Thinkpad BIOS can't hide the Predesktop area

[gmarcon]

I have a Thinkpad T40 2939 19G with a 30gb hard disk. I did a fresh install for
a dual boot: first Windows XP SP2, on a 15GB partition, and then Ubuntu Breezy,
with the default partitioning suggested (main partition + small swap), and grub.
The installations ran smoothly, but I ended up with a bootable Ubuntu and an
unbootable Windows XP.

After selecting the Windows entry in the GRUB menu, Windows starts booting but
hangs very soon with the following BSOD:
UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME
STOP: 0x00000ED (0x8232D8A0, 0xC000014F, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

Stupidly I tried the FIXMBR/FIXBOOT from the Windows XP boot cd, but this
destroyed the partition table as the Recovery console did not recognize the
partition table and created a new one with only one partition for the whole hd
(and Windows was still not booting).

I recovered the partition table with gpart, booting from a 2.6 based linux cd
(INSERT 1.3.5a), deleted the Ubuntu partitions, run the WinXP recovery console
(partition table succesfully recognized this time), run FIXMBR, and succesfully
booted Windows again.

I have read about 2.6 kernels reporting bad disk geometries: I will now try to
play a bit the partition table to make also Ubuntu bootable and will post a
follow up to the bug.

[gmarcon (gmarcon)]

I tried the sfdisk trick:
sfdisk -d /dev/hda | sfdisk --force --no-reread -H240 /dev/hda
but Windows still refuses to boot when the Ubuntu partitions exist. Deleting the
Ubuntu partitions from the partition table made Windows booting again.

[gmarcon (gmarcon)]

I fixed everything, the trick was to disable the Thinkpad PreDesktop area in the
BIOS and to recreate a nice partition table.

My feeling is that the Ubuntu installation could see the whole disk and then
created partitions for the full disk, while Windows could not see the Predesktop
area and "complained" about partitions going outside the disk geometry that the
BIOS was giving.

I leave the bug open, in case someone wants to investigate on why Ubuntu sees
the whole hard disk also when the BIOS is supposed to hide the Predesktop area
partition.

(by the way, the model is Thinkpad T40 2373 19G)

[AllanEising (allan-eising)]

I can verify that this bug is still there. I am using a T41 Thinkpad and am experiencing the exact same. However, my company locked the setup part where you can disable the predesktop area, so I cannot install linux this way. Any hints/fixes?

[allankelly (allankelly)]

gmarcon - thankyou for this! I have an IBM T40 with a 40GB HDD and I was about to give up.

For others: I installed Windows XP Pro, leaving about half the disk free for Linux.

I installed Feisty Fawn from the Live/Install CD, using the "use largest contiguous free space" partition option.

Following Ubuntu install, Windows boot failed as above.

I tried sudo fsck.vfat -r /dev/sda1

and I restored the boot sector from the backup (the only comment from fsck.vfat). Still failed as above.

Then I found the advice from gmarcon, so:

On restart, F12 to get the BIOS Setup, then
Security -> Predesktop Area -> Disabled
F10 Save and Exit

... and Windows and Ubuntu both boot.

Great! Thanks.

al.

[jejunum (ramamoorthyj)]

Allankelly,

I think I am having the same exact problem w/ a feisty install on my e1505. Any thoughts on how to emulate your success on this machine.

basically i can read/write my NTFS parition in ubuntu - but cant boot in to xp after installing it! just resets after a BSOD.