Much Confused.

Ok I'm really new to DD and OSS. I downloaded it this morning at 6:30am. I partitioned my 500gb hard drive into two halves. Windows xp was already installed on the first partition, I then turned on OSS and through there installed Vista on the second partition. which seems to have installed correctly. On first boot the Windows Boot Manager started, then following some instructions i found in the forum I installed OSS in Vista. On the next boot both OSS and windows boot manager start. While in OSS I attempted to follow the instructions to hide the vista and xp partitions from each other. when i right clicked and selected properties on windows xp. I was able to hide the vista partition. The active check box was grayed out there not sure if it's suppose to be that way. Doing the same on the vista right click, the hidden check box was grayed out. So I'm thinking i did something wrong there? probably when I installed Vista. Any help is greatly appreciated. thanks

 

The Active checkbox being grayed out for the booting partition is normal. However, if the Hidden checkbox is grayed out, it's a bug. You need to edit the bootwiz.oss file to fix it.

Take a look through this thread as it has instructions on this: Ohhh OSS (grayed out OSS checkboxes)

 

Mudcrab thanks for the reply I've posted my Bootwiz.oss file. now I see the one marked active and hidden at the same time. That is my windows xp installation. which was already on the drive before I started all this. Then below that is the vista which is just set to active. I haven't made any changes because I thought the point was to make the xp partition hidden. I'm not sure about the active on that Partition. My heads starting hurt. what did i do wrong? Thanks Rodger


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<bootwiz>
<disks>
<id1091888981 bios_num="128" crc="488427712" real_bios_num="128" serial="58944" size="976773167" />
<id37581432 bios_num="0" crc="2006627" real_bios_num="0" removed="1" serial="51175" size="2006672" />
</disks>
<cds>
<cd id="2717266794" md5_summ="17f25b4bdee6583ac21c3f1411b7040c" />
</cds>
<partitions>
<id1870430961 begin="63" crc="36865" disk="1091888981" fs="ntfs" number="1" serial="8f79484899484816" size="488343807" type="7" />
<id410744051 begin="488345600" crc="36865" disk="1091888981" fs="ntfs" number="2" serial="5ab73290d3329018" size="488425472" type="7" />
<id691984688 begin="63" crc="46018" disk="37581432" fs="fat16" number="1" serial="c402463d" size="2006610" type="14" />
</partitions>
<oses>
<id2790801469 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="1870430961" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_win" language="english" lba="1" multi="multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS" name_template="%n Home Edition%l %l(%ll%l)" nthide="0" os_type="ntxp" uninstall_info="1" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
<partitions>
<id410744051 active="1" hidden="1" />
</partitions>
</id2790801469>
<id559401070 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd="2717266794" boot_cd_entry="0" icon="icon_sys_vista" language="" lba="1" locked="1" name_template="Windows" nthide="0" os_type="cd" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="0">
<partitions>
<id1870430961 active="1" />
</partitions>
</id559401070>
<id1600620242 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="1870430961" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_vista" language="english" lba="1" name_template="%n%l %l(%ll%l)" nthide="0" os_type="ntvista" system_root_identifier="0000000000000000000000000000000006000000000000004800000000000000000020373a000000000000000000000000000000010000000ff2de5900000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\Windows" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
<partitions>
<id1870430961 active="1" />
<id410744051 hidden="1" />
</partitions>
</id1600620242>
</oses>
<checkfiles>
<checkfile crc="0" name="io.sys" partition="1870430961" size="0" />
<checkfile crc="3899" name="ntldr" partition="1870430961" size="250032" />
<checkfile crc="26686" name="boot.ini" partition="1870430961" size="212" />
</checkfiles>
<bootmgr default_os="1600620242" disks_order_feature="1" />
<uninstall_info>
<active_lba_state>
<p1-1 active="1" />
<p1-2 />
<p1-5 />
</active_lba_state>
</uninstall_info>

 

As shown in your bootwiz.oss file, Vista is treating the XP partition as the "active" and "boot" partition. It should be using the Vista partition for booting. Also, you need to remove the "hidden" entry from your XP entry and fix the booting partition.

This is how I'm reading the file (please correct me if this is not how it is).
These are your partitions:

Code:

<partitions>
	<[B]id1870430961[/B] begin="63" crc="36865" disk="1091888981" fs="ntfs" number="1" serial="8f79484899484816" size="488343807" type="7" />
	<[B]id410744051[/B] begin="488345600" crc="36865" disk="1091888981" fs="ntfs" number="2" serial="5ab73290d3329018" size="488425472" type="7" />
	<id691984688 begin="63" crc="46018" disk="37581432" fs="fat16" number="1" serial="c402463d" size="2006610" type="14" />
</partitions>

XP is the first partition: id1870430961
Vista is the second partition: id410744051

So, for XP the Active partition should be 1870430961 and the hidden partition should be 410744051.

For Vista, the Active partition should be 410744051 and the hidden partition should be 1870430961.

I've highlighted the incorrect parts in BOLD RED. You will need to scroll horizontally to see the entire text. This is what your bootwiz.oss file shows:

Code:

<id2790801469 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="[B][COLOR="Red"]1870430961[/COLOR][/B]" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_win" language="english" lba="1" multi="multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS" name_template="%n Home Edition%l %l(%ll%l)" nthide="0" os_type="ntxp" uninstall_info="1" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
	<partitions>
		<[B][COLOR="red"]id410744051 [/COLOR][/B]active="1" hidden="1" />
	</partitions>
</id2790801469>

<id1600620242 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="[B][COLOR="Red"]1870430961[/COLOR][/B]" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_vista" language="english" lba="1" name_template="%n%l %l(%ll%l)" nthide="0" os_type="ntvista" system_root_identifier="0000000000000000000000000000000006000000000000004800000000000000000020373a000000000000000000000000000000010000000ff2de5900000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\Windows" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
	<partitions>
		<[B][COLOR="red"]id1870430961 [/COLOR][/B]active="1" />
		<[B][COLOR="red"]id410744051 [/COLOR][/B]hidden="1" />
	</partitions>
</id1600620242>

I've highlighted the changed parts in BOLD BLUE. You will need to scroll horizontally to see the entire text. I think it should be like this:

Code:

<id2790801469 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="1870430961" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_win" language="english" lba="1" multi="multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS" name_template="%n Home Edition%l %l(%ll%l)" nthide="0" os_type="ntxp" uninstall_info="1" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
	<partitions>
		[B][COLOR="blue"]<id1870430961 active="1" />
		<id410744051 hidden="1" />[/COLOR][/B]
	</partitions>
</id2790801469>

<id1600620242 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="[B][COLOR="blue"]410744051[/COLOR][/B]" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_vista" language="english" lba="1" name_template="%n%l %l(%ll%l)" nthide="0" os_type="ntvista" system_root_identifier="0000000000000000000000000000000006000000000000004800000000000000000020373a000000000000000000000000000000010000000ff2de5900000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\Windows" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
	<partitions>
		[B][COLOR="blue"]<id1870430961 hidden="1" />
		<id410744051 active="1" />[/COLOR][/B]
	</partitions>
</id1600620242>

These changes may or may not work depending on how Windows was actually installed. If OSS just messed up the entries (very likely) then it should work.

Make a backup copy of your original bootwiz.oss file before making changes. If you can boot into one of your Windows you can make the changes using Windows Notepad (don't use any other program to edit the file). Once the changes are made and you've saved the file, reboot the computer. If you can't start Windows, then you can boot to the DD cd, explore the partition with bootwiz.oss on it and edit it using DD.

If you need to attach the bootwiz.oss file, make a copy and rename it to bootwiz.txt. Then you can attach it instead of having to paste it in. It makes it a lot easier to read.

 

MudCrab to late I done messed things up good, I didn't loss my windows xp install thankfully. I have temporarily reinstalled Vista on the second partition only because the Windows Boot Manager still came up. I would like to get OSS working but I'm scared to loss everything.

Is there a way with my current installs to begin using OSS?

If the above isn't easy is there a way to start over remove vista and some how get rid of Windows Boot Manager? Then start step by step getting OSS to work. hopefully without losing my XP install (see below) I just don't know where I went wrong this morning.

I made my backup on a hard drive hooked through USB cable, earlier I couldn''t get TI to read that drive for restoration. if you know anything about how to maybe make that work I'd greatly appreciate that to. But i want to concentrate on the first problem. lets not mix and match them. I confuse easily.

Again thanks for earlier...

 

Can you boot into either XP or Vista right now okay using Vista's bootloader?

Is there a specific reason you want to use OSS?

If you can boot into either XP or Vista okay, and you really want to install OSS, then I would boot into Vista and install DD and then OSS. Hopefully, it will find Vista at least. If it finds both of them great. If it doesn't find XP, then the XP entry can probably be added manually or perhaps detected with the OS Detection Wizard.

If all you want is to not see the other OS's drive, you can use Windows Disk Management to unassign the drive letter so it doesn't show up.

Getting OSS to work properly is not easy sometimes. Especially when the system is already in a semi-corrupt state (from OSS's point of view).

 

Yes I can boot to both Vista and Xp using Vista's bootloader.

The only reason I can think of using OSS is because I paid for it. Other then that bootloader does what I want, I think. I'm not sure I what the differences are between the two.

My only concern right now is system stablity. Is what I've done stable? What are the side effects of the way it's done right now? Obviously Bootloader and OSS handle things a little differently. For instance if the XP partition developes a problem on boot up will I still be able to boot to the Vista partition and vica versa or will I loss both OS's?

 

MudCrab yesterday I begin reading on the web that the way I had the drives working together affected the system restore some how. So basically I got rid of the windows vista install using a run command "e:\boot\bootsect.exe .nt52 ALL /force". So now I have no vista install and no boot loader. I deleted the partition, and now disk manager shows unallocated space.

I'm thinking what I did wrong the first time was I didn't hide the windows xp partition from the windows vista install. Can you walk me through how to do that in DD? Then how to install Vista again so it doesn't recognize there even is a windows xp partition and vica versa. Is that what we're trying to achieve here? two completely independent OS's operating through OSS. Does that solve the problem of the system Restore that I've read about?

I have a business trip out of town tommarrow for couple of days. So any reply will get a slow response. I wanna try and get this thing working properly any help would be much appreciated. Thanks Rodger