McTavish

You can only extend a partition from its ending point on a disk and only if there is free space that you can extend into. In your case you cannot extend D: because it is already at the end of the drive. If you deleted D: then you could extend C: into the new free space. The Vista tools can also shrink partitions, but again only from the same side. You cannot move the starting point of an existing partition. Many third-party tools can move partitions the other way on a drive, but I am not an advocate of such things because it is a complex operation that can be prone to errors. If you need to move partitions in that direction it is safer and quicker to delete the partition and create a new one at the desired position.

The Vista tools can only extend partitions the other way on a drive. To move the starting sector of a partition you will need third-party software, but be aware that this type of operation is risky and not something I would recommend. You would be better making an image or a clone of the Windows partition, then delete the original and restore to the new location. Safer and probably much quicker. Of course Vista’s starting sector on a hard drive (its offset) is used in the boot process so if you move the beginning of the partition it will render Vista unbootable. You would either have to know how to repair Vista after the move, or be sure any third-party software you use is fully Vista compatible and capable of making the necessary adjustments for you. The only third-party tools I can vouch for at the moment are those from Paragon.

Try setting 'Hybrid Sleep' to Off and hibernate may then become an option. http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/e...24dc111033.mspx

When you get the ‘can’t copy’ error eject the CD and then put it back in and wait till you here it spin-up and then click retry. Works for me most times I get this problem, on some machines the CD will sometimes not start up again by itself.

Hi os2fan2 – I'm sorry but you have some common misconceptions surrounding all of this. I assume when you say 'Boot volume' you mean what Microsoft calls the System volume. http://homepages.tesco.net/%7EJ.deBoynePol...em-volumes.html I can't remember for Partition Commander, but with OSL it does not matter, it will always target the correct drive no matter where you install it from. Vista does not 'change' the drive letter of the system volume or any volume because volumes do not have drive letters to change. Drive letters are simply the labels that each Windows install gives to the volumes it sees. They are not fixed to the volume in any way and when you are not in that Windows there is no letter to a volume. When you install a second Windows and use the Microsoft boot manager, the second Windows will look to see what the first is calling a volume, and then simply say to itself “I'll call it that as well”. When you install Vista by booting the computer from the DVD it will not follow this old convention but simply label volumes in the default order as it sees them. So XP might see a volume as one letter and Vista as another – both are right. Not sure about the second part or your comment. The MBR is not connected in any way to volumes or drive letters. The muddling of drive letters and the installing of programs to the C: volume when it is not the volume that Windows is running from, is a feature and an old problem of using the Microsoft bootmanager. When using OSL none of this applies.

It's rock solid and dependable and if anything does overwrite it a 10 second reinstall brings everything back. The only slight feature shortcomings are the minimal partition hiding options, and that you can only rename 30 bootmenu items – but not many people run into that one.

Actually try and boot the partition with OSL that you want to make active. This will set it Active and Unhidden. Then Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot to the boot menu again.

You can't change the Windows XP drive letter I'm afraid. Well, not quite can't, but it's not worth the effort, easier reinstalling. I've not tried Vista on this front yet and it may prove more possible, but I doubt it. http://www.msfn.org/board/Change_Boot_Driv...iti_t90495.html Because you just have a simple setup of only XP and Vista OSes you don't really need partition hiding turned on in OSL. Turn it off and then just unmount the partitions you don't want visible by removing their drive letters in Disk Management in each install.

What OS is on each of the first two partitions? In what order did you install all three OSes? What changes have you made so far? I'm assuming that partition two is the second Vista install that you mentioned. That you installed XP first and then two installs of Vista. All your boot files would have then been inside XP on the first partition – the System Partition. You now have the third partition Vista booting all by itself, so you moved bootmgr and BCD from XP into that install and can now boot it with OSL. Did you replace the PBR in your XP install so that it now boots directly by OSL? If that's how it is, then copy the bootmgr file and boot folder from the Vista that has them to the one that does not. You will need to do this from XP as the BCD will be in use in Vista. If you have not yet removed all the boot options from the Vista menu then you can now boot the second partition Vista by the entry in the menu that always booted it. If you have removed the other boot entries then you will need to fix the BCD. Set the second partition as the Active one on the disk, make sure it's not hidden, then boot the computer from the Vista DVD and proceed with a normal install until you get to the point where it asks for the product key. Press Shift-F10 to open the command prompt. Run bootrec /rebuildbcd and it will find OSes and ask which ones you want added. Only accept to add the C: \Windows install. (It does not matter what drive letters Windows see themselves as, the DVD will see the Active partition as C:) If you get other options then decline them and exit and reboot.

Your denial of access to the hard disk in Vista I would guess is because of access restrictions. Try opening the command prompt as Administrator, (right click on the CP shortcut and choose that option). If that does not work then turn off UAC. Just looked at the OSL docs and it does say to make the partitions Active. If you are happy reinstalling Vista in the correct manner then that should fix things for you. You will of course have to reinstall OSL afterwards as Vista will overwrite it. Make sure you can install OSL from floppy or CD, just in case you can't get to the desktop. It should be possible to fix your current install, but you would need to get it correct. I would have to know your exact setup to help.

You haven't grasped it yet 0sync0. Only one of your Windows installs will have their own boot files on their own partition. Trying to directly boot any of the others won't work. If you had XP installed before Vista, then your Vista boot files are inside XP.

Getting rid of the Vista bootmanager could be tricky depending on your setup. You would need to post me a screenshot of your drives in Disk Management. This page should explain to you the possible problems. www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html Don't know why OSL only seen one USB drive. I've never had 2 connected. Most of OSL's configuration can be done from the bootmenu screen. Once set you should never need to adjust it. You can do some things from inside Windows, but I've only ever played with these options, a long time ago. You'll need to read the manual I'm afraid.

This should solve your problem. www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_upgrade_clean.asp Do a new clean Vista install direct to your SATA drive, then upgrade over the top of it.

Sorry, but why do you want to? Were you using the Vista bootmanager before? Any third party bootmanager will not replace the Vista one. If you already allowed the installation of the Vista bootmanager it will mean that one or more of your OSes do not have their own boot files on their own partition and so you will have to continue to use the Vista bootmanager to be able to boot them. You will need to remove the Vista bootmanager yourself, but of course make all you OSes independently bootable before you do so. It kinds of defeats the purpose of using a third party bootmanager if your OSes have already been linked together by the Windows one. All it's seeing is the partition table in the MBR, it does not mean that there is any bootcode in there. By default it lists all formatted partitions, if they are not bootable you can remove them from the boot menu with F5. I've used OSL for so long - several years - that I have just got used to its partition hiding options and I configure the system to work with them. I forgot that if you have a data partition that is on a primary partition it could be a problem. When you set partition hiding in OSL it will mean all primary partitions but the one you are booting into will be hidden. There are two ways round it, you can turn off partition hiding and then use Disk Management in each NT OS to remove the drive letters from just the partitions you don't want to see. Or the other way is to make your data partitions logical ones. Personally I do this from the outset, but it is possible to convert them later if you have a trustworthy partitioning tool. I'm not a fan of such operations and consider them risky, so I can't recommend conversion. The free Gag has the same partition hiding options as OSL, but both XOSL and Boot-us have options to hide only the partitions you want.

Bootmagic changed the MBR of the hard drive, and the PBR of the partition that it was installed on. The excellent free XOSL works in the same way and was far superior to BootMagic. There is however a small issue with it and Vista if they are both on the same drive. It changes the Disk Signature in the MBR and so causes Vista boot problems. www2.arnes.si/%7Efkomar/xosl.org I would recommend a boot manager that resides entirely in the MBR and does not touch any partitions. These three all work fine with Vista. www.osloader.com http://gag.sourceforge.net www.boot-us.com The first one is my personal favourite because it builds the boot menu for you on every boot – not free however. EDIT: I can't get links to work in this post and the GAG link always gets a comma added to disable it. Remove the comma from the end of the link in your browser.