all drives hidden - Systems (XP and Vista) won't start

Dear Acronians!

I'm quite in despair here. I wanted to create a multi-boot system with Vista Home 64 and two XP Profs. I installed Vista and one XP, multi-boot worked smoothly.

Now I made a backup of XP and installed it into a third partition. I tried to hide the systems from each other in OSS. Now it happens that all three boot-partitions are hidden. In OSS, the three systems are recognized, but each fail to boot with "autochk not found".

In OSS I notice, that the boot-partitions of each boot-option are set to active AND hidden. Both options are grayed out, so I cannot uncheck "hidden".

Writing this from a Linux System, which saved my life for the moment

Any idea?

 

What build of DD/OSS are you using?

It sounds like the "grayed-out checkbox" bug. The fix it to manually edit the BOOTWIZ.OSS file and correct the problem.

Probably the easiest method is to deactivate OSS and use DD to setup the partitions correctly for one OS to boot. From there, you can get access to the file.

Do you know which partition has the main OSS files on it? This partition can be selected by you when you install OSS if you do a custom install. Otherwise, it usually is installed to the currently active OS partition.

 

More information can be found in this thread.

You just need to get access to the BOOTWIZ.OSS file. You can do this from a booted Windows or from the Vista DVD. A Live Linux CD may also work, but make sure to create a backup copy of the file before you make any changes since Linux's file editors sometimes write them differently which can cause problems for OSS.

You may also be able to apply the fixes from DD by exploring the partition and selecting to edit the file. Be aware that this may also corrupt the file so have a backup.

Instructions on finding the BOOTWIZ.OSS file can be found here.

 

MudCrab, you made my day!

I did as you said, got access via Linux and edited the bootwiz.oss from there. So atm I am posting from my Vista, haven't dared to start the XPses yet, tho.

Btw, it's DD10 here, I downloaded latest build.

So happy, thank you so much

 

I'm glad to hear it worked.

If you don't mind, what version of Linux did you use and what file editor?

 

Hiya MudCrab!

I used Ubuntu 9.04. The text-editor was the default one that was offered when clicking the file (it was a simple editor, no openorg-stuff). If you want to know details, I will check again.

Now I see, if I can boot my XPses

cya hopefully from my Vista again, after that

 

So I checked: Ubuntu used "gedit" here (version 2.26.1).

My first XP started smoothly now, thanks to your help, the second one seems to be completely messed up. I will start from scratch and delete that rogue partition.

Again, many thanks to you

 

I've found it generally works best to do the install/setup manually.

The basic instructions are:

1. Deactivate OSS (don't uninstall). Select whichever OS you want as the default.
2. Boot to the DD CD and setup the partitions for the new OS. For example, when installing XP, set the new XP partition as Active and hide the other OS partitions. Apply the changes.
3. Install the OS (make sure to select the correct partition). If installing Windows, allow Windows to do a quick format of the partition as part of the installation process if you previously formatted it with DD.
4. Once the new OS is installed and working properly, boot to the DD CD and reactivate OSS (you can also install OSS in Windows and reactivate it from there). It should automatically detect the new OS and add it to the menu. You can then adjust the OS entry's properties as needed.

When using OSS, it's a good idea to have the OSS programs included on the DD CD. If they're not, create a new one with Media Builder and include them.

 

I was trying the lazy way: I made a backup of my XP and restored it into another partition (booting from TI-CD). I have done such before with success, on another system (may have had to fix minor problems that time, don't remember exactly, but there was no Vista).

But this time it got so badly messed up. I configured the bootoptions with DD from within Vista. May be that the problem. On one of the sites you refer to on your nice homepage, one expert warns: don't let see Windows another Windows

I will try as you suggested.