Hi all,

While reading back I've seen that there are quite a few ppl who have
had problems with GHOST & XOSL. I'm currently installing dual-boot
systems on schools in which I'm using XOSL. I've found out a way to
do this with using GHOST, however I'm not happy with my solution.

The situation is as follows:

3 partitions are created on 1 physical disk.

Partition 1: XOSL (55mb FAT16 or FAT32 doesnt really matter)
Partition 2: OS 1 (for instance Windows XP)
Partition 3: OS 2 (for instance Windows 2000)

In the setup of XOSL I make sure that both partitions wont see each
other.

When I make a GHOST disk image (doesn't matter which option I use)
when the image is placed back on a different PC, the famous 'blinkin
cursor' will be all I can see when booting.

However, if I make a partition image of the source PC of the XOSL
partition and restore this on the target PC after I restored the disk
image on it, it works perfectly.

Of course I want to get rid of this extra GHOST step. I found the
following solution going through the threads, but haven't found out
if that's the actual problem when it comes to ghosting:

-=-
Hi
All, thanks for to all who added their suggestions. I am glad to say
that I solved my Ghosting problem. Yes, you definitely need to use
the -ib switch and yes, you can ghost up a single image. I solved my
problem by adding a boot item that doesn't hide any partition, in
this case, boot to floppy as I would need it to ghost anyway. It
seems, in theory that Ghost needs to have all partitions visible in
order to copy the XOSL boot loader properly.

Phil
-=-


Thanks!!!!

Little add-on to my previous question.. The partition image has to be
created using the IMAGE ALL (sector-by-sector) option. Otherwise it
doesn't work.

I recently installed a second hard drive (HD1) that I had previously
used with PC2 into PC1, so PC1 now includes:

HD0 - primary master
HD1 - primary slave

Both HDDs are identical, and both have primary partitions containing
Win2K.

I have set up the boot from HD0 with the primary partition on HD1
hidden, with the only partitions to be shown on HD1 being various
non-bootable logical partitions holding data in HD1's extended
partition.

When I boot from HD0, for some reason the partition on HD1 that is
supposed is not hidden. Although this partition includes system files,
and can be used to boot from HD1, there does not appear to be any
conflict in booting from HD0 - only there is a partition showing that
should not be.

I have searched through the messages archive for info on hiding
partitions, but found nothing dealing with this issue. I did find
something very useful on using the swap drive function to boot from
HD1, but haven't found anything to give me an idea of why a partition
on a slave HDD is not hidden when it's been hidden in the XOSL setup.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

Peter

Here is the best FREE tool I have found for resizing
FAT16, FAT32, NTFS (NT, 2000, XP), ext2, ext3,
reiserfs, and several other partition types.  Get the
System Rescue CD at:
     http://www.sysresccd.org/

Using the System Rescue CD, XOSL, and FreeDOS, I was
able to set up a dual boot DOS and XP system on three
new Dell notebooks in about two hours.

Chuck

--- Antoine Wells Campagna <antoinew@...>
wrote:

> Nope, you can't.
>
> But you can still use XOSL, you just need to create
> a partition for it.
> Just create an empty partition on the end of your
> first disk that has
> the minimum size available using a partition manager
> and install XOSL there.
>
> Take note that if you install WinXP after you
> installed XOSL, you will
> need to do a Restore of XOSL (option available in
> the installer) after
> the install (also true with some other OS).
>
> Also, a one-floppy redistribuable XOSL installer is
> available here :
> ftp://antagna.myphotos.cc/XOSL.img
>
> Antoine
>
> rufino palacol jr wrote:
>
> > hi all, i am new here. just would like to ask if i
> can install xosl on
> > ntfs partition. my os is winxp and planning to
> install another
> > partition. excited to hear from you all. thanks!
> rp
> >
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send email to:
> <mailto:xosl-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> or use the
> web interface at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xosl
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>     xosl-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>
>


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

In order to make a partition hidden, you cannot rely
on xosl alone. The partitions properties must actually
be set to hidden (IE using partition magic or similar
partition manager). Likewise it's the same making a
partition visible - It must be made visible.

Well thats my understanding of it anyway. I never
really mess about with XOSL's partition hiding feature
much (I used it once or twice but didn't need it).

You can however boot a hidden partition - I have a
winme partition thats hidden and I can boot that.

Hope this helps





___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail
http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

I don't think you are right on this.

In many situations, you can rely on XOSL to hide chosen partitions and
it permits you to select which partition is show/hidden from each boot
options. From the test I made, it works well.

You can also use another app to hide partitions. This will lead to two
possibilities :
1 The app uses the same method for hiding and so the settings in XOSL
will override the ones in your other app.
2 The app uses a different method and then hidden partitions should
remain hidden even if you don't hide them with XOSL.
Now I don't know how these hiding mechanisms work nor if they should be
used in conjonction.

Back in the 90's, partition hiding was necessary because Win98 had
serious problems when it saw other partitions with an OS on it. But when
using Win2k, XP, 2003, Linux or BSD, there are rarely problems relied
with system partitions visible. Also, it is easy to unmount a partition
from Linux and even from Windows so if you don't want a partition to be
visible, just unmount it.

Antoine

jamie dale wrote:

>
> In order to make a partition hidden, you cannot rely
> on xosl alone. The partitions properties must actually
> be set to hidden (IE using partition magic or similar
> partition manager). Likewise it's the same making a
> partition visible - It must be made visible.
>
> Well thats my understanding of it anyway. I never
> really mess about with XOSL's partition hiding feature
> much (I used it once or twice but didn't need it).
>
> You can however boot a hidden partition - I have a
> winme partition thats hidden and I can boot that.
>
> Hope this helps
>

XOSL's partition hiding features work great. I've been using it
for years. Give it a try. XOSL has been a dream come true after
years of using (and buying) System Commander.

Adam

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xosl@yahoogroups.com [mailto:xosl@yahoogroups.com] On
> Behalf Of jamie dale
> Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 6:02 PM
> To: xosl@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [xosl] Digest Number 1227
>
>
> In order to make a partition hidden, you cannot rely
> on xosl alone. The partitions properties must actually
> be set to hidden (IE using partition magic or similar
> partition manager). Likewise it's the same making a
> partition visible - It must be made visible.
>
> Well thats my understanding of it anyway. I never
> really mess about with XOSL's partition hiding feature
> much (I used it once or twice but didn't need it).
>
> You can however boot a hidden partition - I have a
> winme partition thats hidden and I can boot that.
>
> Hope this helps
>
>
>

> I don't think you are right on this.

I agree.

> In many situations, you can rely on XOSL to hide chosen partitions and it
> permits you to select which partition is show/hidden from each boot options.
> From the test I made, it works well.

Same here. I've never had any problems with XOSL's partition hiding; if it
wasn't able to hide partitions it wouldn't be of much use for running
different operating systems, as many of Microsoft's OSes don't work if
there is more than one Primary partition visible on a drive.

> Back in the 90's, partition hiding was necessary because Win98 had
> serious problems when it saw other partitions with an OS on it.

It was pretty much all DOS based OSes that had this problem but remember
that there are many people still running those today, so partition hiding
is still important.

> But when
> using Win2k, XP, 2003, Linux or BSD, there are rarely problems relied with
> system partitions visible.

As far as I'm aware, partition hiding makes installing the Microsoft OSes
in a way where they are totally independent much simpler.


Best Regards
John McCabe <john@...>

'Scuse me for asking, but isn't partition hiding irrelevant with
WinNT/2k?  Is it not the case that these OS's just walk right over all
that and show you the partitions anyway?

bty951091 wrote:
> 'Scuse me for asking, but isn't partition hiding irrelevant with
> WinNT/2k?

Just to take one example they can get a bit excited wondering about the
swapfile.

Is it not the case that these OS's just walk right over all
> that and show you the partitions anyway?

They are a bit more perceptive than DOS based OSes in that they will
still show you your hidden OS-bearing partitions via Disk Management but
  that's no matter - what is important is that they do not allot drive
letters to the hidden partitions and hiding with XOSL prevents that.

Always best to hide all OSes from each other.
It's a really simple and effective thing to do - if done properly.

dermot

Hello,

Does any know if the XOSL project will continue in the future.
Altough i've seen more posts with this question, i would like
to see further development of this excellent piece of software.
I checked other (multi-)bootmanagers wich are okay to use.
XOSL however is realy great. That's why it deserve's to be
developed further and should continue to stay up to date with
new hardware and the needs users have.

I hope somebody will rewrite the program in a language
like C++/Delphi or any other language so that more people can
write for and work on XOSL.
Unfortunatly i'm not able to write in such languages.

Greetings,

Roeland.

I've been having trouble with XOSL and my PS/2 scrollwheel mouse. The
specific model is VG-BAMO-820 (If that helps), and whenever XOSL
starts, it flys to the right side of the screen and stays there. I can
move it control it slightly, but I can't move it to the left at all.
The problem goes away when I re-initialize the mouse, but then comes
up again next boot.

Additionally, changing the mouse setting to None results in the cursor
appearing next boot, (uncontrollable), and the mouse set to blank.
I've tried everything I can think of -- reinstalling, updating my
BIOS, trying every PS/2 support option, and I've had no luck. Any
advice? Thanks in advance.

--- In xosl@yahoogroups.com, "pcossetto" <cossetto@t...> wrote:
> I recently installed a second hard drive (HD1) that I had previously
> used with PC2 into PC1, so PC1 now includes:
>
> HD0 - primary master
> HD1 - primary slave
>
> Both HDDs are identical, and both have primary partitions containing
> Win2K.
>
> I have set up the boot from HD0 with the primary partition on HD1
> hidden, with the only partitions to be shown on HD1 being various
> non-bootable logical partitions holding data in HD1's extended
> partition.

I have since tried using XOSL to hide other partitions on the primary
slave drive (ie non-bootable partitions), but none are actually hidden
  when the system boots from the primary master. It seems that hiding
partitions is only working when I boot from HD1 and hide partitions on
HD0, but not the other way around.

> I have searched through the messages archive for info on hiding
> partitions, but found nothing dealing with this issue. I did find
> something very useful on using the swap drive function to boot from
> HD1, but haven't found anything to give me an idea of why a partition
> on a slave HDD is not hidden when it's been hidden in the XOSL setup.

There was a recent thread of messages relating to hiding partitions,
but nothing in there appears to deal with the problem of (apparently)
hidden partitions on a primary slave still showing up when booting
from the primary master.

Is there anything that I am missing or not doing right that might be
causing hidden partitions on a primary slave to still be active when
booting from the primary master?

Peter

Hi all

Sorry I may be wrong - I was trying to help out one
other user who had a problem with their partition
hiding in the last digest.

Anyway, as I said I don't really use XOSL's hiding
feature much. I have 2 WinMe partitions (one with all
the updates installed for when M$ drop their support
for it - This is my master copy of Me) and then
another working version which I use for daily tasks.
The Master copy is on a hidden partition, but this is
set to hidden from PArtition MAgic. XOSL still boots
this fine though on the odd ocassion I need it.

With regards to the 90's windows systems needing the
other OS's hidden I've never actually had this
problem. I admit I've read that it can have terrible
results but I've always found that as long as the
others are hidden while you installa new OS it doesn't
seem to matter whether they're hidden or not when
installation is finished (Note I've never tried it
with Win 95 - I HAVE tried with 98, WinME & XP).

Again if I'm wrong about XOSL's hiding features (and
very possibly am) then I eat humble pie!


--- xosl@yahoogroups.com wrote:

> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> --------------------~-->
> <font face=arial size=-1><a
>
href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12hurloi2/M=362329.6886308.7839368.1510227/D=g\
roups/S=1705144708:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1123242385/A=2894321/R=0/SIG=11dvsfulr/*http:/\
/youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1992
> ">Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click
> and talk back!</a>.</font>
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
>
>
> There are 4 messages in this issue.
>
> Topics in this digest:
>
>       1. Re: Digest Number 1227
>            From: jamie dale <dale_jamie@...>
>       2. Re: Digest Number 1227
>            From: Antoine Wells Campagna
> <antoinew@...>
>       3. RE: Digest Number 1227
>            From: "Adam Hechler" <adamhe@...>
>       4. Re: Digest Number 1227
>            From: "John McCabe"
> <john@...>
>
>
>
________________________________________________________________________
>
________________________________________________________________________
>
> Message: 1
>    Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 23:01:36 +0100 (BST)
>    From: jamie dale <dale_jamie@...>
> Subject: Re: Digest Number 1227
>
>
> In order to make a partition hidden, you cannot rely
> on xosl alone. The partitions properties must
> actually
> be set to hidden (IE using partition magic or
> similar
> partition manager). Likewise it's the same making a
> partition visible - It must be made visible.
>
> Well thats my understanding of it anyway. I never
> really mess about with XOSL's partition hiding
> feature
> much (I used it once or twice but didn't need it).
>
> You can however boot a hidden partition - I have a
> winme partition thats hidden and I can boot that.
>
> Hope this helps
>
>
>
>
>
>
___________________________________________________________
>
> Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC
> calling worldwide with voicemail
> http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
>
>
>
________________________________________________________________________
>
________________________________________________________________________
>
> Message: 2
>    Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2005 20:26:24 -0400
>    From: Antoine Wells Campagna
> <antoinew@...>
> Subject: Re: Digest Number 1227
>
> I don't think you are right on this.
>
> In many situations, you can rely on XOSL to hide
> chosen partitions and
> it permits you to select which partition is
> show/hidden from each boot
> options. From the test I made, it works well.
>
> You can also use another app to hide partitions.
> This will lead to two
> possibilities :
> 1 The app uses the same method for hiding and so the
> settings in XOSL
> will override the ones in your other app.
> 2 The app uses a different method and then hidden
> partitions should
> remain hidden even if you don't hide them with XOSL.
> Now I don't know how these hiding mechanisms work
> nor if they should be
> used in conjonction.
>
> Back in the 90's, partition hiding was necessary
> because Win98 had
> serious problems when it saw other partitions with
> an OS on it. But when
> using Win2k, XP, 2003, Linux or BSD, there are
> rarely problems relied
> with system partitions visible. Also, it is easy to
> unmount a partition
> from Linux and even from Windows so if you don't
> want a partition to be
> visible, just unmount it.
>
> Antoine
>
> jamie dale wrote:
>
> >
> > In order to make a partition hidden, you cannot
> rely
> > on xosl alone. The partitions properties must
> actually
> > be set to hidden (IE using partition magic or
> similar
> > partition manager). Likewise it's the same making
> a
> > partition visible - It must be made visible.
> >
> > Well thats my understanding of it anyway. I never
> > really mess about with XOSL's partition hiding
> feature
> > much (I used it once or twice but didn't need it).
> >
> > You can however boot a hidden partition - I have a
> > winme partition thats hidden and I can boot that.
> >
> > Hope this helps
> >
>
>
>
________________________________________________________________________
>
________________________________________________________________________
>
> Message: 3
>    Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 20:24:30 -0400
>    From: "Adam Hechler" <adamhe@...>
> Subject: RE: Digest Number 1227
>
> XOSL's partition hiding features work great. I've
> been using it
> for years. Give it a try. XOSL has been a dream come
> true after
> years of using (and buying) System Commander.
>
> Adam
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xosl@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:xosl@yahoogroups.com] On
> > Behalf Of jamie dale
> > Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 6:02 PM
> > To: xosl@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: Re: [xosl] Digest Number 1227
> >
> >
> > In order to make a partition hidden, you cannot
> rely
> > on xosl alone. The partitions properties must
> actually
> > be set to hidden (IE using partition magic or
> similar
> > partition manager). Likewise it's the same making
> a
> > partition visible - It must be made visible.
> >
> > Well thats my understanding of it anyway. I never
> > really mess about with XOSL's partition hiding
> feature
> > much (I used it once or twice but didn't need it).
> >
> > You can however boot a hidden partition - I have a
> > winme partition thats hidden and I can boot that.
> >
> > Hope this helps
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
________________________________________________________________________
>
________________________________________________________________________
>
> Message: 4
>    Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 08:47:04 +0100
>    From: "John McCabe" <john@...>
> Subject: Re: Digest Number 1227
>
> > I don't think you are right on this.
>
> I agree.
>
> > In many situations, you can rely on XOSL to hide
> chosen partitions and it
> > permits you to select which partition is
> show/hidden from each boot options.
> > From the test I made, it works well.
>
=== message truncated ===




___________________________________________________________
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo!
Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com

Win2k will see partition marked hidden by XOSL. You
must go to disk management & uncheck the partition you
wish to be hidden.


--- pcossetto <cossetto@...> wrote:

> I recently installed a second hard drive (HD1) that
> I had previously
> used with PC2 into PC1, so PC1 now includes:
>
> HD0 - primary master
> HD1 - primary slave
>
> Both HDDs are identical, and both have primary
> partitions containing
> Win2K.
>
> I have set up the boot from HD0 with the primary
> partition on HD1
> hidden, with the only partitions to be shown on HD1
> being various
> non-bootable logical partitions holding data in
> HD1's extended
> partition.
>
> When I boot from HD0, for some reason the partition
> on HD1 that is
> supposed is not hidden. Although this partition
> includes system files,
> and can be used to boot from HD1, there does not
> appear to be any
> conflict in booting from HD0 - only there is a
> partition showing that
> should not be.
>
> I have searched through the messages archive for
> info on hiding
> partitions, but found nothing dealing with this
> issue. I did find
> something very useful on using the swap drive
> function to boot from
> HD1, but haven't found anything to give me an idea
> of why a partition
> on a slave HDD is not hidden when it's been hidden
> in the XOSL setup.
>
> Any help appreciated. Thanks.
>
> Peter
>
>
>




____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

--- In xosl@yahoogroups.com, Lasi Tuhery <tuhery@y...> wrote:
> Win2k will see partition marked hidden by XOSL. You
> must go to disk management & uncheck the partition you
> wish to be hidden.
>

I'm assuming that the disk management you are referring to is the Disk
Management console that is one of Windows services, however there is
no way to hide/unhide partitions using this Disk Management.

If you are instead referring to the Setup section of XOSL, the strange
thing is that partitions on the primary master marked as hidden in
XOSL are actually hidden when booting from the primary slave, but
partitions on the primary slave marked as hidden in XOSL are not
hidden when booting from the primary master. So Windows 2000 doesn't
see partitions marked as hidden by XOSL in one case, but does see them
in another.

Peter

--- In xosl@yahoogroups.com, jamie dale <dale_jamie@y...> wrote:

> With regards to the 90's windows systems needing the
> other OS's hidden I've never actually had this
> problem. I admit I've read that it can have terrible
> results but I've always found that as long as the
> others are hidden while you installa new OS it doesn't
> seem to matter whether they're hidden or not when
> installation is finished (Note I've never tried it
> with Win 95 - I HAVE tried with 98, WinME & XP).
>

Thanks for your comments. A couple of points from my end:

- I currently using Windows 2000, not the 9x versions that might
experience the problems you are referring to

- It's not that I've experienced any problems in booting from either
the primary master or slave, but that I simply want to be able to have
some partitions hidden when booting from either drive.

I thought this could be done quite simply using XOSL's partition
hiding, but it only seems to be working one way - ie when booting from
the primary slave XOSL hides drives on the primary master as it's
supposed to, but when booting from the primary master XOSL does not
hide drives properly on the primary master.

Peter

pcossetto wrote:

> --- In xosl@yahoogroups.com, Lasi Tuhery <tuhery@y...> wrote:
> > Win2k will see partition marked hidden by XOSL. You
> > must go to disk management & uncheck the partition you
> > wish to be hidden.
> >
>
> I'm assuming that the disk management you are referring to is the Disk
> Management console that is one of Windows services, however there is
> no way to hide/unhide partitions using this Disk Management.

Yes. Type diskmgmt.msc, right click on the partition you don't want to
show, select Modify drive letter ... and Delete the associated drive
letter. You can also mount the partition to a folder from there.

> ...
>
> Peter
>

jamie dale wrote:

> Hi all
> ...
>
> With regards to the 90's windows systems needing the
> other OS's hidden I've never actually had this
> problem. I admit I've read that it can have terrible
> results but I've always found that as long as the
> others are hidden while you installa new OS it doesn't
> seem to matter whether they're hidden or not when
> installation is finished (Note I've never tried it
> with Win 95 - I HAVE tried with 98, WinME & XP).

That is not true. A bug in Win98 that has never been corrected can
corrupt the partition table if it doesn't recognise the filesystem of
the last visible partition on the drive it boots from. And that is for
every boot, not just while installing. So if you install Linux or some
other OS on the last partition of a drive that already has a Win98
partition, you'd better make sure these non-FAT partition are hidden
when booting from Win98. I already lost a partition that contained my
main WinXP install and my most important data. I had retreive the data
with GetDataBack.

Other bugs at boot time with Win9x involve the OS not booting so it's
not as bad.

Antoine

>
> Again if I'm wrong about XOSL's hiding features (and
> very possibly am) then I eat humble pie!

> If you are instead referring to the Setup section of
> XOSL, the strange
> thing is that partitions on the primary master
> marked as hidden in
> XOSL are actually hidden when booting from the
> primary slave, but
> partitions on the primary slave marked as hidden in
> XOSL are not
> hidden when booting from the primary master. So
> Windows 2000 doesn't
> see partitions marked as hidden by XOSL in one case,
> but does see them
> in another.
>
I've got to confess I never tried hiding partitions on
my slave as I use it for file backup so it's never
been an issue for me (YET...). There is some extensive
info on partition hiding in the XOSL docs though so
maybe print those and have a good read?

I can't really suggest anything else as the partition
I currently have marked as hidden in XOSL was also set
to hidden using PM so I'm not entirely sure which one
of the 2 actually hides it..
>
> Thanks for your comments. A couple of points from my
> end:
>
> - I currently using Windows 2000, not the 9x
> versions that might
> experience the problems you are referring to
>
> - It's not that I've experienced any problems in
> booting from either
> the primary master or slave, but that I simply want
> to be able to have
> some partitions hidden when booting from either
> drive.
>
> I thought this could be done quite simply using
> XOSL's partition
> hiding, but it only seems to be working one way - ie
> when booting from
> the primary slave XOSL hides drives on the primary
> master as it's
> supposed to, but when booting from the primary
> master XOSL does not
> hide drives properly on the primary master.
>

XOSL does hide the master drive when booting from the
slave as there is a problem with windows operating
systems screwing up if they see a higher drive than
they're running from (This is explained somewhere in
the XOSL documentation).

XOSL will hide every partition on the master if you
boot from the slave. Unfortunately there is no way
around this as M$ like their systems to completely
rule your hardware.

>
> That is not true. A bug in Win98 that has never been
> corrected can
> corrupt the partition table if it doesn't recognise
> the filesystem of
> the last visible partition on the drive it boots
> from. And that is for
> every boot, not just while installing. So if you
> install Linux or some
> other OS on the last partition of a drive that
> already has a Win98
> partition, you'd better make sure these non-FAT
> partition

I never said it wasn't true I simply said that I
personally had never had these problems and that I eat
humble pie if others had the problem.

I even acknowledged that I've read about the
disastrous results some people have had. Whats the
problem here?

I had Win98, WinME and Suse9.1 installed (in that
order) however I pulled a trick and installed Suse9.1
in a logical extension along with a fat32 partition
aswell both in the same extension. This might just be
what saved me from disaster.
I had
-
  /Win98
  /WinME
--/Suse9.1
   /Fat32

Fat32 obviously being the last partition in the
extended table may of been the key to stopping the
problem. The Fat32 partition was still accesible from
windows but it obviously had a friend there playing
hide n seek.



___________________________________________________________
How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday
snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

Hi guys

Don't know if anybody else has a problem with this.
Is there any chance that when replying to a question that was in the
Digest you don't put the subject as merely
Re:[xosl] digest Number 1227
or whatever.
Some of us do not get the posts in Digest form so a more descriptive
subject would sure be welcome.
And hey be sure to quote the actual part of the Digest that you are
replying to :).
There's no need to stick it all in.

Thanks
Dermot

In my occasionally humble experience, the best way to deal with hiding
partitions in XOSL if you have two physical hard drives is to confine
your slave drive to only having an Extended with logicals that only
contain data (i.e. no Operating Systems).

That has a lot of advantages e.g.
Drive lettering just follows on naturally.
You can remove the slave whenever you want and the drive lettering on
the master is not affected.
If something goes wrong with your Master you can just remove the slave
and stick in a new Master.
I've even been able to take the slave to another PC to access it's data.
No messing about trying to boot OSes from the slave or hiding partitions
on the slave.

I've never found a reason to hide a logical that contains data so no
need to hide one drive from the other drive. The only hiding is done on
the master where you hide, as usual, all OS-bearing partitions from each
other.
All logicals are left visible.
Though, of course, Linux and XOSL (dedicated partition) will be
invisible to Windows (from the point of view of alloting them drive
letters).

Dermot

Doc Chiron here:

XOSL performs partition hiding by changing the partition type to a
different value by "or"ing the original value with 0x10, but
otherwise leaving the partition descriptor intact in its partition
table slot, agreed? Unhiding is accomplished by "AND"ing the type
with "0xEF" to strip out the added bit.

That "traditional" hiding method that leaves the partition
descriptors in the table is SO well known, that all NT based
OSes "know" the trick and "find" those partitions during OS startup.
I DO NOT know if those OSes rely on the partition type in the
descriptor or examine the BOOT sector of the partition itself for
real partition type info. Attempting to strengthen "hiding" by
changing the partition type value in a different way will NOT help in
the latter case.

To me, REAL hiding is what Ranish Partition Manager does in its "high
end" boot managers (the old GUI and newer TEXT80x24, but NOT the
COMPACT BM). There it maintains its own "secret" partition that
includes a list of partition descriptors that includes partitions may
not be currently entered in ANY partition tables. Now that is what I
call hiding.

Agreed that this non-Micro$oft sanctioned method is non-standard, by
virtue of the fact that the occupied cylinders cannot be accounted
for by traditional tools. (TESTDISK excepted.)

I think XOSL's hiding of all 1st HDD partitions is an accommodation
to known DOS/Windows OS problems.

The incomplete rewrite of RPM's "high end" boot manager precludes
recommending its use. I haven't investigated it, but I hear good
things about "BootIt: The Next Generation", but haven't had the need
to explore that low cost commercial product.

I anyone with info on it could/would enlighten us on its "hiding"
approach, I would be grateful.

DOC "like the guard of the Holy Grail chalise" Chiron (zzzzz's)

jamie dale wrote:

>
> XOSL does hide the master drive when booting from the
> slave as there is a problem with windows operating
> systems screwing up if they see a higher drive than
> they're running from (This is explained somewhere in
> the XOSL documentation).
>
> XOSL will hide every partition on the master if you
> boot from the slave. Unfortunately there is no way
> around this as M$ like their systems to completely
> rule your hardware.

Actually, you can show partitions from the first drive when booting
Windows from the second. I currently am WinXP from the second drive with
on hidden partition (Win98) and one visible (Data). I also tried booting
with the Win98 partition visible and had no problem.

--- In xosl@yahoogroups.com, jamie dale <dale_jamie@y...> wrote:
> > A bug in Win98 that has never been corrected can
> > corrupt the partition table if it doesn't recognise
> > the filesystem of the last visible partition on
> > the drive it boots from.
> ...(snipped)...
> I had Win98, WinME and Suse9.1 installed (in that
> order) however I pulled a trick and installed Suse9.1
> in a logical extension along with a fat32 partition
> as well both in the same extension. This might just
> be what saved me from disaster.
> I had
> -
>  /Win98
>  /WinME
> --/Suse9.1
>   /Fat32
>
> Fat32 obviously being the last partition in the
> extended table may of been the key to stopping the
> problem. The Fat32 partition was still accesible
> from windows but it obviously had a friend there
> playing hide n seek.

The bug Antoine was referring to applied to all Microsoft's DOS-
based OS's (DOS, Win95, Win98, WinME).  I thought it was file system
corruption rather than partition table corruption, but since Antoine
has recent first-hand experience with the problem, he may be right.

My recollection is that the bug only occurred if you used multiple
visible primaries (on the same disk) *and* the last logical was not
recognizeable to DOS (i.e., not a visible FAT/FAT32).  If you did
not try to make multiple primaries visible to DOS/Win9x, you did not
have a problem.  If your last logical was a visible FAT/FAT32, you
did not have a problem.

So what saved you was having the visible FAT32 at the end.  But if
you hide that or swap the order of the Suse and FAT32 logicals, then
you run the risk of corrupting the 98 or ME partition when booted
into the other.

As Antoine said, to stay safe you want to either make sure the last
FAT32 always stays visible, or else you want to make sure the 98 and
ME are not visible to each other.

--- In xosl@yahoogroups.com, Dermot Moynihan <der_moyn@o...> wrote:
> Don't know if anybody else has a problem with this.
> Is there any chance that when replying to a question
> that was in the Digest you don't put the subject as
> merely Re:[xosl] digest Number 1227 or whatever.

Thanks for the heads-up, Dermot.  I'd been skipping over all
those "digest" posts because I didn't know there were real threads in
them.

--- In xosl@yahoogroups.com, "doc_chiron" <doc_chiron@c...> wrote:
> I haven't investigated it, but I hear good things
> about "BootIt: The Next Generation", but haven't had
> the need to explore that low cost commercial product.
>
> I anyone with info on it could/would enlighten us on
> its "hiding" approach, I would be grateful.

Bootit-NG (BING, to its fans) is conceptually similar to RPM.  It
has the option of running with a standard 4-slot primary partition
table, or a proprietary "unlimited primaries" mode.

In standard mode ("limited primaries") it works with the industry-
standard primary partition table.  Hiding is accomplished by the
industry-standard bit-twiddling in the partition table that Doc has
detailed.  This means it is compatible with other partitioning tools
such as PartitionMagic.

Unlike XOSL, BING can reorder the partition table on the fly at boot
time.  This means you can swap the order of the entries for each
boot item, even though the physical partitions themselves are not
moved.  For those who multiboot by cloning existing NT/2000/XP
systems, this saves you the trouble of having to correct the
boot.ini file to point to the correct partition table entry (see
www.goodells.net/multiboot/editbini.htm).

In "unlimited primaries" mode, BING maintains its own secret
partition list, in which you can create many more than 4 primaries.
When any OS boots, you are still confined to the standard 4-slot
partition table, but for each boot menu item you get to pick and
choose which partitions from the BING list you want listed in the
standard partition table at boot time, up to a max of 4.  Any BING
partitions not listed in the standard partition table at boot time
will be unknown to the OS being booted and all other utilities.
Since the OS being booted sees no record of the unlisted partitions
at all, the space occupied by those unlisted partitions appears to
be unallocated disk space.  This makes it a danger to use other
utilities like PartitionMagic because they'll believe the disk space
really is unallocated, and you could overwrite the secret partitions
BING had hidden away.

Since I can boot OS's from logical partitions (see
www.goodells.net/multiboot), I have no need for more than 4 primary
partitions and therefore consider BING's "unlimited primaries" to be
unnecessarily risky, so I always limit primaries.  Otherwise, BING
is a very reliable, polished product.  I use its boot manager on
machines on which XOSL doesn't work (laptops on which the keyboard
doesn't function with XOSL).  And now that Symantec bought
PowerQuest, I'm recommending BING's partitioner and imager instead
of Ghost and PartitionMagic.

Doc CHiron here: (comments interspersed)

> The bug Antoine was referring to applied to all Microsoft's DOS-
> based OS's (DOS, Win95, Win98, WinME).
> I thought it was file system corruption rather than partition table
> corruption, but since Antoine has recent first-hand experience with
> the problem, he may be right.

Doc: I tend to agree with you, Dan, on the FAT corruption issue (the
FAT attributes (starting sector & size) of one partition are
erroneously used on a different partition whose FAT attributes may be
different. You luck out if the File Allocation tables (usually 2) are
the same size. The FAT starting sector usually only differs between
FAT16 & FAT32 due to FAT32s duplicate BOOT sector, etc.
I got bit by that one once while using RPM to change the TYPES of
logicals while playing with moving partitions, etc.
I also felt that DOS/Windows was NOT particular about what system
files it updated when 2 DOS/Windows partitions were visible to each
other. I cannot recall if the second OS was the one booted to, but
that would make sense if the updating happened to the first. I seem
to recall that the writing happened to the wrong \WINDOWS  directory.
Sorry to throw gasoline on the fire.
DOC


> My recollection is that the bug only occurred if you used multiple
> visible primaries (on the same disk) *and* the last logical was not
> recognizeable to DOS (i.e., not a visible FAT/FAT32).  If you did
> not try to make multiple primaries visible to DOS/Win9x, you did
> not have a problem.  If your last logical was a visible FAT/FAT32,
> you did not have a problem.
>
> So, what saved you was having the visible FAT32 at the end.
> But if you hide that or swap the order of the Suse and FAT32
> logicals, then you run the risk of corrupting the 98 or ME
> partition when booted into the other.

Doc: The issue with regard to hiding all HDD1 partitions when booting
to a partition on HDD2 is nagging at me. I don't remember it as a
DOS/Windows problem, so much as part of the mechanism by which XOSL
is able to switch to the second HDD for booting, possibly?
I don't know about that one, but I wouldn't rule out a M$ bug either.

Why not the one-floppy xosl image as mentioned in message
no. 4601 of Antoine be compressed and kept in the files
section of xosl forum for the benefit of the members.

If required the image size may further be reduced, improved
and made available, as the floppy is a bootable one.

phaneendra_rao wrote:

> Why not the one-floppy xosl image as mentioned in message
> no. 4601 of Antoine be compressed and kept in the files
> section of xosl forum for the benefit of the members.
>
> If required the image size may further be reduced, improved
> and made available, as the floppy is a bootable one.
>
I was about to say I agree. But then I realised I can put the file
myself. So it is there.

Feel free to improve it, redistribute it or anything. There is only free
softare on the floppy. There appears to be some free space on it, but
most of the free space gets filled up with temp files during install.

Antoine