Triple booting the S-10 w/One-Key Recovery

[hmarc]

Executive Summary



After upgrading my freshly manufactured S-10 with an extra 1gb of RAM and a 200gb 7200rpm Fujitsu drive, I created 3 partitions. I copied the original WinXP image from the original 80gb drive to one of the new partitions, installed Ubuntu 8.10 on another, and OS/X on the 3rd partition. To my surprise and delight, the One-Key Recovery button still works, and I can back up the WinXP system successfully to another device.

Upgrading


I had a 1gb RAM (DDR2 PC2-5300) out of my iMac from when I upgraded it to 4gb, and it is the same RAM that the S-10 takes, so I used that. It simply clicks into the slot as shown in the photo above. Simple. Similar chips are for sale on the 'net for $10 to $20US.

For a drive upgrade, I got a Hitachi 7K200-200 (a 200gb, 7200rpm drive) to replace the original 80gb Fujitsu 5400rpm drive for just over $60US. The original drive simply slides to the right when the computer is oriented as in the photo above. I lifted it out, took off the mounting bracket (the silver thing with all the holes) and moved it to the new drive, being very carefull not to lose one of the four tiny screws. I slid the new drive into place and replaced the plastic cover.

Re-configuring the HDD

In truth, I made several mistakes and had to re-do a bunch of what I'm about to describe. But I believe I've simplified it to what I SHOULD have done, and what you could do to duplicate my efforts. Here's what I needed:

* Info from this forum, amru's Ultimate Dualboot thread in particular.
* An external USB DVD drive (for the install CDs).
* An external USB SATA drive housing (for the original HDD).
* The MSI-Wind ISO CD.
* The Ubuntu 8.10 ISO CD.
* NetbookTech's article on installing OS/X.
* A license for OS/X (I have a 5-copy license, but only 2 Macs).

I put the original 80gb Fujitsu drive in the external SATA enclosure, and connected it to my S-10 via the USB port on the right side. I put the Ubuntu CD-ROM in the external drive and connected it to the USB port on the left side.

Instead of reconfiguring the BIOS a bunch of times, I found that hitting the F12 key (actually Fn+F11) during boot-up gave me a boot device menu, from which I could select the CD drive with Ubuntu in it. Or any other USB drive for that matter.


The stock partition settings for my red S-10

The new 200gb drive was unformatted, so first I used Ubuntu's Partitioner utility to set up the drive as one 29.5gb FAT32 partition (just a little bit bigger than the original Windows C: drive). Then I opened an Ubuntu shell window and ran the following command to copy the original Windows disk image to my new disk.

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dd if=/dev/sdc1 of=/dev/sda1

Then I restarted the S-10 and let it boot normally. Voila! Windows booted with my account and settings still intact. Excellent!

Back to Ubuntu (via the CD) so I could enlarge the 29gb Windows partition to the 65gb that I wanted, and create two more partitions (a 60gb ext3 partition for Ubuntu, and a 60gb FAT32 partition for OS/X).

After that, I used the same Ubuntu CD to install Ubuntu on my 2nd partition. For some reason, it wanted to install in the 3rd partition, which it massaged a bit first. I let it do what it wanted. The results are shown below.


The partition settings for my 200gb Hitachi 7200rpm drive

Then I rebooted the S-10 normally, and it came up in the GRUB loader, giving me a choice of which O/S to boot: Ubuntu (several options) or Windows XP. I chose Windows first, and it came up with all my account settings intact and wireless still configured. Not only that, but I discovered that the Windows Explorer showed me a D: drive of 125mb. Strange, I thought that was the One-Key Recovery drive.

So I tried the red button just below the screen and what do you know but One-Key Recovery works! It can't save to the D: drive, of course, because it doesn't have any free space. But it will recover to an external (USB) device just fine. I've done it. The drawback is that WinXP complains every once and awhile about drive D: being low on freespace. I'm pretty sure I could fix that by resizing the partitions once more, and bumping the /dev/sda2 slice up to 250mb or so. Maybe later.

I'm mystified as to why my One-Key stuff survived the disk upgrade and repartitioning. My guess is that it wasn't my mad skilz as a hacker, but some change Lenovo has made in the production line for S-10s. Or maybe it was simply that I first created just a small FAT32 partition for Windows, then rebooted right after I copied it to make sure it was there. Perhaps the BIOS saw that the other partitions were gone, and created a small NTFS D: partition for the One-Key Recovery software.

I bought my S-10 directly from Lenovo, and I believe it was built the last week of November, 2008. The fact that my original 80gb disk partitioning was different that has been reported here previously strengthens my suspicion that Lenovo changed One-Key recovery somehow.

Somebody with the old-style partitioning (29.4gb C: drive, 38.1gb D: drive) should try what I've done above and see if One-Key Recovery survives.

Configuring Ubuntu

Ubuntu popped up a little dialog box all on its own suggesting that I should use the "Broadcom SPA" (?) driver, and when I clicked OK it downloaded it. After a reboot, I could connect to my "hidden" home WPA network. I intend to try the "Netbook Remix" stuff, sounds interesting.

Configuring OS/X

Yet to be done — I got it running, but still need to apply all the driver updates to get wireless, sound, etc. to work. It already works well enough that my wife wants me to dual boot her S-10 too! Good thing I still have 2 more unused OS/X licenses...

[ayt999]

pretty cool. I have laptops with all three operating systems, but most of them only run one of them based on what functionality I need. my macbook pro (and macbook air formerly) has virtual machines with several types of windows and linux, but then again this isn't exactly a triple boot. other than the novelty factor and seeing that you can do it, are you actually going to use all three? not that there's any problem with that.

anyways, have you checked out the Ubuntu Netbook Remix distro? it has a cool interface geared towards netbooks that has a tab-based navigation system using the entire screen. might want to check it out. at least on my EEE 701 with it's 7-inch screen, it increases the usability dramatically.

as for OS X, I've been a bit apathetic as to making the OS X install easier (partially due to already having it installed on my system and partially not being in a productive mood overall lately, among other factors), but I did make a few packages that should make the OS X install easier once the system's already on the S10. slipstreaming OS X is proving to be a lot more difficult than I've imagined, especially since I haven't gotten my hands on more robust slipstream scripts (namely Dense's script).

here's a link if you are interested. http://www.zentorrent.org/S10leopardx86/

again, it's been a few weeks since I made those, but they should be up-to-date. I'll dig up what exactly I included in each and make the page more informative.

[justcharlie]

cool setup, nice job!

one question though, why does it matter that you have OSX licenses? you're still breaking the TOS (not that it matters, but it just came to mind).

[hmarc]

I will actually use mostly OS/X if I get it running well. The S10's purpose for me is simply to run Firefox, Thunderbird and an SSH client when I'm away from home. I use OS/X 99% of the time at home (I'm retired, so home is also 'work'). I do a lot of long motorcycle trips, and I've grown tired of lugging the 17" Dell around. Though I must say it's survived all the banging and vibration quite well. It's just too heavy and takes up too much room.

My preferred travel mode is what we call "Credit Card Camping", so I stay in motels a lot, even when dual-sporting off the paved roads. And I've found that many with free wifi seem to expect you to be running Windows. My Dell is dual-booted with XP/Pro and SUSE 10.3, so I use Linux when I can for connectivity in public places.

In the end, I expect I'll end up preferring just one OS for the S10. Probably OS/X but if not that then Linux. I'm quite fond of the look of Ubuntu, after running SUSE with KDE for several years. And the Netbook Remix appears to make the full 600 pixel height of the screen usable for apps (like the browser).

The OS/X license deal is moot, true, 'cause as you point out, Apple's terms of service say you gotta run it on Apple hardware. But the fact that I have a license means I paid for it, and didn't steal it. That's important to me.

Regarding: http://www.zentorrent.org/S10leopardx86/

Code: Select all

Audieee.pkg             22-Nov-2008 03:33   227k 
CPUcontrol.pkg          22-Nov-2008 03:33    26k 
S10kexts.pkg            22-Nov-2008 03:33   362k 
bcm43xx_enabler.sh      22-Nov-2008 03:33     5k 

Install them all I assume, via the shell script? I haven't downloaded them yet, but will as soon as I finish this post. BTW there was no Web page at that URL, just a directory index. Do I need to join the XBTIT forum to see the Web page?

--hmarc

[ayt999]

the shell script is just the standard one to (re-)enable the wireless upon first install or os update. I'm working on a custom OS X installer for the S10, but haven't been too successful as of yet. I made the packages as part of my attempt at the installer, and put them up in case anyone else was interested in them. I'll most likely combine the items on that page into one package later on, but right now you'll have to run each individually. I figure having everything in one place is better than visiting various sites gathering the required kexts / apps / scripts. best would be if I can make a custom installer, which will be distributed once it gets worked out.

as for the webpage, yes, there is none at the url. no need to register at the main url. I simply put the files there (rather hastily I may add) because that was the most convenient location. you won't be able to register anyways, since I disabled that feature....

[hmarc]

That shell script is sweet! I just ran it, took all the defaults, then rebooted and my S10 now connects to my hidden WPA network perfectly! Thanks, ayt999.

I did install the 3 packages from your site, and they installed successfully. I'm not sure how many of the problems they are supposed to fix, and I haven't dug into OS/X much yet as I've been playing with and reconfiguring Ubuntu. But the wireless works in OS/X and that was my primary problem. I did notice that sound still doesn't work, either though the speakers or via the headphone jack.

I did get one error:

System extension cannot be used
The system extension "/System/Library/Extensions/GenericCPUPowerManagement.kext" was installed improperly and cannot be used. Please try reinstalling it, or contact the product's vendor for an update.

[cs_guwer]

I think dual boot windows and OS X then using WUBI to set up Linux might be another way of doing triple boot. I believe it will also fix the problem of one key recovery. Basically, one key recovery is nothing but a piece of junk. If you manage to triple boot. Reinstallation of any system is just a piece of cake. Of course ghost can also make things easier.
Some suggestion, but not put into practice yet