Please help me with os selector and windows 7

Thanks to all your help, the blind squirrel found the acorn.
It's working again. Hurray. You're the best. Joanne

 

THANKS for your help. We're are back on with Windows 7. You're the best..
Joanne

 

OK....Thanks again for the assistance!

I hope we can get this working before I actually pull my hair out - LOL : )

I did as you said - I have my two icons there at Boot up and I can click either one - problem is - both boot to the first partition

The bootwiz.oss file looks to be correct but I may be missing something minor (or maybe huge).

Please assist once again - I'm really anxious to start using the OS Selector menu.

Attaching the latest here.


Can't thank you enough....

 

How did you duplicate the Windows 7 partition? It can make a difference. If Windows sees the other partitions and then you duplicate it, the same drive letters will be used. In other words, you boot partition #2, but partition #1 is still assigned as C: because that what it was when you did the duplication.

If you did it this way, you'll need to boot into the first Windows 7 OS (partition #1) and load the registry hives of the other three partitions and clear the MountedDevices entries so that Windows will reassign the drive letters. Instructions on the basic procedure can be found here. You'll want to do steps 3 through 14 for each partition (#2, #3 and #4). Do this before you try the attached BOOTWIZ.OSS file.

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I've edited the BOOTWIZ.OSS file to hide the other OS partitions. See if that works. Make sure to change your Desktop background (at the very least) so you can tell them apart.

I noticed that the OS IDs were different. Did you change them?

 

I found the OS IDs were nothing but a number...seems to work with any number.

I copied my main partition using Acronis Disk Director 10

Currently my Windows 7 does not show the other partitions when viewing in "Computer" but they can be seen obviously in Disk Administration.

I wanted each partition to be it's own C:\ drive and not see any other partition - mimicing a separate hard drive.

Is this not possible?

My desktop is somewhat roaming and set to my Windows Home server so that wont work - but I check the size of C:\ each time I log in - each partition is a different size.

Nice challenge....

 

Since you copied the partition with DD, the problem is most likely the BCD file is pointing to the first partition. You'll need to edit the BCD file to boot the Active partition. This will need to be done for each of the other partitions. Each Windows partition should be C: when you boot into it.

Currently, when you boot into the first partition, are the other partitions hidden or can you assign drive letters to them in Disk Management? If you can access the other partitions from Windows it will be easier to make the changes. Once things are fixed, you can hide them again.

For this example, I'll call them E:, F: and G: (for partitions #2, #3 and #4). When booted into partition #1, run the following commands from an Administrator: Command Prompt for each of the other partitions (<ENTER> means to press the ENTER key):

Code:

bcdedit /store [b][COLOR="red"]e:\boot\bcd[/COLOR][/b] /set {default} device boot <ENTER>
bcdedit /store [b][COLOR="Red"]e:\boot\bcd[/COLOR][/b] /set {default} osdevice boot <ENTER>
bcdedit /store [b][COLOR="red"]e:\boot\bcd[/COLOR][/b] /set {bootmgr} device boot <ENTER>
bcdedit /store [b][COLOR="red"]e:\boot\bcd[/COLOR][/b] /set {memdiag} device boot <ENTER>

You'll do this for E:, F: and G:, in this example (E: is shown above).

This will make the changes to the BCD files on the other partitions so that they will boot from the currently Active partition (how it's setup in the BOOTWIZ.OSS file).

 

Well I did as you said and I am glad you are sharing you expertise.

All partitions now show in the OS Selector screen.

Each one boots fine and activates the proper partition however when I go back and hide the other partitions, everything looks fine until you actually log into Windows and get no desktop - just a blank blue screen.

It's as if the hidden partitions are necessary.

Is it possible to continue and get this configuration to work, or should I install these partition OSs separately. By now I probably could have done this.

I just figured the first partition was set-up perfectly and it would have been nice (and fast) to copy it over to the other partitions.

 

Without hiding the other partitions, can you boot into partition #1 and post a screenshot of what Disk Management shows? Next, boot into partition #2 and post a screenshot of what Disk Management shows.

Did you do the steps outlined in Post #29 to clear the MountedDevices entries in partitions #2, #3 and #4?

 

While we are at it, any chance of getting mine to recognize W7?

The install is obviously done, and OSS is running fine (I hid other OS's while installing W7)

Thanks mudcrab

 

Try this file. I set it up with the Windows 7 partition Active and the XP partition Hidden for the Windows 7 entry. I assume you had the Windows 7 partition Active when you installed it.

By the way, do you know why Disk 1 and Disk 2 are not listed in the BOOTWIZ.OSS file?

 

thanks for the file and as for your question, I have no idea?!?! Not sure if it means anything but my mobo has 6 sata ports (plus 1 external sata port) and 2 of the 6 are red (masters) and both disks 1 & 2 are NOT plugged in these. They are plugged in the other black ones.

 

Sorry but the file did not work for me. After replacing it and rebooting, upon OSS starting up, a quick pop up appeared stating "updating" but the result was my original XP icon, an 'unknown operating system' icon (Leoapord) and the boot from floppy icon (which I had previously removed).

 

Can you repost the BOOTWIZ.OSS file? I'd like to see if OSS changed it. That's one of the problems of OSS. If it detects something it doesn't like, it resets the file.

Also, do you have OSS installed in Windows? If so, have you run the program in Windows?

Does Windows 7 boot properly when you use DD to set the Windows 7 partition Active and hide the XP partition?

 

here it is again.

Yes the program is in XP. It has been run before. When I run it now, I see the same new result I got at startup in OSS.

Yes when I installed Win7, it was active, and the others hidden, and it was booting normally.

 

The BOOTWIZ.OSS file compares exactly the same as the one I sent. Did you just reattach it or get the BOOTWIZ.OSS file out of the BOOTWIZ folder again? I ask because usually when OSS "updates" the file, it changes almost all the ID values. Nothing's been changed in this file.

I've attached it again with a different ID value for the Windows 7 entry, but it won't work if this isn't the current BOOTWIZ.OSS file with the current ID values (after the OSS update).

If the file you attached was the correct one and this one still doesn't work, can you post a screenshot of the folder names in the main BOOTWIZ.OSS folder?

 

You know what, just looking at it, and I think I messed up the extensions when switching back to .oss (because folder options were set to hide extensions) can I still use the original one or do I have to give you my current one? and NO the last one I posted is NOT my current one. here it is for sure this time!

 

I always turn off that particular option. It causes all sorts of problems and I like to see the "real" extensions.

No. You can't use the original one because OSS changed the ID values. Try the attached file.

 

thanks for the reply.

Before I use this file now, I wanted to add that I noticed a few anomalies since the win7 install. For instance, if you look at my previous screenshot, the Leopard partition shows (Acronis hidden) and I don't recall that showing like that before. Also, prior to that screenshot, it was showing a redflag on the Leoaprad partition, assuming that meant hidden, I looked to unhide it and DD only gave me the option to 'hide' not 'unhide'. Also, it was active at as well at this point. After making winXP partition active again, the leopard partition regained it's green flag. It all seemed like odd behavior and to add to it now, I cannot boot my Leopard partition anymore, the first time I tried, it actually showed the XP boot logo and then a BSOD (odd) and then after switching to make XP active and rebooting, I tried Leopard again, and some type of apple boot error leading me to believe that Leopard itself somehow got corrupted.

All of this is probably real confusing I know, which is why I am considering starting from a clean slate, wiping out all OS's and doing it all over again. If so, what's the best way to wipe out the os's and Acronis COMPLETELY, to start from scratch.

Thanks for your time.

PS - just wanted to add that all this analysis was occurring while I was running winXP

 

just wanted to add that I copied over your last bootwiz file and it worked, I am booted in win7 now. So thank you for the edited file. Now if I can sort out what happened to leopard!

Also, as of your last bootwiz file, XP and W7 boot great, but when I try the 'unknown OS', unlike what I stated in my previous post, it just goes in to XP?!?!

 

What does DD show for the partition type? In your old BOOTWIZ.OSS file (before Windows 7 -- 10-19-200, the partition type for the OSX partition was 175 (0xAF, AFh -- ShagOS swap) -- see Post #41 in this thread. Now, it's shown as 187 (0xBB, 0BBh -- Acronis hidden). Both the original and the current partition created as Primary and set Active when booting.

Have you booted successfully into OSX after you installed Windows 7?

Was the OSX partition hidden when you installed Windows 7?

If you did hide the OSX partition at any time, did you use OSS or did you use DD?

My guess is that the partition type got changed and since OSS thinks it's an Acronis-type partition, it's handling it differently than standard.

I fixed the OS Name in the attached file, but didn't change anything else. Try it first and see if it works. If it doesn't and you have a backup of the partition or just want to try it, you could switch the partition type back to AFh and see if it will work. I have no idea when this change happened, but I assume OSX was booting correctly at that point. It may even have been booting correctly when set to BBh. To change the partition type using DD, right-click on the partition and select Advanced >> Change type from the pop-up menu.

The little red flag on the partition graphic in DD means that the partition is set Active. The green flag means that it is a Primary partition.

I created a 0xAF partition and hid it. DD didn't change the type (it remained 0xAF), but did gray-out the graphic.

 

Yes I remember it used to show 'shag' now it shows what you see attached below in the pic.

No

Yes

I used DD through OSS after a reboot. Is that not the correct way?

I don't have a backup of the leopard partition but am not too concerned about re-installing it as it was fairly new thus no data will be lost. So I will try making the switch of the partition type to see if that helps and post right back.

Thanks

 

Thank you thank you thank you!

Switching that partition to 'shagOS' got me back into Leopard flawlessly!

 

Mudcrab, I have Acronis TI and ADDS installed on a Windows XP machine. I want to install Windows 7. What is your suggestion as to the correct way to install Windows 7?

I did do it already where I used ADDS to create a NTFS partition on the C drive, installed Windows 7 onto that new partition, which installed and worked OK but OSS would not recognize the Windows 7 partition. The Windows 7 boot manager would always kick in so I tried to reinstall OSS and then everytime I started my machine it would do a disk check. So I deleted Windows 7 and the partition and got it back to one partition with XP and would like to install Windows 7 again the right way.

I would like to do is have Windows XP, Windows 7, and I want to install Ubuntu on my machine and use OSS to select the OS I want. I want to be able to use TI to backup my XP image so that if I want to go back to one OS that can do so without issues because of partitions or lack there of..

Thanks for any help.

Matt

 

Matt,

You'll need to figure out the sizes you need for your partitions. Here is a general recommendation.

Create a backup image of your current drive so you can start over easily if necessary. Hopefully, you've already tested restoring with TI and it was successful.

Boot to the DD CD, start DD and select the Manual Mode. Resize the XP partition (I'm assuming it's the only partition on the drive) smaller. Make sure to leave enough space for the Windows 7 partition and your Ubuntu partitions and a small OSS partition (if you don't want the OSS files installed into the XP partition).

For example:
[XP NTFS - Primary][Windows 7 NTFS - Primary][OSS FAT32 100MB - Primary][Ubuntu Swap - Logical][Ubuntu Root Ext3 - Logical]

You can make the OSS partition a Logical partition too, if you want.

The main point in having OSS installed into a non-OS partition is because if you restore an OS partition containing the OSS files, you'll lose your OSS files or end up restoring them back to an older state.

I use a FAT32 partition for my OSS files. I also use this same partition to share data between Windows and Ubuntu. If you want to create a "shared" partition, you can make the size what you need.

When you're ready to install Windows 7, boot to the DD CD, set the Windows 7 partition Active and hide the XP partition. Then boot to the Windows 7 DVD and install it normally, making sure to select the correct partition.

After Windows 7 is installed, you should be able to switch between them by booting to DD, setting the partition you want to boot Active and hiding the other one.

OSS will have to be installed from XP or from the DD/OSS CD. I would recommend you try installing from XP first.

Windows 7 will have to be added manually after OSS is working with XP.

 

Same problem.
Primary partition C: (40Gb). It's the Windows 7 partition.
I also have logical partition D: (174Gb) and primary FAT32 partition M: (20Gb) for MacOS X.

Help me please