Unable to boot new Linux installation on Lenovo G400

I am having problems installing Linux Mint 16 to a Lenovo G400 that I recently purchased here in China. I have an older Lenovo that I have had for several years, and have been quite pleased with it so I thought I would get another. I gave up on Windows several years ago, and have been running exclusively Linux, mostly Ubuntu or Mint, ever since. I have heard and read things about how Microsoft seems to be fighting back to restrict the spread of Linux, so I took a Live USB stick of Linux Mint 16 so I could see if start it with any machine that I was interested in.
The machine I tested my USB stick on worked fine, so I sent them to the warehouse to get a fresh one in a box. My problems started when they came back from the warehouse with another model, newer, with a faster processor, and pre-installed Linux. I entered the data required to complete the setup, and played around with the Linpus OS a bit before deciding to take that machine instead of the other. My thinking was that I could replace Linpus with Mint later. I did not try booting from my USB stick before agreeing to take this machine.
Later, after trying out Linpus and deciding I had a strong preference for a Debian derivative, I had trouble setting the boot order, but resolved that by finding a copy of the user guide in English. When I tried to boot from the USB, the first thing I noticed was that anything I tried to run from a Live USB stick would not function in standard or default mode. The menu would come up, I would select the default or standard mode, and the system would start to load but a few seconds later the screen would go black. The USB continued to flash for a while but the screen stays black.
At first I noticed this problem with Gparted, which would not run in default or failsafe mode, but does run in safe graphic mode. Similarly, with Mint 16, the live USB will only start in compatibility mode. Later there were several other live systems that I have tried with similar results. Almost all of the live systems I tried ran in their equivalent of the compatibility mode. The one exception to that was Boot-Repair-Disk, which I could not get to work at all in the 64-Bit edition. The 32-Bit edition did work, in their equivalent of compatibility mode, but it told me I needed the 64-Bit Edition because EFI was detected.
When I succeeded in getting the Gparted and Mint 16 live USBs to function in non-default modes I decided to go ahead with my repartitioning and installation plans. This may have been my second mistake. Maybe I should have taken this machine back, but I didn't.
With my Live USB of Gparted running in Safe Graphic mode, I found 6 partitions on the HDD: sda1 is FAT 32 and labeled boot; sda2 is an unknown file system and labeled bios_grub. Both of these partitions are 500 Mb, and I left them alone. I also left sda3 untouched, which is labeled linux-swap. Sda4, sda5 and sda6 I re-sized and re-formated to use as two / partitions and a shared /home.
I then installed Mint 16 in sda4 with sda6 as home. I left the GRUB intallation in the default setting, sda. The installation seemed to go alright, but when I try to boot I just see Lenovo and then the screen goes black. It does seem like the system may be loading and I just can't see it, but that is only a guess. I don't see anything that looks like the GRUB screen and so there is no way to use compatibility mode. Using Gparted from a Live USB suggests that the installation worked and there are files there.
I have searched on the web and have been unable to find anything that helps. Obviously, I am not an expert, but I have installed Linux quite a few times and never experienced anything like this. But then I am used to starting from a clean disk.
I am very tempted to delete the two partitions that I left in place and try an installation like I am used to doing. But I do not know anything about EFI, and my hard drive is listed in BIOS setup as an EFI HDD Device, so I don't know if my machine would still work if I delete these partitions.
So I am very much in need of some advice on this and I wonder if anyone can please offer me some guidance. And perhaps I should add a few more details, such as: USB Legacy is enabled; Boot Mode is set at Legacy Support ; Boot Priority is Legacy First ; USB Boot is Enabled; and my BIOS Version is 78CN25WW(V2.03).
I am sorry to go on so long, but I have tried to be thorough, thank you.

Hi, the W520 has ACPI and powermanegement issues on kernels < 2.6.39 without specific patches. Two questions:
What version of (K)Ubuntu are you trying to run?
What is the setting of your graphics system in the BIOS? Most of the time, setting it to Integrated just works fine, the open source Intel driver is quite good. When setting it to Discrete, you can either use the open source Nouveau drivers for the Nvidia card or the Nvidia proprietary binary drivers, all with varying success. At the moment I would not recommend setting it to Optimus, since support with Bumblebee is work in progress and quite tricky to handle. I am not sure what the Live CD is trying to do, but test it with graphics set to integrated first. Because of all the manual tweaking necessary two month ago I switched from Ubuntu to Gentoo, rolled a new kernel and never looked back. See my thread about HowTo Running Linux on the W520:
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Linux-Discussion/HowTo-Running-Linux-on-W520/td-p/453327
W520|4282-W16|2720QM|16GB|Q1000M|FHD|500GB|UMTS|BIOS 1.26|Gentoo Linux/2.6.39-r3|Win7-64-Prof|

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Cannot get rEFInd to boot new Linux install

I am trying to setup a fresh install of Arch on a new SSD on my 2007 MacBook 2.1. This particular MacBook has a 32 bit EFI system, but everything else is 64 bit. The wiki article has some information for installing on this particular MacBook, but the instructions aren't super thorough.
This MacBook is already running Arch on an old HDD and is booting with grub. I remember that setting this up originally was a huge pain and I ended up installing arch onto the drive through another laptop (a Dell) with similar architecture and transferring the drive over once done. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to this other machine.
In order to get started with installing to the new drive, I decided to use the arch-install-scripts from within my working installation to install Arch to the SSD connected through a SATA-USB adapter. The installation of Arch went fine and I can chroot to it no problem.
Installing the bootloader has been the hard part. I have managed to get the computer to load rEFInd off the SSD if I set it up just right (installed as EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi), and rEFInd can even detect and boot my old grub install from the HDD (as long as the HDD is internal and the SSD is attached over USB). Unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me get rEFInd to boot into the new Arch install on the SSD. I have tried placing the vmlinuz and init images in various locations to help with auto detection, and I have tried various combinations of manual configuration in refind.conf, but nothing seems to get me anywhere. The manual configurations just get me "Error: Not Found While Loading vmllinuz-linux" and the auto configuration only ever finds my old install.
I'm happy to post any configuration files here that are useful, but I'm not sure what people would want to see.
The SSD is setup as gpt with a fat32 ESP set to mount to /boot/efi, an ext4 partition set to mount to /, and a swap partition at the end.

So, refind basically works/is started by the mb's firmware?
Please post your refind.conf (without all the comments, no manual stanzas!)
Also, to simplify things, I'm now assuming the ssd is the only internal drive installed, your old install/hdd is disconneted.
Use the arch-install cd , refind should detect it and allow you to boot, once the installer-system is up and running, please provide ouptut from lsblk.
Also, mount both partitons , and show what files are where ls -l YOURROOTPART/boot and ls -l YOURESPPART/ just to get a better overview.

[WORKAROUND] rEFInd doesn't boot new linux 3.8.3-2

Hello!
Today I updated linux to 3.8.3-2 and rEFInd stopped booting. Instead I was stuck with the rEFInd screen (the one saying: booting vmlinux-linux).
Before you ask: Yes, I did copy the new kernel and initramfs to /boot/efi/EFI/arch by doing
sudo cp /boot/vmlinuz-linux /boot/efi/EFI/arch/vmlinuz-arch.efi
sudo cp /boot/initramfs-linux.img /boot/efi/EFI/arch/initramfs-arch.img
sudo cp /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img /boot/efi/EFI/arch/initramfs-arch-fallback.img
as I always do.
I solved the problem by starting from a Live-CD and downgrading the kernel. Does anyone know what the issue is?
Any help is much appreciated!
Last edited by mjb (2013-03-29 17:35:36)

cfr wrote:Are you sure this is the same problem? I thought that issue only affected more recent kernels but I can reproduce this failure with the LTS kernel. I have not had the issue at all with 3.7.* kernels - this is the first time it has happened.
The 3.8.3-2 reported by the OP is pretty recent, in my book. The thread to which I linked specifies that the problem began with certain 3.7.x kernels.
With rEFInd, with both the standard and fallback options for the current kernel, it hangs mid line. That is, it prints almost all of the usual loading line up to "initram" and then stops mid-word.
That's new, and suggests that you may be seeing something else -- either your kernel options are being truncated somehow (probably in a rEFInd bug) or there's a firmware bug that's causing the system to hang while rEFInd is displaying text. (rEFInd uses a system call called Print() to do this, so a hang mid-word suggests an EFI bug.) It might be best to start a new thread for this problem if you want to pursue it, if it's new.
With rEFInd and the LTS kernel, with both standard and fallback options, it hangs in the same place but then a message in yellow is overlaid which says "Error: unsupported while loading vmlinuz-linux-ltx".
The "unsupported" message means that the kernel lacks an EFI stub loader.
If it is a kernel bug, it is in the 3.0.69 as well (but it hasn't appeared in any other current or LTS kernel for me).
Unless it's been patched with a back-port of the EFI stub loader, I wouldn't expect 3.0.69 to boot directly via rEFInd or gummiboot.

Unable to boot after the installation.

First off all, I apologize if this has been answered somewhere. I've looked everywhere for the solution and I've had no luck so far. This is my first distribution that uses the 2.6 kernel. All the others I've used have been running 2.4 by default.
I'm planning to setup a small Arch Linux server on an old 533Mhz Celeron with 256MB RAM and two IDE HDDs. The master IDE is a 9GB HDD and the slave is 80GB HDD. All partitions I'm using are using ReiserFS (other then swap of course.)
I used the Duke Base install ISO (validated with the MD5SUM) to install the system. I want to keep the system as minimal as possible so I didn't install the entire base package set, however I'm certain that I didn't remove any package that was required to boot. There is nothing in the booting messages about missing programs.
I completed the installation fine. It's the restart and first boot that is the trouble.
This is the messages that is displayed before I'm put in the recovery shell...
:: Running Hook [filesystems]
:: Loading root filesystem modules...
Attempting to create root device '/dev/sda1'
ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/dev/sda1' unknown
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Waiting for devices to settle...done.
Root device '/dev/sda1' doesn't exist, attempting to create it
ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/dev/sda1'
ERROR: Unable to create/detect root device '/dev/sda1'
Dropping to a recovery shell... type 'exit' to reboot
NOTE: klibc contains no 'ls' binary, use 'echo *' instead
If the device '/dev/sda1' gets created while you are here,
try adding 'rootdelay=8' or higher to the kernel command-line
I've tried the default fallback kernel along with another with several other modules and hooks loaded, as well add adding rootfstype=reiserfs as suggested. Unfortunately nothing has worked.
I'll note that this is an entirely an PATA system without SATA support and the first distribution that lists my HDD as '/dev/sda' instead of '/dev/hda' by default. Doesn't seem to be a problem however, just the way the latest kernels work.
Huge thanks to anybody who can help me with this.
Last edited by Lazer (2007-08-02 09:10:46)

i seem to remember having a similar problem, i think it needs ext3 (or any other file system) adding to modules then file systems taking from hooks, i always do this by default on a new install now. Please see my mkinitcpio.conf attached.
# vim:set ft=sh
# MODULES
# The following modules are loaded before any boot hooks are
# run. Advanced users may wish to specify all system modules
# in this array. For instance:
# MODULES="piix ide_disk reiserfs"
MODULES="pata_via ata_generic ext3"
# BINARIES
# This setting includes, into the CPIO image, and additional
# binaries a given user may wish. This is run first, so may
# be used to override the actual binaries used in a given hook.
# (Existing files are NOT overwritten is already added)
# BINARIES are dependancy parsed, so you may safely ignore libraries
BINARIES=""
# FILES
# This setting is similar to BINARIES above, however, files are added
# as-is and are not parsed in anyway. This is useful for config files.
# Some users may wish to include modprobe.conf for custom module options,
# like so:
# FILES="/etc/modprobe.conf"
FILES=""
# HOOKS
# This is the most important setting in this file. The HOOKS control the
# modules and scripts added to the image, and what happens at boot time.
# Order is important, and it is recommended that you do not change the
# order in which HOOKS are added. Run 'mkinitcpio -H <hook name>' for
# help on a given hook.
# 'base' is _required_ unless you know precisely what you are doing.
# 'udev' is _required_ in order to automatically load modules
# 'modload' may be used in place of 'udev', but is not recommended
# 'filesystems' is _required_ unless you specify your fs modules in MODULES
# Examples:
# This setup specifies all modules in the MODULES setting above.
# No raid, lvm2, or encrypted root is needed.
# HOOKS="base"
# This setup will autodetect all modules for your system and should
# work as a sane default
# HOOKS="base udev autodetect ide scsi sata filesystems"
# This setup will generate a 'full' image which supports most systems.
# No autodetection is done.
# HOOKS="base udev ide scsi sata usb filesystems"
# This setup assembles an ide raid array with an encrypted root FS.
# Note: See 'mkinitcpio -H raid' for more information on raid devices.
# HOOKS="base udev ide raid encrypt filesystems"
# This setup loads an lvm2 volume group on a usb device.
# HOOKS="base udev usb lvm2 filesystems"
HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata"
It was a long time ago so i am not certain you are having the same problem i did, but it's worth a try.
Good Luck
Last edited by gazj (2007-08-05 19:08:32)

[Solved] Can't boot new arch64 installation

I'm trying to give arch64 a go, I've installed it but I can't boot it.
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is output to the screen then this single line is output:
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The machine is an AMD Athlon 64 2800; socket 754; newcastle core.
In fact full hardware specs are here, its the first machine listed.
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APIC needed enabling in BIOS

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Hi,
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Macbook Pro No Longer Recognizes Primary Display After Boot Camp/Linux Installation

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So my old 15" early 2006 Macbook Pro (1,1) no loger recognizes the primary display. I can use an external monitor just fine, but when I go into System Profiler, it's like my primary display disappeared. I reinstalled Snow Leopard, reset PRAM, NVRAM, repaired my permissions, tried to update my mac, but litterally nothing I have tried has worked.
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Hi,
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MacBook Pro unable to boot up [Stop Sign], after rEFIt Installation

I was trying to install Windows on my MacBook Pro, Intel Based.
Followed this tutorial, http://riactant.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/install-windows-on-boot-camp-using-exte rnal-usb-optical-drive/
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When I tried to boot from my Installation disc while holding down C.
I went into Disk Utility and my Mac HD was renamed to disk0s2.
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If you've never backed anything up because you weren't expecting to need backups, you would have lost all your data sooner or later no matter what else you did. Fooling unnecessarily with rEFIt just brought it about a little sooner.
Replace your hard drive before messing around with it any more. Once you get a new drive installed and your machine back up and running, mount the old one in an external enclosure and see whether data recovery software can salvage any of your files.
Data Rescue: http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
FileSalvage: http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id= 1
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Linux installation problem on D20

Hi, guys,
I am trying to install Redhat Linux x86_64 5.3 on D20 with a Marvell 88SE63xx/64xx SAS controller. As the Linux installer cannot recognize the SAS controller, I download a driver of Marvell mv64xx for Redhat x86_64 5.2 from Lenovo driver matrix website. Unfortunately, no matter how I follow the instruction to load the driver, the so-called mv64xx doesn't drive the Marvel 88SE63xx/64xx SAS controller in D20, so that the Redhat 5.3 Linux installer cannot find any hard drive. This is ridiculous and ironic because I got 5 SAS 15rpm hard drives in D20. Does anyone know how to resolve this problem and get Redhat Linux 5.3 installed on D20 with SAS drives?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

hello, good news everyone
today i tested the upcoming kernel 2.6.31-1 with ubuntu server x64 (9.10 / karmic)
and what can i say?
[    2.536365] mvsas 0000:01:00.0: mvsas: driver version 0.8.2
[    2.536374] mvsas 0000:01:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[    2.536379] mvsas 0000:01:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[    2.537283] mvsas 0000:01:00.0: mvsas: PCI-E x4, Bandwidth Usage: 2.5 Gbps
[    7.769579] scsi7 : mvsas
[    7.769954] /build/buildd/linux-2.6.31/drivers/scsi/mvsas/mv_sas.c 380hy 2 byte dmaded.
[    7.770674] /build/buildd/linux-2.6.31/drivers/scsi/mvsas/mv_sas.c 1365:found dev[0:5] is gone.
[    7.778539] ata7.00: ATA-7: WDC WD5000AAKS-00TMA0, 12.01C01, max UDMA/133
[    7.778543] ata7.00: 976773168 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
[    7.779378] ata7.00: configured for UDMA/133
[    7.779426] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      WDC WD5000AAKS-0 12.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
the kernel included the mvsas module and its dependant, and ran out of the box doing anything. and yes, it's a software raid, the bios offers raid 5 and 10, but they are greyed out. okay, my graphic is now broken with 2.6.31-1, but hey, the 5 port's are working i almost forgot where i have put the 500gb disk. hdparm -tT showed 7.8gb/s buffered and 77mb/s normal read, which is normal for the drive.
because of the nature of a module, i believe you have to compile a kernel with support of mvsas on your own to boot linux from it, or you use the ich10 - only for optical drives - sata port, which works fine with the intel x25-m ssd.
Message Edited by docc on 07-02-2009 12:06 AM

[Solved] Unable to boot after install

Forgive me for the lack of code tags, having to write this on my phone.
I am unable to boot after installation. I receive an error wich has the incorrect UDID string. It doesn't even exist. I will update with error after posting so I can give grub config generation error first
When I run:
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
I get this:
Found Linux image : /boot/vmlinuz-linux
Found initd image: /boot/initramfs-linux.img
Warning: failed to connect to lvmetad: no such file or directory. falling back to internal scanning.
No volume groups found
[ 279.601712] SQUASHFS error: can't find a SQUASHFS superblock on sda3
[ 279.604502] EXT4-fs (sda3):unable to read superblock
[ 279.607266] EXT4-fs (sda3):unable to read superblock
[ 279.609928] EXT4-fs (sda3):unable to read superblock
Found Windows 7 (loader) on /dev/sda1
Done
Sda3 is an extended volume
Edit: I just deleted the old .cfg and recreated a new one by re running the above command, uncounted and rebooted and it booted into CLI. 3rd time a charm after all. Marking this one solved
Last edited by Kirito (2013-05-15 07:55:31)

Oh, looking at your setup, it would seem that your system is likely still configured to boot to /dev/sdd (the windows drive).
As a user with numerous drives, you should be aware that using /dev/sdXY to identify your disks is a bad idea. There is no gaurantee that Arch will be /dev/sde every time, nor that windows will be /dev/sdd. You should use either filesystem labels (LABEL= or /dev/disk/by-label) or UUIDs (UUID= or /dev/disk/by-uuid). Though if you are using GPT, there is also the option of the PARTLABEL as well (which are the labels you create within the partitioner).

Unable to boot kernel 3.9.x on Toshiba NB510 Netbook

Hi,
I'm going to start with a quick question first not related to the title:
what is the difference between the modesetting package in the official repos and the one in the AUR (git) version?
It looks as though the AUR version hasn't been updated since 2012 so I'm just wondering if for HD playback it's worth installing that over the official version?
Will that give me 1920x1080 resolution on external HDMI screen?? My Lenovo X220 with supported hardware has no issues at all with HD playback or HD res on external screens using up to date Arch stock components; so is this just a simple case of gma500 HELL??
Now for the issue that I'm having, as these things are all related to HD playback using the gma500 driver, which I'm currently going through this to help:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Poulsbo
For some reason I'm unable to boot the 3.9.x kernel.... I've updated to all of the patch varients in the official repos and per the link above tried to build the lqx version...
I ran:
makepkg -s
pacman -U linux-lqx....tar.xz
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
to build and install the 64bit version. All went fine but when booting it as per all the stock kernels I get the same error:
echo 'Loading Linux lqx kernel ...'
linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux-lqx root=UUID=65811fe0-5600-4ad8-8a53-f43c89af0fad ro quiet
echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux-lqx-fallback.img
the system hangs right at the above....
Loading initial ramdisk ...
section.
Using kernel 3.8.11-1 64bit I'm up and running and using X11 with no problem but the newer kernels don't do anything??
This is strange as my other machine running Arch x64 also works fine with stock kernels and latest patch revision 3.9.4.
Could anyone suggest anything to resolve the issue or will I need to wait until the next generation kernel 3.10 or 4.0??
Thanks

med1972 wrote:
Same problem here. Running on a Dell E6320, UEFI boot with rEFInd. Ran my updates, copied vmlinuz and the initramfs files from /boot to /boot/efi/EFI/arch. Rebooted and I get the same error. I am pulling down a copy of the systemrescuecd now.
::running early hook [udev]
::running hook [udev]
::Triggering uevents...
Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/sda3
ERROR: device '/dev/sda3' not found. Skipping fsck.
ERROR: Unable to find root device '/dev/sda3'.
and then it drops me into the recovery shell. There are no /dev/sd* devices. I am guessing I need to refer to the partitions by UUID instead but /dev/sda3 was working before. Actually, I don't see any disk devices under /dev at all (no /dev/disk).
- Mark
Looking through the threads, I would venture to guess that this might actually be an issue that has been discussed where recent kernels (efistub) in various combinations with rEFInd/UEFI Shell v1/UEFI Shell v2 are sometimes unbootable. Search the threads for these issues... maybe you can participate in debugging, and find a workaround along the way.

2009 Macbook unable to boot in any fashion

I was recently given a broken Macbook from a friend who didn't want it anymore, and had no interest in fixing it. It's a 13.3" Macbook from 2009 with a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of 1066MHz RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce 9400M. Since I can't get it to boot, and am not super familiar with Apple OS's (I'm more of a linux guy to be honest), I'm not entirely sure which version of OS X it's running, but from the production date my best guess would be Snow Leopard.
So now to the problem.The first time I turned it on it booted to the login screen with no problem. Unfortunately that was the only time it worked. Now when I press the power button, it goes to the gray screen with the Apple logo, and the progresses to a blank blue screen. After approximately 5 seconds the screen goes black, and flickers in a somewhat periodic manner until I manually turn off the computer. In an attempt to fix it I tried to boot it in safe mode, but experienced the same problem. Next I tried to boot it off of an Ubuntu Live USB, but was unable to access the boot menu, and was therefore unable to boot off the flash drive.
After doing a bit more research, I tried resetting the PRAM and NVRAM. I started the computer, pressing and continuing to hold the "option-command-p-r" key combination before the gray screen as per the instructions given at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379, but encountered the same progression of screens as I previously had, thus the only reasonable assumption is that it did not successfully reset. Next I tried resetting the SMC. I removed the battery, disconnected the the power adapter, and depressed the power button for 10 seconds, but this as well had no effect.
Next I tried to run fsck by booting into single-user mode. Though it booted to what appeared to be the functional single-user mode command line prompt, after the line ":/ root#" I was unable to type any commands, and once again had to manually shut down the computer. On another attempt to boot is single user mode the message
:/ root# AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement: initialization complete
Broadcom2045FamilyUSBBluetoothHCIController::start booting in single user ... will wait for later
[HCICcontroller][configurePM] power parent ready after 1 tries
and another try yielded a last line identical to the first line of the above message, with the lower two lines appearing above it.
I then, tested the RAM by trying all 6 permutations of the two 1GB sticks. With each configuration I tried to boot the computer normally, in safe mode, and in single-user mode, but in all 6 configurations the computer behaved exactly like (with the exception of it spending more time on the gray screen with Apple logo during the normal boot procedure when it was being run in the 4 positions that had only 1GB of RAM rather than the standard 2GB, but that was to be expected) it had been.
Five notes of interest.
1) The power adapter she gave me with it is an 85 watt model, whereas the stock power adapter appears to have been a 45 watt version, but this should neither have contributed to my current problem, nor caused any damage to the computer whatsoever
2) The computer is unable to be turned on without being unplugged and removing the battery first. That is to say, after an unsuccessful boot attempt I must remove then replace the battery in order to try again.
3) The battery is not defective, and is capable of holding a charge
4) The screen was replaced at some point in the last 2 - 3 months
5) I have read of a similar problem occurring with Macbooks that have had a new hard drive installed, but as far as I can tell the hard drive in it is the stock 160GB one that came stock with the computer
Thank you for taking the time to read this post, and for any advice or help you can provide.

Despite nobody having answered, I'll keep updating.
I noticed today that as well as having to remove the battery each time before trying to start the computer, it also will not start if the power adapter is plugged in.

Tutorial - How to triple boot OSX, Linux and Windows 8.1 with a shared Data Partition without any third party Win / OSX softwares

This is not a question, but rather a personal guide that has proved to be running successfully.
I would like to thank numerous sources, including Christopher Murphy's suggestions at:
Re: Repairing Boot Camp after creating new partition
Before proceeding, there are certain concepts needs to know:
Why Boot Camp does NOT allow further partitioning of drives after Windows has installed?
Answer: Because the way Apple configures the Mac to be recognized as non UEFI capable system on Windows.
Quote from Christopher Murphy based on the above line:
However, Windows on Macs right now use CSM-BIOS mode in Mac firmware that presents BIOS to Windows rather than EFI. Windows thinks it's on a BIOS computer, and therefore mandates the use of MBR for boot disks, rather than GPT. So that's why we have this hybrid MBR+GPT approach on Mac with Windows on it. You inherit the limitations of MBR, which is four primary partitions.
So what does it means?
It means that OSX + EFI + Recovery HD + Boot Camp partition = 4 primary partitions and thus any attempt to modify the disk will render booting issues of either system.
For more info on GPT (GUID Partition Table disks VS Master Boot Record or MBR in short, you may visit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn640535%28v=vs.85%29.a spx)
So, how to overcome it?
The general guideline is to install ALL GPT ready OS first then create a Data partition, before installing Windows (Which is again, NOT supported GPT due to EFI configuration by Apple where end-users are not able to modify it).
Interestingly, since Mac Pro 2013 Late supports only Windows 8 and above, thus it is not known if this CSM-BIOS applies to it or not.
Do take note that GPT disks in Windows can only be booted when the system meets the 2 requirements:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn640535%28v=vs.85%29.a spx#gpt_faq_win7_boot
1) Windows x64 version (Which is a must for newer Macs. If you cannot go to Boot Camp 5, then you need Windows 7 x86 or 32bit version)
2) UEFI system. However, Windows sees all Macs (With the possibility of Mac Pro 2013 Late is an exception. To be determined) as BIOS, or rather NON-UEFI system.
In short, booting on GPT disks is not possible for Mac in Windows.
Summary,
It is tested that a combination of the following will not work:
- OSX + Windows + Linux
- Windows + OSX + Linux
- Windows + Linux + OSX
Usually it can create the system un-bootable or OSX refused to install due to the system does not recognize such partitions and / or Disk Utility refused to format a free space. An example screen-shot is provided below:
The error message is shown as
Title: "Failed to erase volume" Message: "Failed to wipe volume, as an error occurred: MediaKit has reported that the device does not have enough free space to execute the requested operations."
The second thing is about the preparations we need.
1) 1X Windows 7 or 8 DVD or USB thumbdrive
1A) If you uses a DVD to install, you will need another thumbdrive to load the BootCamp drivers for Windows as well as may requires an external DVD drive for newer Macs
2) 1X Linux DVD of your choice. Personally I choose Fedora 20.
So ready? Let's go.
1. Using Disk Utility, shrink the OSX's partition size to what is needed. For me, I give OSX 150GB. Do NOT create any new partition.
Disk Utility should see something like below whereby only OSX partition is left with desired disk space. The remaining space are to be unused disk space for the moment.
Note: Click on the top most item that should start with the size of your HDD / SSD. Then clicked on "Partition" and specify the desired OSX size. Hit "Apply" after that.
2: Download Boot Camp drivers only via Boot Camp Assistant. The USB thumbdrive shall be used later after Linux's installation.
Boot Camp Assistant should see this:
I have only selected "Download latest Windows Support Files from Apple"
3. Insert Linux DVD, reboot Mac into EFI mode (The left most first "EFI mode").
Note 1: Before rebooting, please plugged in an Ethernet adapter because Wi-Fi drivers is not installed.
Note 2: For Thunderbolt adapters, it must be plugged in before reboot as hot-swapping is not supported under Linux. More on the tips at the end of this article.
Note 3: Press and hold "Option" after the screen turns black. Release Option key after you see the image as below:

For the unfortunate part that did not make it on time to edit the images:
9. Install the Windows Support software from your CD/USB drive to gain full functionality of your computer. Reboot and go to Windows again.
Note 1: You may choose to eject disc at this point of time. For Apple SuperDrive users, you will need to wait until the drivers (i.e. Boot Camp support files) is installed and rebooted before ejecting is reasonably possible (As I failed to figured out how to right click without the drivers)
Note 2: Unlike Windows 7 on KBase article TS4599 Keyboard/trackpad inoperative, black screen, or alert messages when installing Windows 7, USB stick can be plugged in after the Windows installation is done. This is because Windows 7 (And probably Windows 7 with SP1 DVD) does not have a built in USB 3 drivers when it was released back in 2009 where USB3 has not arrived then.
Note 3: Due to TPM, Bitlocker is not supported without the use of thumbdrives.
10. Using Disk Management to determine the given drive letter for the DATA partition (DO NOT DELETE and RECREATE partition or else you can goodbye to booting Linux and OSX). Disk Management will not allow you to format it as exFAT / FAT32 in graphical way.
Note: You may remove or modify some of the disk letters in Disk Management. However, do NOT remove / modfify the drive letter for the partition with 200MB size in HFS. This is because it will disallow booting of Linux and neither could Windows nor OSX can do anything EXCEPT to reinstall Linux only.
11. Open Command Prompt in Administrator Mode (Important!!), and key in the following command:
format F: /FS:exFAT
Give this volume a label after it has successfully formatted before hitting "Enter" again.
Note: Mine Data partition was assigned as F drive. Please make necessary adjustment to "F:" should your Data partition is assigned to other letters.
12. After that, Setup your Data partition structure as you like.
Tip: Minimally create the important folders such as:
- Music
- Documents
- Movie (Videos)
- Downloads
- Pictures
All these folders are commonly used by the 3 OSes. I do NOT recommend changing of /home (OSX and / or Linux) and / or user home directory (Windows) either partially or as a whole.
This is because of compatibility issue.
On a side note, iTunes Media Library used in OSX and Windows are NOT able to be use interchangably due to hard-coded path used.
13. Useful troubleshooting in Fedora / Linux:
With references to these:
http://chaidarun.com/fedora-mbp
http://anderson.the-silvas.com/2014/02/14/fedora-20-on-a-macbook-pro-13-late-201 3-retina-display/
http://unencumberedbyfacts.com/2013/08/16/linux-on-a-macbook-pro-101/
I would like to highlight a few important points:
1) Wi-Fi driver:
http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration
Note 1: The sound driver should be installed at Out of Box Experience. However, the Wi-Fi is not.
Note 2: Install both free and non-free repository. By the way, some other software like VLC can only be found after the Free Repository is installed.
Search for "akmod-wl" in Gnome-Package-Installer in order to install Wi-Fi drivers
Note 3: For those who do not have Ethernet adapters and their Mac does NOT have a built-in Ethernet port, it is recommended to get one. This is because Fedora 20 does not have a good support for iPhone USB tethering. Unsure for Andriod / Blackberry / Windows Phone users.
2) Grub Menu:
It will show several options to boot into OSX, even of the capability to boot into x86 or x64 mode. However, neither of them is bootable except Linux and the rescue.
Hence, it is recommended to remove the items by hand in this file:
/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg
Command to be used:
"sudo gedit /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg"
Parts to be removed:
- For any extra kernels, delete the target entry by locating the line "menuentry" under "/etc/grub.d/10_linux" sector to one line above the next "menuentry".
It is recommended to keep one main kernel, and one recovery at the minimal.
- For other OS, delete all the entry (Since neither it can works) under "/etc/grub.d/30_os-prober" sector without removing the lines starts with ###.
Auto Mount exFAT partition:
- After installing extra packages for exFAT support (Since it is not supported by Fedora 20 from a default installation), you may wish to edit "/etc/fstab" in order to mount the exFAT partition during boot time.
Command to be used:
"sudo gedit /etc/fstab"
Add the following line in gedit:
UUID=702D-912D /run/media/Samuel/DATA exfat defaults 1 2
Note 1: For DATA partition, OSX & Boot Camp partition, Fedora defaults mounts under: "/run/medua/<Username with case sensitive>/<Partition Label Name>"
Note 2: UUID is unique ID. You can find out the UUID by:
Step 1: First determine the DATA partition number:
"sudo gdisk /dev/sda"
Step 2: Determine the UUID of this partition number:
"sudo blkid /dev/sda8"
Reference 1: http://manpages.courier-mta.org/htmlman5/fstab.5.html
Reference 2: http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/short-tip-get-uuid-of-hard-disks/
3) Overheating CPU
Solution is to issue the following command in Linux terminal: su -c "echo -n 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo"
4) System resumes immediately after suspend
Solution is to issue the following command in Linux terminal: su -c "echo XHC1 > /proc/acpi/wakeup"
5) What does not works well out of box:
- Both GNOME and KDE's fonts are too small to be readable for out of box experience. Additional configuration is a need. (Some of the info can be found on "More Tips" later)
- Thunderbolt hotplugging is NOT supported under Windows and Linux so far. Neither FaceTime HD camera works as well.
- The red light in Headphone jack is always on. I do not have luck in switching off the light without losing the sound.
Note 1: It is determined that the module "snd_hda_intel" is used by both cards (HDMI and normal output)
Note 2: It is also known that blacklisting it can switch off the redlight at the price of muting the system.
Note: Based on this article, http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1574
A Mac (Except Mac Pro) needs servicing when there is a red light while the system fails to detect internal speakers. However, this article does NOT applies to this issue.
5A) More Tips:
Install gnome-tweak-tool for more customization
Search for: "gnome-package" to install:
Install Gnome Package Installer for advanced package repository
Install Gnome Package Updater for advanced updates to be install (Whereby Fedora's App Store alike might not show the relevant updates)
14. Verify if disk is still GPT:
Use Gdisk to determine if the disk is pure GPT:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1742682
Command: sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda (The entire hard drive)
You should see the MBR is "Protective" instead of anything else.
15. Congrats, the system is ready for triple boot. (I forgot to eject my Windows DVD when the photo was taken)
Note 1: You cannot set the default startup disk in Linux due to the lack of Boot Camp Control Panel in Linux.
Neither is changing startup disk recommended in Windows due to the inability to display correctly.
For me, I click "Cancel" whenever I am on this tab (Feel free to make other Boot Camp adjustments in other tabs).
Only OSX I know that can show the startup disk options correctly.
Note 2: For some reason, OSX likes to auto mount the EFI partition everytime it boots up. It is not known to have any issue for ejecting other disks or mounting disks via Disk Utility.
Note 3: It is not determined if any Firmware or System upgrades will cause issues. It is only known that all 3 OS's regular updates should not be an issue.
System Updates excludes Mac OSX 10.9.3 updates to OSX 10.9.4 type as I had done it on a OSX 10.9.4 Mac or Windows 8.1 to Windows 8.1 Update 1 since my Windows DVD comes with Update 1.
System Upgrades refers to OSX Mavericks to Yosemite, Fedora 20 to Fedora 21, Windows 8.1 Update 1 to Windows 8.2 / Windows 9 for that matter.
Note 4: Reset SMC and / or PRAM will NOT affect your ability to boot any of the OS (OSX, Recovery HD, Fedora & Windows 8)
Yup, that is it!

Satellite P100-347: Blue screen appears on start up - unable to boot volume

Recently I left my 2 younger brothers playing NFS Carbon on my satellite P100-347, preinstalled with media centre 2005 edition, and now it fails to startup.
During the startup process eventually a blue screen is displayed for about a second and then it shutsdown (I manged to make out the words "unable to boot volume" from the blue screen).
I tried booting with an XP media centre DVD but it only gives me an option of reinstalling the OS with a price of losing all my very important data. Normally I would have recovered the system but I don't want to lose my data.
Is there anything i can do other than taking it to a technician?

Hi
Well, mostly the BSOD appears due to a hardware problem or serious software issue.
In your case the software problem is possible
Unfortunately, I think the new OS installation is the best way to get the notebook running correctly.
Now you want to know how to save the data and files well, I think you should remove the HDD from notebook and should try to connect the 2.5 HDD via external USB controller to another computer. Then you could save the files on the other HDD
I think, now you know that the regular backups are important and necessary!!!!

Unable to boot new Linux installation on Lenovo G400

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