How to install BackTrack 3 or 4 to hard drive along with Windows XP, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuse on Lenovo Thinkpad X60
From my last post you can see that I installed Fedora and openSuse to my existing dual boot Thinkpad X60 with Ubuntu and Windows. In this post, I will show you how to install BackTrack 3 to the hard drive. These instructions can also be used for BackTrack 4.
First we have to create a partition for the OS. You can only have 4 primary partitions out of which only 1 can be an extended partition. The extended partition can then in turn have multiple logical partitions. I used gparted in Ubuntu to partition my drive as follows.
Primary partition 1 – NTFS for XP
Primary partition 2 – NTFS used as storage
Primary partition 3 – extended partition which has all my linuxes for testing purposes
extended partition contains:
logical partition 1 – ext3, Fedora
logical partition 2 – ext3, openSuse
logical partition 3 – ext3, will be used for Backtrack
logical partition 4 – ext3, future linux (maybe Gentoo)
logical partition 5 – swap (I only have to use one swap for all my linuxes)
Primary partition 4 – ext3 for Ubuntu, my main linux

Now download, burn, and boot up BackTrack 3 live cd.
My BackTrack partition is sda8 and BT3 automatically mounted it to /mnt/sda8
if not, you can mount your drive by typing:
mkdir /mnt/sda8
mount /dev/sda8 /mnt/sda8
replace sda8 with your partition
now, copy the required files from the live cd to the hard drive:
cp --preserve -R /{bin,dev,home,pentest,root,usr} /mnt/sda8/
cp --preserve -R /{boot,lib,etc,opt,sbin,var} /mnt/sda8/
mkdir /mnt/sda8/{mnt,proc,sys,tmp}
mount --bind /dev/ /mnt/sda8/dev/
mount -t proc proc /mnt/sda8/proc/
The installation is done, now you can reboot and add the BackTrack to the grub menu.lst
Reboot into Ubuntu and:
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
This is what my grub looks like. The part in bold is for BackTrack:
title Ubuntu Jaunty, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=da7e4aba-35c8-4ab8-a882-d5c7c324101a ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic
quiettitle Ubuntu Jaunty, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=da7e4aba-35c8-4ab8-a882-d5c7c324101a ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generictitle Ubuntu Jaunty, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=da7e4aba-35c8-4ab8-a882-d5c7c324101a ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic
quiettitle Ubuntu Jaunty, memtest86+
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for an existing
# linux installation on /dev/sda5.
title Fedora (2.6.27.19-170.2.35.fc10.i686) (on /dev/sda5)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.19-170.2.35.fc10.i686 ro root=UUID=cae92252-724a-4e24-841d-e8c3fb24f861 rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.19-170.2.35.fc10.i686.img
boot# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for an existing
# linux installation on /dev/sda5.
#title Fedora (2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686) (on /dev/sda5)
#root (hd0,4)
#kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686 ro root=UUID=cae92252-724a-4e24-841d-e8c3fb24f861 rhgb quiet
#initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686.img
#boot# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for an existing
# linux installation on /dev/sda6.
title openSUSE 11.1 – 2.6.27.19-3.2 (on /dev/sda6)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.21-0.1-default root=/dev/sda6 splash=silent showopts vga=0×317
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.21-0.1-default
boot# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for an existing
# linux installation on /dev/sda6.
title Failsafe — openSUSE 11.1 – 2.6.27.19-3.2 (on /dev/sda6)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.21-0.1-default root=/dev/sda6 showopts ide=nodma apm=off noresume nosmp maxcpus=0 edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0×317
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.21-0.1-default
boottitle BackTrack 3 Final KDE
rootnoverify (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=0×317 root=/dev/sda8 ro quiet splash autoexec=xconf;kdm
boottitle BackTrack 3 Final shell
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz ro root=/dev/sda8 vga=0×317
boot
Reboot into BackTrack and check here to create a new user and
check here to install packages with slapt-get or here to see how I installed BT 4 on my lenovo S10 without a CD player or USB.
Popularity: 33% [?]
May 4th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Hi, interesting post. I have been pondering this topic,so thanks for sharing. I’ll definitely be subscribing to your blog.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Perfect! Will try it right now in my eee 1000h ^^
May 19th, 2009 at 5:28 am
Might be useful to people if you also had the command to install the /boot directory so there would actually be a vmlinuz kernel to boot. Along with a splash.initrd file.
mkdir /mnt/bt/boot
mount /dev/sda8 /mnt/sda8/boot
cp –preserve /boot/vmlinuz /mnt/sda8/boot/
cp –preserve /boot/splash.initrd /mnt/sda8/boot/
May 19th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
nice but you forgot the boot directory in the copy command!
best wishes
August 28th, 2009 at 6:18 am
I had the same trouble and it was not solved until I changed sda2 by hda2. I have Ubuntu 9.4 and BT3 instaled. Just add the next lines at the end of your menu.lst and change (hd0,1) and hda2 to your own parameters. The line “savedefault” is not neccesary.
# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for an existing
# linux installation on /dev/sda2.
title BT3 Graphics mode (KDE)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=791 root=/dev/hda2 ro autoexec=xconf;kdm
savedefault
boot
title BT3 Graphics mode (Flux)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=791 root=/dev/hda2 ro chexpand=256 autoexec=xconf;flux
savedefault
boot
title BT3 Graphics mode with Persistent Changes
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=791 root=/dev/hda2 ro changes=/slax/slaxsave.dat autoexec=xconf;kdm
savedefault
boot
title BT3 KDE Copy To RAM
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=791 root=/dev/hda2 ro chexpand=256 copy2ram autoexec=xconf;kdm
savedefault
boot
title BT3 Graphics VESA mode (1024×768)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=0X317 root=/dev/hda2 ro autoexec=kdm
savedefault
boot
title BT3 Text mode FB
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=791 root=/dev/hda2 ro
savedefault
boot
title BT3 Text mode FB no DHCP
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=791 root=/dev/hda2 ro nodhcp
savedefault
boot
title BT3 Text mode
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=normal root=/dev/hda2 chexpand=256 ro
savedefault
boot
title Run Memtest utility
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/mt86p
savedefault
boot
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:17 pm
hey nice guide though but can you write a guide for bt-4 installation with bt4.kmdr. and what the hell is encrypted installation.
plz email me if u get some info.
btw nice ghajini banner…
thanks.
September 25th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
[...] on my Lenovo S10 with Unetbootin frugal install Last time I installed BT3 on mt Lenovo X60 here. This time I tried a different method without using the external CD [...]
October 8th, 2009 at 2:00 am
[...] too. Here's a link for anyone reading this thread on install procedures from the Hyradtech blog. How to install BackTrack 3 or 4 to hard drive along with Windows XP, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuse on Len… __________________ "Employing people skills, while discussing technical skills, is a sign [...]
October 27th, 2009 at 8:13 am
How can you start up backtrack 4 in flux mode?
October 27th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
just type flux
December 7th, 2009 at 3:51 am
[...] to hard drive along with Windows XP, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuse on Lenovo Thinkpad X60 moved to http://hydtechblog.com/2009/04/21/how-to-install-backtrack-3-or-4-to-hard-drive-along-with-windows-x... Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)BackTrack 4 MultiBoot on my Lenovo S10 with [...]
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:12 am
Greetings!
Im having a problem partitioning my hard drive like the one you did in the picture. Can you show me how you did that?Please…
Thank you very much!