Location of Neogrub NST folder

zarbiker

Member
I was interested in trying out EASYBCD's Neogrub facility. I have a multiboot system with 4 discrete Windows 7 OS's. 3 on one standard SATA drive and another on an SSD. When I "installed" the Neogrub feature via the Neogrub tab on the "ADD New Entry" window it chose to place the NST folder in the 100MB "System Reserved" system partition on the SSD drive which was created during the install of the Windows 7 on that SSD. I ran EASYBCD while "booted" from that SSD resident version of Windows 7 in order to install Neogrub. I rebooted and confirmed that proper booting operation was maintained. The problem is that when I boot from some of the other Windows 7 partitions the particular "System Reserved" partition on the SSD housing the NST folder is NOT assigned a drive letter and thus not visible. Consequently, EASYBCD cannot see that file and any attempt to edit/configure the MENU.LST fails. I've tried to force the "NODEFAULTDRIVELETTER" attribute for the SSD's "System Reserved" volume from YES to NO using DISKPART to no avail. It won't let me. The partition does NOT have the hidden flag on but is not assigned a drive letter during boot by some of the Windows 7 OS's. I also tried to rerun EASYBCD to install Neogrub while booted into each of the 3 non-SSD instances of Windows 7 but in each case EASYBCD created the NST folder on the same "System Reserved" partition on the SSD. This is probably because that partition has the "system" flag set.

I am assuming that all of this does not affect the actual operation of the Neogrub mechanism but it would be nicer if EASYBCD would remember where the NST folder is and indicate that it cannot be configured from certain OS's. Alternatively, EASYBCD might allow an explicit location selection for the NST folder during Neogrub install. This would require some additional documentation to highlight exactly what the location constraints for the MENU.LST actually are.
 
Just temporarily assign a random letter in Disk Management while you do the menu.lst edit, then get rid of it when you've finished.
As you surmised, the folder, being one of the boot files, follows the rules and locates with all the other boot files in the "system" partition.
The configuration problem caused by unlettered partitions is nothing to do with EasyBCD or Neogrub, just a standard feature of Windows.
Explorer ignores any letterless partition, and since any attempt to use any app against something located there, generally locates it via an explorer dialog, it's effectively invisible.
Easy to work around though.
 
I should add that EasyBCD makes an effort to place the NST folder on the boot drive that already has BOOTMGR and the BCD, if at all possible. So when that drive is visible from only one partition and not the other, your particular problem ensues.
You have brought my attention to a possible bug though, because EasyBCD will not check for an existing NST folder, only an existing BOOT folder when the actual boot drive is not found. So in a case where the BOOT folder is on a hidden partition (always hidden, no matter what OS you're in), EasyBCD is installed on two OSes, NeoGrub is deployed from one, EasyBCD will not be able to correctly locate the NST folder from the other. Is this what you were trying to point out?

I can (try to) fix this in the next beta build.
 
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