Win7 install, damaged Rescue & recovery, advice needed

[filbert]

I have a TP X300 currently dual booting Win XP and Win 7 beta. The Win 7 partition is flaky and I want to install the release version. In addition, the rescue partition is damaged in that holding down the blue button just gives me the OS choice menu (XP or Win7). I think this happened when I installed the Win7 beta - I assume it updated the boot partition and didn't understand the special features it contained. I need some advice on the correct approach to rebuilding the system (I'd still like to keep the dual boot but it will probably be linux rather than Win XP). I have the rescue disks that came with the PC and I don't mind a total wipeout and clean install. I assume that, if I use the rescue disks, I can rebuild the XP installation and the R&R function - I hope this is sytraightforward as I have never done it before 0n any of my previous TPs. Assuming this is successful , how do I go about installing Win 7 and avoiding damaging the R&R partition again? Any help would be welcome Rgrds Peter

[zoltanthegypsy]

Setting up dual-boot without breaking the magic in the MBR and sector 0 is very iffy, as you have learned.

I've got some rambling (old) notes here (see "Partitioning"): Think Pad T61

I don't think there's any way to install Win 7 without killing the "think" button and the old-style R&R unless you are installing from Lenovo factory media.  You probably can install Linux after XP if you are careful but that doesn't get you Win 7.

Some good news is that the newest R&R - 4.3 - installs some kind of magic in the Win 7 partition so it can be booted via "think" without requiring a separate partition.  No idea how.  Some description of that in this thread:  Re: T400 upgrade to Win7

Installing Linux after '7 and keeping "think" will be very touchy.  I haven't tried that.  There are ways to add Linux to the Microsoft boot loader in earlier Windows versions (google!) but that's way above my pay grade.

I'd recomment installing VMware Player 3 in Windows 7 and running Linux as a virtual client.  I'm doing that now on my T400 will good success.  ThinkPads are burly enough to run VMs with decent performance, particularly clients for which VMware Tools are available.

Z.