Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 13:37:59 -0500 From: "Jacques A. Vidrine" <n@nectar.com> To: freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.org Subject: [SOLVED?] IBM ThinkPad X20 and FreeBSD Message-ID: <20010427133759.A71732@hamlet.nectar.com>
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Hello all. This is the continuing saga of apparent incompatibilities
between IBM's ThinkPad BIOS and FreeBSD.
Summary for the impatient:
I received a ThinkPad X20 yesterday, with BIOS version 2.12 and
embedded controller program version 1.27 (the most recent available
of each). It was preinstalled with Windows 2000 Professional. I
shrunk the partition and installed FreeBSD. Thereafter, the BIOS
would hang at boot, so that I could not boot off of any device. I
downgraded to an older BIOS, and was then able to boot FreeBSD.
BIOS version 2.12: The most recent. Hangs if FreeBSD is installed.
version 2.10: Supposedly fixed, but unavailable for download
or from tech support.
version 2.07: Supposedly broken, but actually works with
FreeBSD.
More information:
Those interested will already be aware of the BIOS problems that have
plagued ThinkPads in the past 6 months or so. The issue was brought
up on BSD Today [1] and Slashdot, and there was a discouraging
description of the problem posted on IBM's tech support web site [2].
Later it was reported that the problem was fixed [3]. Shortly after,
I ordered a ThinkPad X20 to replace my really well beaten Sony VAIO
Z505.
When I received the ThinkPad X20, it had two partitions: partition 1
was Windows 2000; partition 2 was the IBM Recovery Partition. Both
were FAT32 formatted with partition id 28. The system worked fine
under Windows 2000. There was no hibernation partition and I did not
try anything to do with hibernation.
After verifying the thing was in basic working order, I used
PartitionMagic to shrink the Windows 2000 partition. I also installed
BootMagic. This left me with pretty much the same partition table,
except that the Windows 2000 partition started about 14 GB into the
disk (20 GB total disk). I then verified everything still worked by
rebooting a few times.
Finally, I installed FreeBSD 4.2. FreeBSD was installed at the
beginning of the disk in the 14 GB partition. My resulting partition
table looked something like this:
# ID type ~start ~size description
1 28 FAT32 14GB 4GB Windows 2000
2 28 FAT32 18GB 1GB IBM Recovery Partition
3 165 FreeBSD 0 14GB FreeBSD 4.2
Fairly simple set up. Once I rebooted after this new installation,
the BIOS hung. I could not access the BIOS configuration menu, or
boot off of any device.
Searching the IBM web site led me to the location of BIOS and related
updates [4]. One can see on the web site and in the release notes
that the original problem was corrected. Here is an excerpt from the
release notes for BIOS version 2.10 for the ThinkPad X20:
<2.10 - 2.10(IZET90WW)>
- (Fix) The system can't be booted from the hard disk drive whose
partition ID is n5h (n is 1 or greater).
At this point I was pretty confused, since naturally this fix should
have also been in BIOS version 2.12 (the BIOS I was running). Yet the
symptoms were exactly as those described in the originally reported
problem and on these mailing lists.
I decided that I would try downgrading to BIOS version 2.10. Only I
couldn't find it for download! 2.07 and 2.12 were available, but not
2.10. This prompted me to contact IBM tech support. I was told by
the (nice, helpful) tech there that version 2.10 was never made
available for download and never will -- it was only factory
installed. He didn't know why :-)
The tech suggested downgrading to 2.07, and then back to 2.12 to see
if that cleared anything up. I was skeptical, but I wanted to give
support enough information so that the problem would be resolved, so I
gave it a try.
I removed the hard drive so I could boot of the System Program Service
Diskette with BIOS version 2.07. The downgrade went smoothly. I
replaced the hard drive, just to see what happened, and
what-do-you-know: I could now boot normally again.
As a sanity check, I went through the procedure to upgrade back to
2.12. Once this was done, my BIOS would hang at boot again. Again
downgrading to 2.07 brought things back to `normal'.
I reported the results back to IBM support, so that they could fix
BIOS version 2.12. My ticket number for this problem is 16650354. I
asked them to keep the ticket open -- I consider using the older BIOS
a work-around only. If you have similar problems with your ThinkPad
X20 or other ThinkPads, I encourage you to cross-reference my ticket
number when contacting support.
Now, if I were brave, I would create another dummy partition and mess
around with different partition IDs to see if it matched the
description of the bug fixed (i.e. supposedly any partition id that is
a multiple of 16, plus 5 should trigger the bug). However, I don't
have any way to access the ThinkPad hard drive should I get myself
into a fix. If you have multiple ThinkPads or can otherwise frob your
drive elsewhere to recover, I encourage you to do so and report your
results here.
I may report more later about how well this ThinkPad works under
FreeBSD. For now I have to visit my in-laws for the weekend, and eat
boiled crawfish and fried catfish. :-)
Cheers,
--
Jacques Vidrine / n@nectar.com / jvidrine@verio.net / nectar@FreeBSD.org
[1] <URL:http://bsdtoday.com/2000/November/News342.html>;
[2] <URL:http://www-1.ibm.com/servlet/support/manager?rs=0&rt=0&org=psg&doc=7D1DA70F48750BC4852569850057E57E>;
or go to IBM's web site and search for `thinkpad freebsd'.
[3] <URL:http://slashdot.org/bsd/01/02/01/1448231.shtml>;
[4] <URL:ftp://ftp.pc.ibm.com/pub/pccbbs/mobiles/>; To find information
about the bug fixes, search the *.txt files for the string `n5h'.
The important files there for the ThinkPad X20 are:
spsdiz88.exe Creates a bootable disk for installing BIOS v2.07
spsdiz88.txt Release notes for above.
spsdiz92.exe Creates a bootable disk for installing BIOS v2.12
spsdiz92.txt Release notes for above.
d2dfdfix.exe Creates a bootable disk for accessing the IBM
Recovery Partition of your hard drive.
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