clean Vista invisible to OSS

I am just trying to get OSS to see Vista as a prelimanary step in dual booting. OSS can not see it with auto detect. I have not installed a second os yet, so I still have a fairly clean Vista install. I have turned off background virus protection (Maybe another background program is blocking detection?)My computer is a new HP Pavilion with 1 150G SATA drive.

I used DD to get my partitions ready:
[7M unAl][1G Fat16 L][1G F16 L][30G F32][60G NTFS][50G F32 L][8G NTFS]
E F G C H D
C is pri active running vista
D is pri hp recovery
E-H are all currently logicals
(E will be win31 G will be win98 F and H will be Data)

I installed OSS 2160 on the H:\ partition then tried auto detect from the boot recovery CD and running OSS after vista installs. I tried []Detect from OS partition and []Detect from MBR. When "detecting OS partition" I Selected C:\ as 'bootable" and did not hide the D or any of the E-H logicals. Every time OSS finishes and says no new os found, so there are still no os's in the main OSS window.

I read posts going back 3 months and saw the "brute force" fix of installing boot.ini ntldr and ntdetect, none of these files are on my drive now. I looked at my bcd with bcdedit /v and it looks pretty clean.

Any help would be appreciated, but this is likely a problem for Acronis on a next build (I'm also emailing for tech support). Has anyone been able to auto detect a clean install of Vista without using the old add-3-files-to-C:\ trick?

MangoMan

 

MangoMan,

I'm looking at your drive structure and I can't believe what I'm seeing. Does it actually boot into Vista?

First, you shouldn't intersperse Primary and Logical partitions. DD will let you do this, but it's not correct and will cause problems. All primary partitions should be located first on the drive followed by ONE extended partition container that holds the logical partitions. [primary][primary][primary]{extended[logical 1][logical 2][logical 3]} Note that DD does NOT show the extended container.

Second, you won't get all those OS's installed on ONE hard drive because of primary partition limits (not with OSS, anyway). You have the Win3.1 and Win98 partitions as Logicals now, but you can't install and boot them from logical partitions.

One option would be to install another hard drive for your other Windows and keep Vista and the recovery partition on the first drive.
Disk #1: [VISTA primary][data partition? primary][recovery primary]
Disk #2: [Win 3.1 primary][Win98 primary][data...]
You would then use OSS to change the driver order so that the 2nd drive was first in the list for Win3.1 and Win98.

If you keep it on one drive with four primary partitions, you could only have [Win 3.1][Win98][Vista][Recovery]

You may also want to consider running Win 3.1 and Win98 in a Virtual Machine inside Vista.

----

I have installed OSS (build 2,160) quite a few times on a "clean" Vista installation and it has been detected properly every time. What you have setup is not what I would call a "clean" system.

Also, the Detect OS Wizard doesn't normally seem to detect anything that OSS doesn't detect automatically when it starts. In your case, I think the problem is caused by your partition layout.

The Vista "cheat" method of detection doesn't work anymore with build 2,160 as far as I know.

 

Thanks for reply Mudcrab.

Yes this structure boots and I have transfered small files between the logical drives to test the set-up; bootwiz and recycle folders are placed on all of them.

I am only trying for 4 primary partitions; win31 win98 Vista and HP recovery.
(my 1st post was unclear because spaces were auto removed between EFGCHD (I had them centered over the [] [] [] (on all but 1st unalocated [])))

anyway...
Could do without the win31 which would simplify things quite a bit....
With the structure I have the 1st small logical is needed to transfer data between win31 and win98 (so both win31 and win98 primaries start in the 1st 2Gig). Otherwise I could have pri pri pri pri Logicals (I guess the HP recovery partition can be moved from the end).

I thought it would be better to get all the partitions set-up before running OSS the first time. Do you think OSS will see Vista without any partitions set-up, then keep it while the partitions are made? OSS is faulty in either case if it can't see Vista when I tell it look right here in this partition and nothing is detected.

Thanks for any additional help...
MangoMan

 

Can you post a DD screenshot of your current partition layout? It would be helpful to see it.

I still think you're going to be better off trying to put Win3.1 and Win98 on their own drive. If you have a small drive around you could use that. Is your computer using IDE or SATA?

I can understand the need to have a partition to share data between Win3.1 and Win98, but you shouldn't place a logical partition at the front of the drive and then place primary partitions after it.

If I'm understanding correctly, you have not yet installed Win3.1 or Win98 on the computer. Correct?

To preserve letter spacing, place the text into a "code" block:

Code:

[abcdef][abcdef][abcdef]
   a       b       c

If you move the HP recovery partition, it probably won't work any more, but I'm not an expert on that.

Trying for only four primary partitions is fine as long as they are the ONLY partitions on the drive. There are only four "slots" so if you have four primary partitions, you can't have any logical partitions on the drive. If you want any logical partitions, you have to have three or less primary partitions.

 

MudCrab,
Thanks for info...

How do I turn code back off? (I'll just use --------)
This is what I was trying to use:

[7M unAl][1G Fat16 L][1G F16 L][30G F32][60G NTFS][50G F32 L][8G NTFS]
--------------E----------F---------G---------C----------H---------D

C is pri active running vista
D is pri hp recovery
E-H are all currently logicals
(E will be win31 G will be win98 F and H will be Data)


I have wrestled with the problem you mentioned before; that is trying to get 4 primaries AND an extended (it wouldn't work). Thanks for info, I wont waste any more time on that, so I will try for this instead:

[30G Fat32 Win98][60G NTFS Vista][50G Fat32 Data][8G NTFS Recovery]
----C pri---------------C pri-----------E Logical------------D pri

I only have one hard drive in this new HP notebook, its a 150G sata (I guess it's not an older ide). Correct, the only os on the computer now is Vista (and the Recovery partition). I want to detect Vista first before I install win98 as you have suggested before.

The more I think about it the Vista detection problem probably has to do with the notebook files required to use the D:\ recovery partition (check my post to Rick a few minutes ago)

Mango Man

 

Mangoman,
Just for info, I tryed putting the 3 files on my drive c:\ ntld, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com, and with build 2160 OSS will now find Vista. I just don't like to have to juryrig the program like that to make it work. ...Rick

 

The "code" tags are done like this in the text part (just like the "quote" tags):
[_code_] text here... [_/code_]
Just remove the _ characters I inserted so it wouldn't convert it.

Drive E will need to be primary. You are still intermixing primary and logical partitions.

Do you know for sure Windows 98 will install and run correctly on this computer? I'd hate for you to go to all this trouble and then find out it doesn't work.

I agree that the recovery partition is probably causing some problems with OSS. On a system where ONLY Vista is install, I haven't had problems getting OSS to find Vista.

 

Rick,

I cant believe OSS needs to find on drive c:\ ntld, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com in order to detect Vista!

Those are XP files, where did you get them?

I can make a boot.ini but the other 2 are no where on my HP Vista and I dont use XP.

Mudcrab,
I am reluctant to do anything to the recovery D:\ partition so I hope it can stay on the end and have a logical in front of it.

MangoMan

 

Copying the XP boot files into Vista root directory was the "cheat" method to get OSS to recognize Vista. This doesn't always work with build 2,160.

Here is what shows in a "clean" Vista/OSS installation:



and



I've also attached the OSS bootwiz.oss file (renamed bootwiz_oss.txt) so you can see how it compares. Perhaps you can see something wrong.

 

mangoman,

My point was you can have FOUR primary partitions, so the data partition should be a primary partition and not a logical partition. This does not change your recovery partition it just makes it where you are not intermixing primary and logical partitions. Why are you insisting that the "data" drive has to be a logical partition?

 

Mangoman,
Its not that vista needs the files, but I took them off my other computer with xp on it and copyed them over to my laptop c:\ directory and Oss then recognized vista on my laptop. Then I deleted the files and oss is still happy for the time being.

 

MudCrab,
I do not have a bootmgr directory on C:\. I guess OSS makes this and since it doesnt detect any os it hasnt been created.

I was thinking the Data partition had to be logical for my (eventual) dual boot to share data between C:\(win9 and C:\(Vista). If they can both work with a Data partition that is a primary, then I am happy with that too.

BTW, do you have ntld boot.ini and ntdetect.com file on your C:\ that is seen by OSS as Vista. It is interesting that Rick took them back off and it still works. I am tempted to put dummy files (just rename any small text file) with those names on my C:\ and see if OSS will add a Vista os.

I have attached my bootwiz.oss maybe you can spot a problem. i looked at yours but cant understand much.

Thanks for continued help, MangoMan

 

Vista creates and uses the c:\bootmgr FILE (not directory) as far as I know. OSS only uses the BOOTWIZ FOLDER.

Using a primary partition is fine for data sharing or any other normal uses, it just can also be marked "bootable", which logicals can't (for Windows anyway, Linux doesn't care).

As shown in the picture in post #9, those files are not needed for Vista. They don't even exist in a clean Vista install. When you use the "cheat" method you copy the following Windows XP files into Vista's root folder: ntdetect.com, boot.ini, ntldr. See this thread for more details.

There is no Vista entry in your file. You can try the above method and see if it works.

You're welcome.

 

MudCrab,
Before I had installed OSS from Recovery CD, now I will try after installing from windows DD program. Also, I am going to make all 4 partitions Primary.

 

Just for the record, the times I've tried installing OSS from the cd on a Vista machine, it didn't work. I've had a lot better success installing OSS from Windows (Vista or XP).

 

Here's a good clue....
From windows DD I am checking >Properties of the partitions
then >Special I get Reserved (boot record) = 8KB on the Drecovery)
but on the C:\ (running Vista) Reserved (boot record) = 0KB

>Properties >special on the 2 Data partions also have a nonzero value

Also on C:\ the >properties >statistics say 'info not avail"
the other 3 partitions shows valid info

AND on C:\ if I >properties>errors it runs a loooong time (haven't wait for completion); the other 3 Parts report no error.

BUT on C:\ the >Explore does work.

Obviously all this prevents OSS from seeing Vista on C:\

I wonder if the HP Pavilion works by MBR going to D:\(recovery) first then it redirects to C:\(vista). Maybe I should tell OSS to look for Vista on D:\ (haven't tried that yet)

tbc.... mangoMan

 

I suspect this too. Because the HP MBR is not standard, OSS is not detecting it. OSS needs to be more flexible in detecting non-Microsoft boot codes. A lot of problems are when trying to use OSS with "Brand" computers that have not been wiped and reinstalled with regular copies of Vista (or XP).