OSS is confused

Just came back to this. I still need to incorporate your thoughts.

I did forget to set Bootwiz as 'active' when I tried making it visible. I've felt comfortable with the swap file on another partition. I have set up many single operating systems this way, and have never had a problem on those systems.

The long boot time occurred on every boot. TestArea and Vista both boot quite normally. I am reasoning that this cross-talk has been with me from the get-go; with this came settings in the registry [as I noted above] that are looked at and can't be correlated. I was thinking that once I get this system back to working I could use some kind of registry 'cleaner'.

In any event, there ARE more problems, along the lines I aluded to earlier today. As I said above, I got the system working under DD doing several boots, and left off where OSS recognized a 'new' system. Well, I looked at the settings it put on the 'new' system, and found hiding was not forced, write was enabled, and under 'folders' were "D:\windows; D:\Program Files; and D:\docs&sets. Most disturbing was under files: "#1-1\ntldr; #1-1\ntdetect" etc. So OSS set it up to read these files from the first partition. And maybe I had set it up that way, because DD has no 'force' hiding setting. When I force hiding again on the 'new' system, it does the old immediate crash like I had pushed a reset button. The message OSS gives when I try to remove the files and folders gives me pause. "Do I want to remove "XXXXX" from the operating system?" Uhh... I don't know.

So, It seems that I need to get everything running in DD with the partition type set to 0X00, then edit the Bootwiz.oss file to match what I create so that it does not default to over-writing a working system. Is there an easier way?

It was a good call; I am attaching a view of the bootwiz folder that is on TestArea [partition(1)]. The second folder down has the boot.ini that XPSafe uses.

Seems I've answered my own question. In DD, I edited the Bootwiz.oss from its setting of partition(eight) to Partition(2), and, OSS was then able to boot with the hiding forced, and no folders or files.

How I got there was curiosity about how to enter the value "0X00" into partition type, and I would really like to see a step-by step of this. I was not able to see where this edit would occur, although I do understand what is being set. I'm now on my way to setting up my other two miscreants.

Thanx again
dc

 

I now have all the systems back up and running. It looks like the wireless was taken from TestArea, as it continues to use "connection 9". I have reinstalled the driver on each of the systems, and it comes up "connection 2", and there seems to be no interaction between the systems.
XPSafe seems to be booting a little faster. I noticed that when I got Finance going, that the disc letters were messed up, and I had to go into management and reassign the original letters. I then had to set the "Mydocuments" to where it belonged because Windows just couldn't stand not knowing and made a default folder on a key drive that I happened to leave in the USB. Stuff like this going on may be why the boots are long, and a reg clean might help this.
It is weird still though. In order to get XPSafe to boot, I had to edit boot.ini to look for partition 2. Still no go until I edited Bootwiz.oss with a 2 for its partition there. I did the same for the three systems that wouldn't boot, but when I did the last one, I noticed that Bootwiz.oss had the original numbers back. I thought oh s***, but all the systems are still booting with OSS saying its partition #8, boot.ini saying it's #2, and it's the sixth partition on the drive as I look at it. I think I am where I want to be.

Finally, I want to delete the entry that OSS detected for XPSafe that first time through. I'm probably being paranoid, but the message that asks if I want to delete this operating system is just a little disconcerting, as are the messages BTW for deleting the files and folders. It IS ok to say yes isn't it?

Thanx so much for your help, once again
dc

 

If you're sure that the second folder (3AEB3917) is used for XPSafe, then the OSS OS ID value for that entry must have changed since you posted the BOOTWIZ.OSS file because it doesn't match.

Here is a sample drive with two partitions forced hidden (Disk Management will show the BEFORE and AFTER partitions as Unallocated):


Here are a few screenshots for getting to the partition table:


Here is a picture of the Partition Table as shown from DD's Disk Editor:


The number on the left is the partition type. 00h is the value for Unused, which is what OSS does when it force hides a partition (highlighted red).

Note that the actual partition data values are still in the table (highlighted green). Do not make any changes to this data or you'll corrupt the partition.

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When sorting out where the booting files are in relation to what OSS detects, be aware that OSS expects (as does Windows) that the booting files will be on a Primary partition. If it finds them, it will link to them. This is not what you want. You need to link to the files in the correct partition or leave those files out of the manual entry. OSS really shouldn't detect Windows on a Logical partition IF there isn't an Active booting partition that contains the booting files.

 

I looked at the boot.ini files contained in the OSS folders in the TestArea C: drive and saw it was partition 2, and thought this was consistent with where I was at that point. I figured they were there from OSS's auto-install of the XPSafe system that incorporated a boot from TestArea. Ultimately I will be getting rid of the stuff associated with this.
There was a lot of letter shuffling of the drive designations in each system. As I restore the original letters, I do notice the speed of things picking up. It does seem like I finally have separate systems now.
Thanks for posting the screen shots. I think this will help in the future

I actually had to read this about ten times for some reason. I think I do understand now. Thanx.


It's been fun.
dc