Tri-Boot:XP-Vista-Win7 - How to use HnS

[NetNut]

I have a system with 3 SATA drives (300GB each).

Drive 1 - OS drives (and two logical data partitions for misc) OS's go as follows: XP (hd0,1), Vista (hd0,2) and Win7 (hd0,3).
Drive 2 - PageFile1 on Primary Parition and the rest is a Logical partition with all of my data (Tools/Utilities/User Data)
Drive 3 - PageFile2 on Primary Partition and the rest is all a Logical parition with all of my data (Games/Vids)

I used to have Acronis OS selector but I got tired of the darn MBR ERROR 3 that happens continuously with that application, forcing a repair of the installation almost daily. So I moved to EasyBCD.

At that time I only had XP and VIsta installed and all worked fine. However I did miss the hiding of my OS partitions from the booted OS I was in. Anyhow, I installed Windows7 beta on a new partition (hd0,3) on my Drive 1. All runs fine.. or will once I get this answer.

I was looking for a way to hide the Vista OS partition from the XP paritition and I found that NeoSmart has the cool tool "Hide and Seek" [HnS]. I downloaded it and installed it in my Vista OS. I chose not only my Vista partition but also my Win7 partition (as Vista) to hide from XP.

Well now the issue is that I can not get back to Windows 7. I wanted to add a new entry to the menu.lst but it specifically warns you in the header to "NOT MODIFY" the file.

So, What should I do?

I would like to do the following:

1) Hide the Vista and Win7 partitions from the XP OS when booted into XP OS.
2) Hide the XP and Win7 partitions from the VIsta when booted into the Vista OS.
3) Hide the Vista and XP partitions from Win7 when booted into the Win7 OS.

Is HnS the proper tool for this? If so, than how would I proceed? and.. can I edit the menu.lst file (and what would I add?)?

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer. It is very much appreciated.

[Coolname007]

Originally Posted by NetNut

I would like to do the following:

1) Hide the Vista and Win7 partitions from the XP OS when booted into XP OS.
2) Hide the XP and Win7 partitions from the VIsta when booted into the Vista OS.
3) Hide the Vista and XP partitions from Win7 when booted into the Win7 OS.

Is HnS the proper tool for this? If so, than how would I proceed? and.. can I edit the menu.lst file (and what would I add?)?

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer. It is very much appreciated.

Why hide the partitions from Vista and Win 7? You only need to hide Vista from XP, because if you don't, XP will overwrite Vista's restores! But you will be fine, if you have all the OSes visible to Vista, and Win 7.

-Coolname007

[kairozamorro]

The win 7 drive during the selection proccess should be marked as a vista drive (not xp).
Undo the hiding and rerun the UI specifying each drive and how you want it setup.

[NetNut]

Originally Posted by kairozamorro

The win 7 drive during the selection proccess should be marked as a vista drive (not xp).
Undo the hiding and rerun the UI specifying each drive and how you want it setup.

It was selected as a "Vista" partition, not "XP" when I was setting up HnS.

[kairozamorro]

Alright HnS has been reported to work with Win 7, but your case may be an exception here since you got Vista as well along with XP. Win 7 and HnS are still in beta stages. I don't have that much experience with troubleshooting first hand problems with HnS, but come back a few hours later and Terry60, PC eye, or the developer himself should be able to give you a better answer.

[NetNut]

Originally Posted by Coolname007

Why hide the partitions from Vista and Win 7? You only need to hide Vista from XP, because if you don't, XP will overwrite Vista's restores! But you will be fine, if you have all the OSes visible to Vista, and Win 7.

-Coolname007

I realize that the only issue will be the system restores, however I would like to keep the other OS partitions hidden for safety sake. It's me being paranoid of one OS having an issue and corrupting the other boot drives.

Addendum:

Originally Posted by kairozamorro

Alright HnS has been reported to work with Win 7, but your case may be an exception here since you got Vista as well along with XP. Win 7 and HnS are still in beta stages. I don't have that much experience with troubleshooting first hand problems with HnS, but come back a few hours later and Terry60, PC eye, or the developer himself should be able to give you a better answer.

Thank you.. I was hoping that more eyes on the issue and my desired outcome would be most beneficial.

Thanks

[kairozamorro]

You can remove the lettering in disk management from the partitions you don't want you or your programs having direct access to. That's how I'm going about it myself in Win 7 so that if there are corruption issues it won't get to my everyday OSes and files.

[Coolname007]

Originally Posted by NetNut

I realize that the only issue will be the system restores, however I would like to keep the other OS partitions hidden for safety sake. It's me being paranoid of one OS having an issue and corrupting the other boot drives.

Yes, but having XP and Vista visible to Win 7, and having XP and Win 7 visible to Vista can prove useful, in case you ever need to copy over files from one OS to the other. It will save you time, and prevent having to copy files to an external HDD first, and then rebooting into the other OS, to copy your files over.

Cheers!

-Coolname007

[NetNut]

Originally Posted by kairozamorro

You can remove the lettering in disk management from the partitions you don't want you or your programs having direct access to. That's how I'm going about it myself in Win 7 so that if there are corruption issues it won't get to my everyday OSes and files.

Is that particular to each OS instance? Meaning I will need to change in each OS?

Won't that cause issues with EasyBCD on booting the XP OS? Mine is drive letter J: while in VIsta and HnS, as well as EasyBCD, needed the drive letter for the OS to make it available on the boot menu. (did it not?)

Addendum:

Originally Posted by Coolname007

Yes, but having XP and Vista visible to Win 7, and having XP and Win 7 visible to Vista can prove useful, in case you even need to copy over files from one OS to the other. It will save you time, and prevent having to copy files to an external HDD first, and then rebooting into the other OS, to copy your files over.

Cheers!

-Coolname007

True.. and good point. I have a server in the environment so I move files through that method when necessary but you make a great argument. However, lets say that I just did not want to lose my system restores in Vista, is there any other way to keep from doing so?

[kairozamorro]

Nope doesn't matter if it needs it. All the boot files for my OSes for example are on my XP partition. Though this is so I still have Win 7 setup not to give it a letter. It remembers it from one boot to another and yes you'll need to do it for each instance (each OS).

[Coolname007]

Originally Posted by NetNut

However, lets say that I just did not want to lose my system restores in Vista, is there any other way to keep from doing so?

Of course! Simply hide Vista (and for that matter Win 7 as well, while i'm thinking about it...) from XP, and you will no longer have that problem!

Cheers!

-Coolname007

[NetNut]

Originally Posted by kairozamorro

Nope doesn't matter if it needs it. All the boot files for my OSes for example are on my XP partition. Though this is so I still have Win 7 setup not to give it a letter. It remembers it from one boot to another and yes you'll need to do it for each instance (each OS).

Ok.. Thats option one than.. I would like to hide them, so I will see what others offer, but your idea/solution is doable.

Thank you for the great information!

Addendum:

Originally Posted by Coolname007

Of course! Simply hide Vista (and for that matter Win 7 as well, while i'm thinking about it...) from XP, and you will no longer have that problem!

Cheers!

-Coolname007

Ok.. Than back to my original questions in my post.

[kairozamorro]

Check out this article on the issue. It shows you a registry zap you do in XP so the drive appears "offline" though XP seess it. You must keep the drive letter for that drive though no content can be accessed from it upon reboot. It is MS's solution to the restore point issue, but doesn't work for everyone. I can confirm that it does work though, as I've never touched HnS before due to me getting it work. I haven't confirmed this to be an issue with Windows 7 yet, though we suspect it may be. It is a test I am going to do sometime this week and get back to.

[Coolname007]

Originally Posted by NetNut

Well now the issue is that I can not get back to Windows 7. I wanted to add a new entry to the menu.lst but it specifically warns you in the header to "NOT MODIFY" the file.

That is just to keep you from changing anything else in the file. Adding additional entries should work just fine.

-Coolname007

[kairozamorro]

You know to this menu.lst it couldn't hurt to add the appropriate hide/unhide commands to the correct entries manually as well...

hide (hd1,2)
Hides the 2nd disk, 2nd partition
unhide (hd0,2)
Unhides the 1st disk, 2nd partition