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Boot manager for multi-boot


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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.

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I discovered that even though I can boot from the XP partition, I can't get it to be drive C. Since some programs only install to C this will be a problem. So it looks like I need to reinstall that. I expect it will be the same for the Vista installation.

I've decided not to proceed with this until I can figure out how to stop my external drive from being hidden. My first thought is to change it to a logical partition.

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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.

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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.

That is a good point.

Thanks for all your great help.

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Just looked at the OSL docs and it does say to make the partitions Active.

I took another look at the docs and now I see that it does say to make the partition active. I just wish that section was up higher in point 4 so there was no chance of missing this very important point.

This is a really fine program with a great set of features.

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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.

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The only slight feature shortcomings are the minimal partition hiding options

I remember that BootMagic let you configure what partitions are hidden for each OS. But that probably isn't possible for OSL since it is entirely contained in the MBR. OSL's approach should be much safer and trouble-free, as you mentioned earlier.

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You should not generally install boot managers from vista, if vista is not in the boot volume.

Vista changes the system volume (the one where windows is installed) to c:, and programs expecting c: to hold the MBR will invariably not work.

I installed system commander under vista, and it thought that c: was the boot volume, and directed the MBR to start this partition. This is not the active partition, (it was an extended partition on disk 2). Uninstalling the proggie fixed the issues.

You should boot to something like DOS or XP to do the install.

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Hi os2fan2 – I'm sorry but you have some common misconceptions surrounding all of this.

You should not generally install boot managers from vista, if vista is not in the boot volume

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 changes the system volume (the one where windows is installed) to c:, and programs expecting c: to hold the MBR will invariably not work.

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.

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Hi.

I installed Vista onto a partition, in Linux parlance, hdb12\windows. Bootmgr goes onto the active partition, here hda1, but the bulk of files is in hdb12.

Vista assigned this drive (hdb12) as c:, and the rest in standard Windows NT practice. In so far as it did not 'change' the letters, the ordering of letters was such that it was different to what was expected of an NT system, and also not easy to correct. Most of the letters were reset by way of a diskpart session.

Even though individual NT systems merely use DOS style partition names as such, and may call these differently, the previous practice with NT partitions is to put boot manager onto C:, and the program files onto a letter determined at the time the system boots from ~WIN_NT.~BT (ie where the boot searches for the corresponding ~WIN_NT.~LS directory. Having a flash-drive plugged in can change this order!

I then installed System Commander in a Vista session. Its behaviour is to install files to C:\SC, with boot files in C:\. It then points the MBR to load the partition it is installed on. This can't be done for an extended partition, and one is presented with a menu for which partition to boot. One then selects the appropriate partition, and starts the system accordingly.

When one then unstalls System Commander from vista, the system is corrected appropriately.

It is worth noting that junctions and hard links are indeed implemented in the file system, and that hard links created under Windows 2K or Windows Vista are honoured by the other system, as long as the drive letters match. So if for example, q:\downloads and o:\users\public\downloads [as they are seen in Windows 2k], point to n:\downloads, then one reboots to Vista, where the respective directories are q:\downloads and c:\users\public\downloads, Vista will still redirect these to n:\downloads. If n:\ drive is some other letter, like the default value of j:\, (or in vista, k:), these links do not work.

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