Please help me with os selector and windows 7

That's odd. Does it do the same thing if you change the Active partition from the DD CD instead of in Windows? I don't recommend making changes like that when Windows is running.

I assume you mean you hid the XP OSS menu entry and not the partition.

From the manual:

 

Is OSS currently installed?

If it is, does it boot successfully into XP?

OSS will place a BOOTWIZ folder on each Windows partition. The main BOOTWIZ folder contains many files and several sub-folders. The other BOOTWIZ folders usually only contain one file.

Have you followed the instructions shown here for finding the file?

 

I used the DD disk just now and set the Win 7 partition to Active without further incident. Wierd as hell.

Got my XP boot option back by just re-imaging by the way. Didn't know you'd be posting this late, lol

XP & Vista were hid & Win 7 successfully reinstalled as Active

Ok heres the update plus a screenshot of Win 7 Computer Management:


I am posting from Win 7 now. Have not Unhidden XP nor Vista yet (even in the screenshot)

 

Hmmm. I don't know a lot about this but I have to wonder why they have drive letters assigned to them if they're still hidden? Right click on one of them and see if you can access the properties from the context menu. When I'm in Win 7 I can't see the drive letters or drive name or access the drive (partition) properties from the context menu. Do they not show up in Windows Explorer?

 

This is a snippit from within Win 7 (sorry about the size). The 1st two partitions on disk 3 are my Win 7 installation, and the last partiton on that disk is just a scratch partition for temporary files. Everything else is hidden. Don't know the ramifications of Win 7 seeing your other OS partitions, but you probably don't want XP to see Win 7 (I think it will trash your restore points). Just noticed that the the 'Free Space' & '% Free' columns show my other partitions as being empty (which they most definately are not), which is quite different that the way XP shows hidden partitions. Maybe that has something to do with your partiton getting wiped out somehow.

 

Ummm...is there a difference btw hiding a partition in the OSS and from DD? I did the hiding in OSS

 

If you are actively trying to hide partitions from an OS while you are in it, then the OS you are in will already know about them, which is probably not a good thing. If you hide the partitons in OSS while you are in windows, they are only hidden when the system boots, so they're visible until that point at least, and that can cause problems. It's a bit more complicated with DD (MudCrab could explain it better). What you really want to do is hide them while booting from the Acronis boot/rescue CD. So if you create a partition with DD and then use TI to copy the Image to the partition (all from the boot cd), then reboot and go into The OSS startup loader (before any installed OS loads) and set it up to hide what ever partitions you want (including hiding the new OS from any other OS), the partitions will effectively be as hidden as possible when that OS boots. I only set up partitions with OSS in windows if the OS I am setting up is different than the one I am currently in. I hope that makes some sense. I'm not the best technical writer, and I know little compared to MudCrab - I'm just a crabbling

 

in the folder BOOTWIZ of win7 only appears context.oss

 

this is the bootwiz of xp

 

I with you there. I did the hiding from OSS boot disk, not in windows. I also made the Win 7 partition Active in boot DD, not windows. My only question is if there's a difference btw hiding using the OSS boot vs the DD boot.


New Issue: Anyone else notice you can't get the BOOTWIZ folder to open in WIn 7? "C:\BOOTWIZ is not accessable. Access is denied." Is there a permission thing to deal with? UAC?
Hell even the dang BOOTWIZ.OSS file on my Vista partition is unreadable from Win 7!

 

Every partition has a BOOTWIZ folder with 'context.oss' in it. But when you installed OS Selector, you chose to install it to a specific partition, which will have the BOOTWIZ folder with all the good stuff in it that MudCrab needs - in this case it's apparently in the xp partition. Mudcrab has to work his magic on the file you included.

 

Crab was up pretty late lastnight posting here & maybe eating Cheetos. May be napping in a little

 

Big difference - Hiding them in OSS will permanently hide them - that is, every time you boot that os, it's partition settings are set before the os loads. On the other hand, DD just hides them once, and is not associated with a particular OS installation. If you disable every partition in DD, then boot through OSS, you will find the os loads with the partitions set as you defined them in OSS.

Yep, same for me - it's a permissions thing. It may be because you created it in a different OS, thus the owner will be some strange string of characters.
Right click on the folder, select properties, then select security, then advanced (near the bottom), then finally click on 'owner'. Mine says
S-1-5-21-4053339515-1043698242-49146188-1000, which certainly isn't the same as John or Admisistrator.


You can try and take ownership of it but I'm not sure of the outcome - might mess it up. Now that I got everything working ok I'll let someone else check it out

 

Yeah I saw that - he's helped a lot of people here. Smart dude too.

 

Hoo-wee I fixt it! Details with screen shots to follow...
R Click BOOTWIZ folder | Properties | Security Tab | Advanced Button | Owner Tab | Highlight what you see inside the parenthesis | Effective Permissions tab | Select Button | Paste in default text box & Click Check Names button, hit ok. Choose permissions if need be. This trick will NOT work on the BOOTWIZ.OSS file on the Vista partition while in Win 7.

 

Cool - I'll have to hang around to see this

 

Cool. Didn't think you would of had the authority to change the permissions.
Now I don't have to worry about changing the owner. Did you install OSS from Win 7 or another OS? I tried to copy the BOOTWIZ folder before to back it up and there was like 5 files it wouldn't let me copy. Maybe this will fix it. Thanx.

 

Dallas Vette,

You shouldn't need to do anything with the other BOOTWIZ folders. The main one is the only one that needs accessed.

The partitions in your screenshot do appear as not hidden. You would need to post the BOOTWIZ.OSS file so I could see it or check the properties for the Windows 7 entry and verify that the XP and Vista partitions are set as hidden.

As jebbrown said, OSS will override and partition settings you set with DD. If you want to use DD to manage the settings after OSS is installed (to run a test or troubleshooting, for example), OSS needs to be deactivated first.

 

Installed OSS sometime ago in Vista. Maybe that's why I can't read the BOOTWIZ.OSS file on the Vista partition from Win 7 because poss Acronis precludes it for safety at a lower level an even an Administrative permission from Win 7 can clear.

 

I used OSS boot disk to hide the XP and Vista partitions...did I do it wrong? What's the proper way to hide the partitions? (I can't access BOOTWIZ.OSS anymore. I screwed up the permissions somehow and can't get it back. I just want to start over)

 

here is my bootwiz.txt need your help for configurate the file mudcrab

 

When booting through OSS, OSS handles the hiding of partitions. If you right-click on the OSS menu entry for the OS and select the Properties option from the pop-up menu, you'll get the options for that entry. Under the Partitions section, you can select which partitions are hidden.

When you're trying to access the main BOOTWIZ folder, are you doing it when booted to the OS that exists on that partition or from another OS? For example, if the main OSS folder is on your Vista partition, are you booted into Vista when trying to access the folder and the BOOTWIZ.OSS file?

 

There's no file attached (unless you want me to look at the one attached to post #84).

 

Update: Okay I figured out the Hiding business. Evidently what you are able to hide is relative to which startup object you select. R clicking on an OS & going to its properties means you can't hide that OS. Strategy is to put in the Win 7 install disc and wait for a selectable icon popup to appear on your OSS menu. R clicking on that only then are you able to hide all other OS partitions. Then I went ahead with another Win 7 scratch install.

NOW my major problem is that despite enabling all File/Folder viewing permissions I cannot get a BOOTWIZ folder to show up!!!

 

That's correct. However, I usually don't do it that way. First, I like more control when installing. Second, my DVD drive doesn't show up in OSS so I couldn't do it that way even if I did want to.

I usually deactivate OSS and then use DD to manually set the partition settings how I want. Once the new OS is installed, I reactivate OSS.

I don't see why you needed to do this.

If you didn't uninstall OSS, the main BOOTWIZ folder should still be on the same partition as before. Can you find it using the Command Prompt? If you boot to the DD CD and start DD and Explore the partition, can you find it?

If OSS is working, it has to be there somewhere.