Hidden partitions. Am I in serious trouble?

G

GibMo

Active Member
Hi,
I screwed up my configuration (Raid1) after using NeoGrub. And I think there is no way back. I wanted to hide Vista the way it is described on this website using NeoGrub. After trying several times without result to find the right harddisk/partion combination, I ended up with a non working XP.

Vista still works. But in the proces I have accidentelly hidden 2 partions, on 1 of them is XP. So I cannot use my Windows BackUP to restore the old configuration. I uninstalled NeoGrub with no result. The partitons are still visible in Windows disk management but no drive letters are attached. The only option in Disk Management is to remove them.

Drive 0
G: BackUp (my only working DualBoot backUp resides here)
F: (drive letter is gone now)

Drive 1:
C: Vista Pro
D: XP Pro (but drive letter is gone now)
E: CDROM

Can anyone help me to resore the old configuration?
And please tell me which hd/partition combinations I should use in the NeoGrub BootLoader
for the hide(*,*) and The Chainloader (*,*)
 
Hi GibMo, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies.

Don't worry - nothing you did is permanent.
Just create a new entry in menu.lst that says unhide(A,B) instead of hide() and it should get them back.

Once that works post back so we can get the rest of it to work as expected.
 
The file menu.lst now consists only these 3 lines :

title Unhide Partitions
unhide (A,B)
boot

On rebooting with NeoGrub Bootloader I receive Error 28: Error while parsing number
 
You can't actually type unhide(A,B), you have to substitute A and B with the numbers that you had previously used with the hide(A,B) statement....
 
Ha....thought it was some smart line to unhide everything at once. Anyway..all drives are visible again...phew, Txs for that! If you have some advise how to set up the NeoGrub Bootloader according to my config, I would appreciate that too.
 
Well, now that I have my XP/Vista booting like I want it to, this is sounding like something that I would like to do too. That is hide Vista HD/Install from Windows XP, however after all the work I did to get where I am now, I too will wait for the program to automate the process (since I am sure to muck it all up).
 
It's far more complicated than it needs to be, thanks to Microsoft's insistence on only using NTLDR to boot into Windows XP.

If not for that restriction, you could use the Vista bootloader to do the whole thing in a really safe and simple way.

We've been under a bit of a pinch for time and money that's been slowing us down, but hopefully we'll get that app out soon.

It should be able to hide one or more Vista installations from all XP boots. It shouldn't need any excessive menu selecting during boot or any spur-of-the-moment reboots.

At any rate, we'll have more info when its ready :smile:
 
Now that's what I call a nice and subtile way to ask for a contribution, Computer Guru! But not to worry. As soon as I have a nice stable system, I will be more than happy to smack the 'Chip in' button. I appreciate the time you guys spending on solving the problems Microsoft caused.

Anyway I found some useful information on the thread you sent. Although I have not solved it yet.
 
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Well, good luck with that, and don't worry about the donations, the program will be done one way or another :smile:
 
Hi, I messed up things again.

On trial and error I managed to hide Vista for XP sucessfully.

But now when I try to start Vista I get the windows Windows system Recovery screen with options (save mode, normal and so on). But I cannot start Vista with any of the options. In save mode the system only displays: autcheck program not found skip AUTOCHECK.
But refuses to start
XP only starts from the NeoGrub bootloader. So I ve installed EasyBCD on XP too. But it seems to be impossible to unhide Vista (on C) anymore. I tried all HD combinations to unhide it, with no result.

What else can I do to get my old situation back. Please help

screen.gif
 
Well, it sounds like it's been hidden, and you're not unhiding it properly.

On the NeoGrub tab choose "configure" and clear the contents of menu.lst.

That'll throw you to a GRUB prompt where you can type this:
Code: 
find /windows/system32/winload.exe
That'll return the number for the drive that Vista is on.
Then you can use unhide to fix that.
 
I cleared the contents, restarted the computer and used neogrub to boot it. It boots straight into XP. But I receive a error message: Valid BCD Registry not detected. The pop up requests to correct the issue. (see below).
btw I found a folder on my XP drive (D) named Device\HarddiskVolume3\NST\ It contained menu.lst (which is empty now) and NeoGrub.mbr. It sounds like I am using to files

screen2.gif
 
This is the result:

grub> find /windows/system32/winload.exe

Error 15: File not Found

Edit:
Ok. txz
I managed to unhide Vista with Super Grub Boot Disk.
 
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But there is no menu anymore to boot from. On restart it boots straight into XP.

Edit: Fixed!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm not sure if you noticed, there is an "Edit" button for each post where you can update it; double-posting adds so much clutter, especially for such short replies.

At any rate, glad it's all working now :smile:
 
Ok I'll'use the edit button from now on.

After: experimenting with the software , booting with numerous different settings
and following your advise for a couple of days, I am now quite comfortable with all hiding/unhiding scenarios .

But I still do not have a working dualboot. Currently I am using the settings below. I am sure Vista is on (hd0,0) and XP is on (hd0,1). I replaced the chainloader line with a line I read in a different posting.

When I use the settings below I receive a error 17: file not found. Probably when it wants to locate ntldr. But I checked it. The file resides on partition C.

Wat can be wrong now? You can check my config om my first posting



# NeoSmart NeoGrub Bootloader Configuration File
#
# This is the NeoGrub menu.lst file, and should be located at C:\menu.lst
# Please see the EasyBCD Documentation for information on how to create/modify entries
# EasyBCD Documentation Home - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

default 0
timeout 0

title Boot XP - Hide Vista
hide (hd0,0) # SET THIS TO THE VISTA DRIVE
find --set-root \ntldr
chainloader /ntldr #
boot

title Boot XP - Unhide Vista
unhide (hd0,0) # SET THIS TO THE VISTA DRIVE
find --set-root \ntldr
chainloader /ntldr #
boot
 
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