Quad boot Vista, XP, W7 and Ubuntu using HnS to protect system restore points from XP

You don't need to delete the "bootmgr" or "BOOTSECT.BAK" files.
The "bootmgr" file is the real one you're using (i.e. the one SP2 installed). Terry was advising you to delete the renamed bootmgr (i.e. the pre-SP2 version) which is called "BOOTMGR.HNS".
If you delete the "bootmgr" file, then you will not be able to boot Vista at all until after running Startup Repair (possibly 2-3 times since it can only fix one thing per pass).
 
Jake's right. DON'T delete bootmgr. That's the new SP2 version. Delete bootmgr.hns (thats the SP1 version that sp2 thought it was replacing when it deleted grldr which was pretending to be bootmgr)

I spoke too soon. SP2 caught me as well. It must replace bootmgr in phase 3 (after the reboot).
When I powered on this morning, I got a missing BCD error. It had found my bootmgr(grldr) in the little boot partition and replaced it with the new one.
I F8'd the BIOS and booted up W7 on the other HDD, copied grldr from the HnS/Data folder and renamed the 2 boot managers to put the grldr back in charge (exactly what HnS does when you run the UI), and I'm now booted back in Vista via the menu.lst.
I'll need to do a bit of tidying up now, because it also put a new boot folder in my boot partition, so I've got to merge that back into the Vista copy to make sure it's got all the latest SP2 versions of anything that changed.
I'll know in future to reset Vista "active" before putting on a Service Pack, to restrict it from straying into my territory.
In your case, the best procedure for future SPs would be

rename bootmgr to grldr
rename bootmgr.hns to bootmgr
install SPx
rename bootmgr to bootmgr.hns
rename grldr to bootmgr

That way the service pack gets the right target and you avoid a rerun of HnS
 
Hello !

VHD is a Virtual Harddisk , such as Vitual PC or VMWare,
Whit this Programs you can test or run a second OS.

Gr. Remko
 
Hi Terry

Help please! My XP partition got corrupted and I had to do a full re-install as the Repair function wouldn't work. I have now got it all sorted but I can't get HnS to reinstall properly. I have tried to delete Bootmgr.hns, but my windows 7 64 keeps saying that I need trudted installer to do that and I'm not sure what it is.

Every time I try to re-install HNS it says my drives are hidden but it is not putting the appropriate files onto the dirve i.e. the menu.lst and the xp.hns and Vista.hns files and so it doesn't work.

hope this makes sense!

Thanks

Gareth

Addendum:

Hi Terry

Please ignore last post! Got it sorted!

Thanks

Gareth
 
Last edited:
See post #19
bootmgr.hns is the Vista bootmgr. Don't delete it.
What's the current state of the boot ?
Has XP regressed the MBR so that only XP boots ?
 
Hi Terry

Long time no speak, so to say.

I now have a problem and you are the only person I can think of to help!

The laptop I use to do my triple booting broke late last year due to a problem with the Nvidea GPU. After much hair pulling out and many other things, I now have it back and working, but had to rebuild the hard disk in order to get Vista32/XP/Ubuntu 12.04 working again!

I have installed all the programs and HnS, which as far as I can find is still the only program to hide XP effectively although from initial reading thought Neogrub might do it, but from everything I have read it does not?, but am having a few issues. So I have some questions, if you would be so kind to answer?!

1. Can Neogrub do the same job as HnS and if not is there any other equivalent out there that you are aware of?

2. Menu.lst installs to the XP drive and not the Vista drive. Is it possible to relocate this to the Vista drive and will HnS still work if I do that?

3. The reason I ask this is that I am having problems editing the file while it still resides on the XP drive. I can't get it to save any changes when it is on the XP drive.

4. I am coming back to using Vista, having been using Windows 7 for a long time, but have had to reconfigure my computers as have run out of Windows 7 OS's so reinstalled Vista 32 Ultimate on this laptop. Not sure I am correctly using the correct sequence to access Administrator rights to edit and save the menu.lst file. Every time I try to save with the current file name it refuses to save.

Any help gratefully received!

Thanks

Gareth
 
Neogrub can do it but very awkwardly
How-To: Hide Vista Partition from XP with NeoGrub! | The NeoSmart Files
The menu.lst has to be on the "active" partition of the boot drive with all the other boot files.
Look at Disk Management from Vista and you've probably got XP marked as "system".
(Disk Management flags have the following meanings
"boot" = "this is the system you're running"
"system" = "this is where I found the boot files for the currently running system"
"active" (on the first HDD in the BIOS boot sequence) = "this is where I started the search for the boot files"
"active" (on subsequent HDDs in the BIOS boot sequence) ="this is where I will look if I don't find something in the MBR on the first HDD")

If you want the boot files to be on Vista, you can use EasyBCD
Changing the Boot Partition - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
If you do that, remove HnS first then reinstall it after you've successfully switched "system" to Vista.
I've had problems trying to save menu.lst changes too (No idea why since Windows doesn't "own" it)
iirc, I circumvented them by saving the file under a pseudonym and then renaming the pair to effect a swap, which it didn't seem to object to.
If you've completely revamped your layout, try the XP hack. It might work now and mean that you can dispense with HnS
 
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