Updated to latest version of DD and secondary XP OS disappeared?

Hi all,

I'm frustrated because I had this set-up and working perfectly. I upgraded to the latest Disk Director and it wanted to uninstall and reinstall itself so I let it. After reboot, I then proceeded to install OSS but my secondary XP install had disappeared. It's on another partition labeled "F" but on the same drive as C which contains the primary XP install.

I tried using the OS detection wizard in OSS but no matter what options I tried, it would not detect an OS on F:.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

Okay been doing a lot of reading (and rebooting )

Have learnt that OSS really doesn't like working with OS's on logical partitions (which is what I have my secondary XP on) and there are a whole bunch of instructions in various posts related to copying the primary partition into an unallocated space and tweaking the bootwiz.oss files to suit (https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=184826&highlight=make partition primary)

The problem with this method is that my XP's are not the same, one is a Media Center edition and the second is Professional. I distinctly need to install two separate versions of XP and just copying one to the other isn't going to help in this case.

The really strange this is that I had this set-up and working perfectly twice before without having to go in there and do complex copying of partitions or editing bootwiz files. I even had OSS installed on the primary partition. The only difference I can think of is; installed a fresh version of XP after making a partition for it. I sincerely hope I don't have to do this again

Am I out of luck?

 

Were your XP installations setup so when one was booted the other was hidden?

Since XP will not normally install to a Logical partition directly (it installs its boot files on a Primary partition), I assume that they were (and may still be) on the Primary partition.

Did both installs have the Windows partition assigned the C: drive letter?

When you reinstalled OSS, it sounds like you did it from Windows. Is that correct?

When OSS was reinstalled, was the XP that's not getting detected on a hidden partition?

I assume the "missing" XP is still on your hard drive, on a logical partition. You shouldn't have to do any copying to fix it, but it may take some manual editing of the BOOTWIZ.OSS file.

Can you attach the BOOTWIZ.OSS file to a post? (Make a copy and rename it BOOTWIZ.TXT to allow it to upload.) It may help to see what it shows.

 

It may also help to see the BOOT.INI file from the Primary XP partition and the one from the Logical partition (if there is one).

 

I'm going to try and do my best to remember but at the time I didn't know anything about primaries and logicals. I have to assume that I installed XP to the whole drive first then used DD to partition this up into the needed sections to organize my data and then I installed the second XP into one of the unallocated partitions.
I obviously was able to install OSS and have it switching between these two.
It'll have to be "best guess" for what OS was a primary/logical I'm afraid as that's the best that I can recall.

I'm now attaching the requested bootwiz and boot ini's for you. Bare in mind that I have been mucking around with this and have deleted the old OSS installation in order to move it to it's own partition (which hasn't fixed anything.)
Apologies about the confusing load of partitions, the FAT ones are the DELL installed ones apart from the last one which is now for OSS.

The NTFS partitions are from two hard-drives each containing one primary and the rest logical. Hope this helps

 

Doesn't seem to want to attach that second boot.ini. I'll plonk them in here:

PRIMARY boot.ini

Code:

[boot loader]
;timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="OS Windows XP Media Center Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
;multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(6)\WINDOWS="DAW Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

LOGICAL boot.ini

Code:

[boot loader]
;timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="OS Windows XP Media Center Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
;multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(6)\WINDOWS="DAW Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

 

Good news, I have been able to fix it. I usually get it sussed but the amount of fiddling can sometimes be exponential

For those interested or who come across a similar problem. All I had to do was rebuild the bootcfg.

This is done by putting in an XP CD to boot from and loading up Recovery Console. I logged into the XP installation that wasn't getting shown (in this case #2) and did "bootcfg /list". I could see only the primary XP listed here so obviously the bootrecord was wrong. Doing "bootcfg /rebuild" I just added the XP on the logical partition. I.e. Filled in the Load Identifier and Execute options, basically copied from the primary XP that was given in /list but with a different name. Booted to OSS and et viola, my secondary XP install was visible

Good thing I got it, was very close to a format which would have set me back a few days!

 

I'm glad you got it figured out. It was too late for me last night to go further.

If you don't mind, could you please post the updated BOOT.INI files and the BOOTWIZ.OSS file? I would like to see what the differences are. It may help to determine what OSS did.

 

Sure thing, I'll post them here. No worries though, we all need our sleep huh? Sounds about right for me after an all nighter

primary boot.ini

Code:

[boot loader]
;timeout=20
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(5)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(5)\WINDOWS="DAW Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
;multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="OS Windows Media Center Edition (English)" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
;multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="OS Windows XP Media Center Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
;multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(6)\WINDOWS="DAW Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

logical boot.ini

Code:

[boot loader]
;timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="OS Windows XP Media Center Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
;multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(6)\WINDOWS="DAW Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

bootwiz.oss

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<bootwiz>
	<disks>
		<id2543613210 bios_num="128" crc="32786195" real_bios_num="128" serial="20370" size="192426569" />
		<id703936379 bios_num="129" crc="976751986" real_bios_num="129" serial="41110" size="976748545" />
	</disks>
	<cds>
		<cd id="3031034132" md5_summ="51be8c3692da15eb60efb2a5fe8235bd" />
		<cd id="3565677170" md5_summ="cbea2f1eab40a4159c454d59eeee9443" />
		<cd id="1786399015" md5_summ="c7036b85ed99f5ccf166278e9166ad27" />
	</cds>
	<partitions>
		<id598879341 begin="63" crc="38481" disk="2543613210" fs="fat16" number="1" serial="1609d607" size="96327" type="222" />
		<id3166985505 begin="96390" crc="54011" disk="2543613210" fs="ntfs" number="2" serial="d981239ca4239cd2" size="53383995" type="7" />
		<id181640985 begin="53480452" crc="54011" disk="2543613210" fs="ntfs" number="5" serial="0f8d8c1b5d0b557a" size="74878898" type="7" />
		<id3593281625 begin="128359413" crc="54011" disk="2543613210" fs="ntfs" number="6" serial="fba49348dc93486a" size="54106857" type="7" />
		<id3207256023 begin="182466270" crc="45913" disk="2543613210" fs="fat32" number="4" serial="00000000" size="9735390" type="219" />
		<id483997445 begin="192201723" crc="33906" disk="2543613210" fs="fat32" number="7" serial="c8f053f7" size="208782" type="11" />
		<id3974074716 begin="63" crc="21576" disk="703936379" fs="fat32" number="1" serial="d6bbf577" size="976751937" type="12" />
	</partitions>
	<oses>
		<id1113354433 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="598879341" bootname="bootsect.sys" hidden="1" icon="icon_sys_unknown" language="" lba="0" name_template="DellUtility" nthide="0" os_type="unknown" uninstall_info="1" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
			<partitions>
				<id598879341 active="1" />
				<id3974074716 active="1" />
			</partitions>
		</id1113354433>
		<id2177722542 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="3207256023" bootname="bootsect.sys" hidden="1" icon="icon_sys_unknown" language="" lba="0" name_template="fooked" nthide="0" os_type="unknown" uninstall_info="1" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
			<partitions>
				<id3207256023 active="1" />
				<id3974074716 active="1" />
			</partitions>
		</id2177722542>
		<id3618479862 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="3166985505" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_win" language="english" lba="1" multi="multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS" name_template="OS Windows XP Media Center" nthide="0" os_type="ntxp" uninstall_info="1" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
			<partitions>
				<id3166985505 active="1" />
				<id3974074716 active="1" />
			</partitions>
		</id3618479862>
		<id3161353955 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd="3031034132" boot_cd_entry="0" icon="icon_sys_winold" language="" lba="1" locked="1" name_template="Windows" nthide="0" os_type="cd" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="0">
			<partitions>
				<id3166985505 active="1" />
				<id3974074716 active="1" />
			</partitions>
		</id3161353955>
		<id2688500721 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd="3565677170" boot_cd_entry="0" icon="icon_sys_winold" language="" lba="1" locked="1" name_template="Windows (2)" nthide="0" os_type="cd" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="0">
			<partitions>
				<id3166985505 active="1" />
				<id3974074716 active="1" />
			</partitions>
		</id2688500721>
		<id4112796226 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd="1786399015" boot_cd_entry="0" icon="icon_sys_acronis_loader" language="" lba="1" locked="1" name_template="Acronis Loader" nthide="0" os_type="cd" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="0">
			<partitions>
				<id3166985505 active="1" />
				<id3974074716 active="1" />
			</partitions>
		</id4112796226>
		<id1631296696 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="3166985505" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_win" language="english" lba="1" multi="multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(5)\WINDOWS" name_template="DAW Windows XP Professional" nthide="0" os_type="ntxp" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
			<partitions>
				<id3166985505 active="1" />
				<id3974074716 active="1" />
			</partitions>
		</id1631296696>
	</oses>
	<checkfiles>
		<checkfile crc="0" name="io.sys" partition="3166985505" size="0" />
		<checkfile crc="3899" name="ntldr" partition="3166985505" size="250032" />
		<checkfile crc="55212" name="boot.ini" partition="3166985505" size="542" />
		<checkfile crc="27317" name="boot.ini" partition="3593281625" size="317" />
	</checkfiles>
	<bootmgr default_os="3618479862" disks_order_feature="1" />
	<uninstall_info>
		<active_lba_state>
			<p1-1 />
			<p1-2 active="1" />
			<p1-3 lba="1" />
			<p1-5 />
			<p1-6 />
			<p1-4 />
			<p1-7 />
			<p2-1 active="1" lba="1" />
		</active_lba_state>
	</uninstall_info>
</bootwiz>

i don't really understand what OSS has done. The primary .ini is weird in that it's got dupes now? Partiton 5 and 6 should be the same. I daren't touch anything though in case I mess it up again.. All I know is that it's booting just how I need it right now. Hmm.

 

I am pleased you figured it out.

Incidentally this may be of interest:

I have multi-booted XP dozens of times using the XP boot-loader and after the first XP is obviously put into a primary partition XP then often installs itself automatically into a logical partition. So, XP apparently can choose for itself what type of partition will follow the first one.