_DRV), P1 = 454 GB (Lenovo name: Windows7), P2 = 9 GB (Lenovo name: Lenovo_recovery).
Also I do not have a recovery disk.

I am thinking of doing this:
Resize P1 giving P1A = 50 GB (Win7), P1B = 400GB.
Install arch on P1B, by further breaking it to P1BR (root mount) and P1BS (swap).
Do not install arch boot setup (grub). Keep Windows7 boot record intact.
Ask arch and other forums whether lenovo recovery software is not badly written to use hard coded cylinder offsets.
Find a good way to boot into into arch with the above config.

Any tips and heads up is appreciated. Thank you!

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Here is my config dump:

[url]http://pastebin.com/0RZxjpBt[/url]

Last edited by nandushines (2012-05-30 21:36:26)

Mr Green

Forum Fellow

From: U.K.

Registered: 2003-12-21

Posts: 5,896

Website

Re: Arch linux install on thinkpad X201 win 7 pre-installed

please use code tags in your post!

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Mr Green