[Download] Vista Hide 'n Seek BETA

Hi again CG

Here is the output fo Drive Grabber:

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1
Disk #1, Partition #0, Type: Extended w/Extended Int 13
G: - GRUB partition #4
J: - GRUB partition #5
Disk #1, Partition #1, Type: Installable File System
C:
\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0
Disk #0, Partition #0, Type: Unknown
D:
Disk #0, Partition #1, Type: Extended w/Extended Int 13
E: - GRUB partition #4
F: - GRUB partition #5
\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE2
Disk #2, Partition #0, Type: MS-DOS V4 Huge
K:

I can say that the above means nothing to me so I don't know whether it is correct or not. What I do know is that:

K: is my 2GB ReadyBoost Memory stick

I have only 3 partitions per HD making 6 in all.

Of those 6 only 2 are NTFS, they also contain, separately, XP Pro & Vista AND somehow they are on the same HD.

When I am running Vista the drives are:

Vista

Vista C:
New XP D:
D2 Vol1E:
Old G F:
Old E G:
DVD H:
CDRW I:
D1 OldCJ:
Rem K:
With Vista running and installed on C:

When I am running XP the drives are:

XP Pro

New XP C:
D2 Vol1 E:
Old G F:
Old E G:
D1 Old CH:
Rem I:
DVD J:
CDRW K:
with XP running and installed on G: NOT C:

I hope the above is useful.

Cheers
 
Thanks for getting back to me, Dave.

One more thing: can you post your final, working C:\menu.lst file?

Thanks!
 
Hi CG

Below is the content of Menu.lst BUT it was on D:\ NOT C:

# NeoSmart Technologies' Vista Hide 'n Seek Beta
# DO NOT MODIFY!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
timeout 30
default 0
title Microsoft Windows Vista
unhide (hd1,1)
find --set-root /BOOTMGR.HNS
makeactive
chainloader /BOOTMGR.HNS
boot
title Windows XP [OLD E (G:\)]
hide (hd1,1)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,1)
chainloader /ntldr
makeactive
boot
# All your boot are belong to NeoSmart!

I await your comments

Cheers
 
Argh ! Problem...

I'm trying to triple boot Vista/XP/Linux on a machine that I've used Vista HnS on before, and it will not let me uninstall the Vista HnS changes, rather, it just gets stuck on Step 1: Uninstalling HnS.

Any ideas on how I can manually reset this to allow me to reconfigure HnS for my new system configuration ?
 
Bad News Guru,
Installed SP1 via WUD last night, and all was OK with Vista apparently.
But this evening, attempting to boot XP, found no boot menu. I'm back to Vista boot (where timeout was zero in EasyBCD). HnS has been ousted by the Vista rebuild which has replaced bootmgr.
If I try to run HnS UI "start over" or try to uninstall HnS, both fail with "cannot add file that's already there".
Presently back with the 2 stage Neogrub boot
What HnS files do I need to delete to be able to run it again ?
 
Last edited:
OK, I think I might need to add a "force removal" switch to HnS to let it recover from an improperly-uninstalled HnS configuration.

Anyway, search for and delete any and all *.hns, *.id, and menu.lst files in the roots of the drives on your PC. Backup all Boot.ini files, then delete them too.
 
Right.
The good news is - I'm single level dual-booting again.
The bad news. Somehow I'm back to the state where HnS gets the disk assignments wrong.
I removed all the old traces and ran the UI again without problems, but the menu.lst created had disk (1,x) where it should have had disk(0,x) and 2 map commands which weren't in my previous menu.lst
I edited menu.lst to look like it did before and everything's working (dual boot wise), but I've no idea how the UI is behaving differently. (it's the version I downloaded before and hasn't changed since the last time I ran it and it produced the right menu.lst)
Something in SP1 must have changed how it sees the system, but I was under the impression that you'd switched to picking up the disk numbers from the BIOS which shouldn't have changed !
 
As far as I know the one I've got (build 38 attachment 213) is the latest one you've posted.
 
I experienced the same problem as Terry when SP1 installed - HnS became quite tangled with the errors on attempting to uninstall/reinstall, mainly being of the form of 'unable to write a file that already exists'. Found my way through the maze largely by trial and error (how Vista SP1 hates alterations to hidden system files!) and eventually by editing menu.1st manually back to where it had been.

The good news is that build 38, once re-installed OK, still worked exactly as before.
 
Follow post 129 instructions. (make sure you've got system files and hidden files viewable in folder options first). Then run HnS again.
If you're lucky like Geoff, it'll just work again. If you're like me you'll need to edit the errors in menu.lst after HnS has created it.
(Or you could just take the timeout(0) out of the Vista boot with EasyBCD and you're back to a pre-HnS two stage boot, but at least XP is bootable)

If you're not confident about editing menu.lst and risking losing your Vista restore points just after such a major upgrade, go with the latter (safer) option and put up with the 2 stage boot for a while.
 
Last edited:
Hi again CG

Obviously I am not as bright as everyone else!!

Installed Vista SP1 a couple of days ago. Thought I'd better check everything was OK and, of cause, it wasn't.

So read thru the latest replies and dir what you said in #129 however although Vista will still bootup XP crashes.

So I did what I think I did before and it still crashes.

So please tell me what should be where. I can't see many boot.ini files since the operations above - should I replace the backups or what?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Cheers

Dave T
 
Terry60 said:
you don't say how XP crashes
Click to expand...

Like it doesn't run!!

All fixed now - it was as I suspected no boot.ini despite what it says in message 129 you NEED a boot.ini file!!!

I didn't get any notification of a response has something gone wrong with the forum?
 
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