finally got it working ... but

C

Chiefluffe

Member
hi all im new at this dual booting thingie and has been trying to get it to work for a week on my computer now .. and finally i got it working with the BCD2.0 version beta but there are some problems that i hope someone can help me with in here :happy:

1. i bought a new HDD 500gb and partionered it in 2 equal sized halfs one for vista 64 and one for xp 32 bit and then i installed vista on the C: drive ofc .. and then i installed xp on the other E:\ then BCD .. my problem is that when i boot in to vista my drive with vista on it is called C:\ like it should .. but when i boot in to xp who ive installed on the other partition E:\ i thought that BCD would change it so it was called C:\ aswell but it doesent my vista is still the C:\ drive and xp is on E:\ and the problem is that i am having problems installing programs like simple videodrivers for my gfx card .. and i just know that its because that the XP is not the C:\ drive its the E:\ and programs are having problems installing on it cuz they want to install on a C:\ drive not a E its not good to run an OS on other drives then a C:\

dont know if this makes any sense at all to u .. having a hard time trying to explain this :??

2. do i have to configure BCD both in vista and in xp or only one of the OS 's cuz maybe thats what i did wrong ?

asus M4N72-E / AMD DC 6000+ / 6GB 800mhz / WD 500gb HDD / nvidia club 3d GTX 275 / SB X-FI music / termaltake PS 850W / NEC3520 DVDburner
 
Hi Chief, welcome to NST.
It's not a problem with EasyBCD or with the boot at all.
The general rule is that when you install any flavour of Windows it will call itself C:\, unless when it installs it can "see" another Windows, in which case the behaviour of different Windows versions seems to vary.
If you want your XP to be C:\ when it's booted, you'll need to install it with Vista hidden.
It's not an insurmountable problem having XP as notC:\ (My Vista is C: and XP is D: whichever one is booted).
As you've discovered, the only problem is not having XP as notC: It's XP being able to see a C:\ disk while it's booted as notC:.
This is entirely down to sloppy coding by 3rd party software Vendors, Adobe being a prime offender, who will insist on placing files in C:\Program Files\Common Files and C:\Users\Username.....if it can find them, even when you've specifically told it to install in X:\Adobe, and when the OS is notC:.
They never check what the OS is installed on, they just assume it's C:.
If they're forced to check (i.e. There isn't a C:\ visible at all), they'll use the correct OS files.

Because XP, every time you boot it, will destroy all Vista restore points, you should not be letting XP see Vista anyway. Have a read of this, and try the Microsoft registry hack linked early on. It may prevent XP being able to see Vista for you.
If it doesn't work for you (It didn't for me with a similar configuration to yours), then you can use HnS which is described in the next section.
Once you're successfully hiding Vista from XP and protecting your restore points, you'll need to uninstall all 3rd party apps which have conflicted, on both systems, and then reinstall them when the nonC: system can no longer see the C:
 
Last edited:
hi again .. and thx a million for the quick reply :smile:

ok i installed the Vista HnS Beta Build 61 and i did the configuration and rebooted trying to go to XP .. the vista hns screen came up and there was only one OS to choose from .. Vista .. i press it and then another screen comes telling me what OS i want to boot .. i choose XP .. and then i just get a REALLY quick message that i have no chance of reading and then black screen with a marker blinking in the upper left corner .. then nothing happens .. i reboot again and chose to boot in to vista and that works like a charm .. what am i doing wrong here ? im sry if this is not the place to put this question .. but im VERY nuubish at this, think that i maybe am in over my head here with all this .. thought it would be easyer to dual boot then this tbh but i havent given up yet so i hope that u can help me with this also ? :smile:

regards Luffe
 
Did you click once on the Vista drive and twice on the XP to mark it as an XP drive ?
Post the HnS installation log (you'll find it in the same folder where you upacked and ran the UI.exe).
The second menu was the Vista BCD menu. It should have behaved exactly as it did before you ran UI.exe, unless you used the HnS last stage option to go in there and change something.
When HnS is running the dual-boot, you'll need to go in the BCD menu and set timeout(0) so that you don't see that menu any more.
The logic is like this, so you can see that once HnS is working, the BCD is only needed to boot Vista.
If you were to choose XP from the second menu, it would be booting XP without having hidden Vista first.
Only by booting XP from the 1st menu (HnS), will the hide commands be issued first.
 
hi again .. sry for the late answer but i had some things to take care of ..

well i tryied what u sayd and it went well the first time .. but it still dont call my E:\ (where i have installed xp on) for the c:\ drive .. i still have problems installing things on the xp partition
the vista was hidden so thats good tho .. but then comes the problem .. i rebooted and tryied to go in to XP again but then it made an error telling that i was missing some files or something .. so then it didn work again :smile: vista is still working fine with booting in to it .. damn this is frustrating when im such a nuub :smile:
so i gues i still need some help with this :smile:
sry that i cant get it working .. but im really nuubish at this dual booting .. tho ive worked in a computer store for like 4 years ive never tryied this dual boot before .. havent been doing things that was THIS complicated .. :smile: but i will learn i hope

Addendum:

btw here is my log file ..
NeoSmart intelliLogger 1.0
Logging started on 02-07-2009 at 16:02 using log level Debug
16:02 Vista Hide 'n Seek 0.5.0.61
16:02 Boot drive: C:\
16:02 Listing drives involved in the procedure.
16:02 Q as Unknown
16:02 P as Unknown
16:02 O as Unknown
16:02 N as Unknown
16:02 M as Unknown
16:02 L as Unknown
16:02 K as Unknown
16:02 J as Unknown
16:02 E as Unknown
16:02 C as Unknown
16:03 Beginning Install process.
16:03 Attempting to rename C:\boot.ini to C:\boot.ini.hns
16:03 Creating Vista entry in menu.lst.
16:03 Renaming BOOTMGR, creating GRLDR on C:\
16:03 Updating the bootsector on all partitions.
16:03 HnS installation successfully completed. Happy dual-booting!

NeoSmart intelliLogger 1.0
Logging started on 02-07-2009 at 17:39 using log level Debug
17:39 Vista Hide 'n Seek 0.5.0.61
17:39 Boot drive: C:\
17:39 Listing drives involved in the procedure.
17:40 Beginning Uninstall process.
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on C:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on E:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on J:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on K:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on L:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on M:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on N:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on O:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on P:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on Q:\
17:40 Removing menu.lst from C:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on C:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on E:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on J:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on K:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on L:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on M:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on N:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on O:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on P:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on Q:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from C:\
17:40 Adgang til stien 'C:\NTLDR' blev nægtet.
17:40 Adgang til stien 'C:\NTDETECT.COM' blev nægtet.
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from E:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from J:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from K:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from L:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from M:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from N:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from O:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from P:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from Q:\
17:40 Re-creating NTLDR and NTDETECT on C:\
17:40 HnS has been successfully uninstalled.

Addendum:

hmm why did it uninstall the hns ? .. i didn do that ..
 
Last edited:
Note this from the log

"16:02 E as Unknown
16:02 C as Unknown"

In the screen that displays all of your drives, you're supposed to tell HnS where Vista and XP are.
You click on the C: drive once, and it will come up with a Vista label
You click on the E: drive twice and it will show an XP label.
You leave all the other drives blank to indicate that they're neither VIsta nor XP

You don't appear to have identified either system by clicking it, so to HnS they're still unknown, like all the other drives. When it's completed there's nothing there for it to do, because you haven't told it where the systems are.

When you run it properly and tell HnS where the XP and Vista partitions are, it'll create the boot menu for you.
Once you've done that and successfully booted into XP, it will still be E:\ but it won't matter because there will be no C:\ disk visible to confuse things.

You'd better uninstall all the apps from XP that put things on the C:\ disk before you run HnS properly, because once HnS is working, XP will no longer be able to see the C:\ disk and the uninstalls will fail to find things they need to remove.

Reinstall the apps after HnS is working and it won't be able to find a C: disk to put things on, so it'll put them on E:\ where they should be.
 
hi again .. i did what u told me .. and this is what it tells me .. like the last time i tryied it was the same ..

booting windows xp (ny enhed E:\)
(HDD0,0)
(HDD0.0) hidden
find --remap-root /XP.e.HnS
error 15: file not found
press any key to continue

and then i press enter and it takes me back to the boot menu again ..

now ive done this HnS 3 times .. first time i forgot to do the choosing of the drives .. and it didn work .. second time i did the choosing and it worked the first time but when i rebooted and tryied to go to XP again it made the same error as this time ..

im SO frustrated bout this now .. :frowning:
 
Can you paste the HnS install log again, and the contents of C:\menu.list and also attach a screen shot of your disk management display so I can see what all those other drives are. (Use Vista snipping tool to save the display as a .jpg file, then upload it as an attachment using the "go advanced" button below the qick reply box then use the paperclip icon)
 
NeoSmart intelliLogger 1.0
Logging started on 02-07-2009 at 16:02 using log level Debug
16:02 Vista Hide 'n Seek 0.5.0.61
16:02 Boot drive: C:\
16:02 Listing drives involved in the procedure.
16:02 Q as Unknown
16:02 P as Unknown
16:02 O as Unknown
16:02 N as Unknown
16:02 M as Unknown
16:02 L as Unknown
16:02 K as Unknown
16:02 J as Unknown
16:02 E as Unknown
16:02 C as Unknown
16:03 Beginning Install process.
16:03 Attempting to rename C:\boot.ini to C:\boot.ini.hns
16:03 Creating Vista entry in menu.lst.
16:03 Renaming BOOTMGR, creating GRLDR on C:\
16:03 Updating the bootsector on all partitions.
16:03 HnS installation successfully completed. Happy dual-booting!

NeoSmart intelliLogger 1.0
Logging started on 02-07-2009 at 17:39 using log level Debug
17:39 Vista Hide 'n Seek 0.5.0.61
17:39 Boot drive: C:\
17:39 Listing drives involved in the procedure.
17:40 Beginning Uninstall process.
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on C:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on E:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on J:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on K:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on L:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on M:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on N:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on O:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on P:\
17:40 Reverting BOOTMGR on Q:\
17:40 Removing menu.lst from C:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on C:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on E:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on J:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on K:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on L:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on M:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on N:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on O:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on P:\
17:40 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on Q:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from C:\
17:40 Adgang til stien 'C:\NTLDR' blev nægtet.
17:40 Adgang til stien 'C:\NTDETECT.COM' blev nægtet.
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from E:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from J:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from K:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from L:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from M:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from N:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from O:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from P:\
17:40 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from Q:\
17:40 Re-creating NTLDR and NTDETECT on C:\
17:40 HnS has been successfully uninstalled.

NeoSmart intelliLogger 1.0
Logging started on 02-07-2009 at 17:41 using log level Debug
17:41 Vista Hide 'n Seek 0.5.0.61
17:41 Boot drive: C:\
17:41 Listing drives involved in the procedure.
17:41 Q as Unknown
17:41 P as Unknown
17:41 O as Unknown
17:41 N as Unknown
17:41 M as Unknown
17:41 L as Unknown
17:41 K as Unknown
17:41 J as Unknown
17:41 E as XP
17:41 C as Vista
17:41 Beginning Install process.
17:41 Attempting to rename C:\boot.ini to C:\boot.ini.hns
17:41 Copying NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM to E:\
17:41 Creating boot.ini on E as partition(2)
17:41 Creating Vista entry in menu.lst.
17:41 Adding XP entry E to menu.lst
17:41 Renaming BOOTMGR, creating GRLDR on C:\
17:41 Renaming BOOTMGR, creating GRLDR on E:\
17:41 Updating the bootsector on all partitions.
17:41 HnS installation successfully completed. Happy dual-booting!

NeoSmart intelliLogger 1.0
Logging started on 05-07-2009 at 13:35 using log level Debug
13:35 Vista Hide 'n Seek 0.5.0.61
13:35 Boot drive: C:\
13:35 Listing drives involved in the procedure.
13:35 Beginning Uninstall process.
13:35 Reverting BOOTMGR on C:\
13:35 Reverting BOOTMGR on E:\
13:35 Reverting BOOTMGR on J:\
13:35 Reverting BOOTMGR on K:\
13:35 Reverting BOOTMGR on L:\
13:35 Reverting BOOTMGR on M:\
13:35 Reverting BOOTMGR on N:\
13:35 Reverting BOOTMGR on O:\
13:35 Reverting BOOTMGR on P:\
13:35 Reverting BOOTMGR on Q:\
13:35 Removing menu.lst from C:\
13:35 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on C:\
13:35 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on E:\
13:35 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on J:\
13:35 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on K:\
13:35 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on L:\
13:35 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on M:\
13:35 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on N:\
13:35 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on O:\
13:35 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on P:\
13:35 Attempting to revert boot.ini.hns, XP.ID.HnS, & Vista.ID.HnS on Q:\
13:35 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from C:\
13:35 Adgang til stien 'C:\NTLDR' blev nægtet.
13:35 Adgang til stien 'C:\NTDETECT.COM' blev nægtet.
13:35 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from E:\
13:35 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from J:\
13:35 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from K:\
13:35 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from L:\
13:35 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from M:\
13:35 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from N:\
13:35 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from O:\
13:35 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from P:\
13:35 Deleting NTLDR and NTDETECT from Q:\
13:35 Re-creating NTLDR and NTDETECT on C:\
13:35 HnS has been successfully uninstalled.

NeoSmart intelliLogger 1.0
Logging started on 05-07-2009 at 13:36 using log level Debug
13:36 Vista Hide 'n Seek 0.5.0.61
13:36 Boot drive: C:\
13:36 Listing drives involved in the procedure.
13:36 Q as Unknown
13:36 P as Unknown
13:36 O as Unknown
13:36 N as Unknown
13:36 M as Unknown
13:36 L as Unknown
13:36 K as Unknown
13:36 J as Unknown
13:36 E as XP
13:36 C as Vista
13:36 Beginning Install process.
13:36 Attempting to rename C:\boot.ini to C:\boot.ini.hns
13:36 Copying NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM to E:\
13:36 Creating boot.ini on E as partition(2)
13:36 Creating Vista entry in menu.lst.
13:36 Adding XP entry E to menu.lst
13:36 Renaming BOOTMGR, creating GRLDR on C:\
13:36 Renaming BOOTMGR, creating GRLDR on E:\
13:36 Updating the bootsector on all partitions.
13:36 HnS installation successfully completed. Happy dual-booting!

# NeoSmart Technologies' Vista Hide 'n Seek Beta
# DO NOT MODIFY!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
timeout 30
default 0
splashimage=/vhns.xpm.gz
foreground 000000
background ffffff
title Microsoft Windows Vista
find --unhide /Vista.C.HnS
find --set-root /BOOTMGR.HNS
makeactive
chainloader /BOOTMGR.HNS
boot
title Windows XP [Ny enhed (E:\)]
find --hide /Vista.C.HnS
find --remap-root /XP.E.HnS
find --set-root /XP.E.HnS
makeactive
chainloader /ntldr
boot
# All your boot are belong to NeoSmart!

ok that should be all uve asked for .. this is a mess i know and im sry :frowning:

regards

Luffe
 

Attachments

  • Disk management.jpg
    Disk management.jpg
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That all worked as it should, but the boot is failing to find "XP.e.HnS" on the XP partition.
Can you see if a file of that name exists.
It's an empty file that HnS puts there just as a label to locate the partition. If it's not there, create one of that name yourself and try the boot again. (don't rerun the UI)
 
I've no idea why that file can't be found, since you verify that it is there.
It can't be a problem with grub (HnS is a modified grub bootloader), because the previous find command (for Vista) worked, so if the find command is working and the file that it's trying to find is present, why is it failing ?

Addendum:

I've just noticed that your HDD has both partitions "active".
That's just not possible !
Have you been using some 3rd party partition manager to alter flags ?
In disk management, do both those partitions still have "active" set ?
If so, turn off the flag on XP and try the boot again.
 
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yeah i dont know really .. and yeah i used some software that i can boot on to make both hdd active .. cuz i read that somewhere in here .. or at the bcd's how to .. i couldn set the xp partition inactive inside the disk manager so i booted on my program and did it from there .. wierd tho tbh ..
i have noticed that my P: drive also is active .. but since its on one of my pci-e sata cards its not showing in my software and i cant set that inactive in disk management aswell...
but as u sayd ive done the inactive thingie .. but still no go unfortunally .. it still tells me the same message ..that it cant find the file
im thinking bout just installing xp on another drive and then live with the changing of HDD to boot on .. cuz this is really frustrating

regards

Luffe
 
its a ... Panic Cd that i have from my work .. allows u to do alot of stuff when u boot from it .. has some nice software in it for virus and such .. it also have Partition magic 8 and a program called HDD manager and thats the one i used .. i never had any problems using it so im almost positive that it is not the program that does anything wrong ..
 
You can only have one "active" partition on a HDD. If you've got software that sets the bit on multiple partitions, then it's certainly not something you should be using. Anything that sets a partition active, should automatically remove the status from the previously "active" partition if there is one.
That flag is telling the MBR where the controlling boot manager is to be found. It can't be in 2 places at once.
 
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