Vista HnS after Vista SP1

S

saphire 199

Distinguished Member
Hi, back again. I recently installed Vista SP 1. After the install, I noticed that the Vista HnS timeout was gone so that I had a choice of Vista/XP. I checked the menu.lst, time out is still set to what I set it to. Do I have to re-install Vista HnS? If so, do I uninstall previous first?

Also, just wanted to know since I'm using the beta Vista HnS and to help on the beta aspect, should I download the newest builds from the thread "downloading Vista HnS" and report anything I might run into on that thread?

Thanks.

Saphire 199
 
Hi Saphire,

Please download the latest build of HNS.

You're going to have to re-run HNS to get it working again.
 
OK. When I go to the Download Vista HnS thread and go to the "Download: latest build" and click on it, I get a bulletin message that I am not logged in, keeps coming up even though I logged in.

Saphire 199
 
OK, handled that by adjusting internet options, got the latest build, installed it. Went to adjust time out and found that the menu.lst file is missing. How do I rebuild this?
 
Are you sure it's missing? Perhaps it's just on a different drive?

If you run HnS right now, you should have the option of tweaking existing settings which includes changing the timeout.
 
I uninstalled, then reinstalled, still no menu.lst. restore time to see if I can get it back? When I start UI.exe, it gives me choice to uninstall. I clicked on that, it said it uninstalled, but then when I run UI.exe again, it says the same thing - that it has detected Vista HnS has been used to hide drives before, and gives me the uninstall option again. Only way I could get it to actually show me the drives was to use the "start over" button, which "uninstalled", then gave me choice of drives to hide, but then said drives already hidden. Still no menu.lst.

Saphire
 
I don't know if this will help, but here is the intellilogger info. It looks like can't revert files as not able to access. Should I at this point delete the files and use easy BCD to rebuild and then try the Vista HnS again?

Saphire 199
 

Attachments

  • Vista HnS - Copy.zip
    525 bytes · Views: 4
Yeah, I think so.
Make sure to delete all .hns files and .lst files.

The log file would have been helpful, but this one is for the uninstall not the install.
 
OK CG, looks like that did it. Deleted files having trouble with in the uninstall, rebuilt the boot related files, and then when I went to install Vista HnS, it was a new install. I saved the install log as well in another location, just in case I have to see it later, or if you want to take a peek at it now. Vista HnS current build now installed and menu.lst file created and I was able to change the timeout amount as well.

Saphire 199
 
I think I know the problem.

Vista HnS was designed to run in "stages" doing one task then another in order of increasing "effect" on the system. The purpose of this rather-complicated design is that if something goes wrong, HnS can fully undo everything that took place, minimizing any threat to the system.

Now when SP1 was installed (or Vista, or whatever), basically steps 1-X were fine, then X was messed up, but steps X+1 -> End were also OK. So when you run HnS uninstall, it'll undo steps 1-X, but assume X+1 -> End never took place, so it won't undo them.

Anyway, I take it everything is fine now, Saphire?
 
Thanks for the explanation, makes sense. Unfortunately, I am still not getting the Vista HnS screen when I start giving me the option of which system. I've attached the HnS install log as well as the menu.lst. Can you make some sense of this? I knew I should have just stayed without the SP1! But I guess it gives me something to learn on the debug.

Saphire 199
 

Attachments

  • menu.zip
    374 bytes · Views: 4
  • Vista HnS.zip
    472 bytes · Views: 5
What do you get at startup if not the HnS screen?

Addendum:

What's the size of Bootmgr and what's the size of Bootmgr.hns?
 
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All I get at startup is the windows boot manager. The size of the bootmgr and bootmgr.hns is the same - 326KB.

Also, I don't know if this makes any diference, but I tried to boot into my XP OS, and couldn't. Says NTLDR is missing, which I know how to handle with the Wiki article. All the boot files - NTLDR, NTDETECT and boot.ini are in the XP partition, I thought previously they were in Vista but of course I could be wrong.
Saphire 199
 
That's why.

bootmgr should be ~183 kb which is actually HnS' bootloader.

Copy GRLDR from the HNS directory, rename it to BOOTMGR, and replace the existing BOOTMGR with it.
 
OK, I did that, then rebooted. This is what came up:

"Booting GRLDR

"Warning: unrecognized partition table for drive 81. Please rebuild it using a microsoft-compatible FDISK tool (err=4). Current C/H/S=1024/16/63.

"starting Cmain()..."

Then it just sits there.

Saphire 199
 
Well, as HnS is telling you, your MBR layout is not correct so it's not sure how to work...

You can get your system booting again by booting into any live CD (the Vista DVD or a linux live CD) and replacing bootmgr with bootmgr.hns.
 
OK, I used the Vista CD to repair the start up - but how do I replace bootmgr with bootmgr.hns? (cuz it does not have the same file name, so not a simple process of just putting it in the same folder and letting the system say "do you want to replace?" ) And how do I make sure that my MBR is correct? Asking because when I use the CD, it repaired the bootmgr, reads 326kb. Bootmgr.hns is 184 kb. But when I reboot using this config, Vista HnS does not run at all. I tried deleting bootmgr, rebuilding using easyBCD, everything looked good, bootmgr at 184, bootmgr.hns at 184, Vista HnS time out re-set, then when reboot, Vista HnS hangs at boot GRLDR, starting Cmain. Since I'm assuming that we want the Vista HnS to take over the boot, will replacing the bootmgr with bootmgr.hns handle the above?

Saphire 199

PS - I appreciate your patience on this as I am trying to not only debug it but understand it better as I go. Thanks
 
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